Patton Oswalt reacts to engineer's spot-on Ratatouille Halloween costume featuring motorized Remy

Somebody wake up Heidi Klum — she may have some costume competition this Halloween.

Ratatouille star Patton Oswalt was recently wowed by the latest creation of Google software engineer Christina Ernst, who runs the popular TikTok account She Builds Robots. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever made with my engineering degree," she said in a video posted Wednesday. "I wanted to make Remy from Ratatouille for Halloween but motorized to actually pull hair."

Oswalt, who voiced the culinary-minded rat Remy in the 2007 Pixar film, reacted to the resulting creation with exuberance on social media, writing, "Oh my God WOW are you KIDDING me." He also commented on Ernst's Instagram share of the video, writing simply, "This. Is. BRILLIANT."

Ernst further explained how she created the little motorized rodent, with its yanking arms and eager expression. "I 3D-printed a rat with space to hold two sub-micro servo motors, then coded the arms to move randomly," she said. "In the interest of not scalping myself, I did a yarn test first. Then came the moment of truth…"

And just like that, Remy's off to the races, puppeteering Ernst as she slices an onion.

In Ratatouille, furry foodie Remy helps lowly garbage boy Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano) ascend the kitchen ranks of Paris' esteemed restaurant Gusteau's. He does so by pulling Linguini's hair this way and that while hidden under his chef's toque, moving his arms like a marionette so that Remy can chop, stir, and season by proxy.

Ernst calls the work she does in her spare time under the She Builds Robots moniker "fashioneering" projects. She has recreated iconic moments of fashion engineering like Billy Porter's mechanized fringe hat, and announced Thursday that she'll soon appear on CBS's Miranda Cosgrove-hosted STEM showcase Unstoppable.

This may be Ratatouille's first fashioneering crossover, but it isn't the film's first time going viral on TikTok. In 2020, stars like Tituss Burgess, Adam Lambert, and Ashley Park appeared in Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, a one-night-only benefit concert with proceeds benefitting the Actors Fund. The musical went on to be an online sensation, winning the People's Voice award at the 2021 Webbys.

Remy's pop cultural influence is so strong that Ratatouille has also inspired two video games, the first also called Ratatouille and the second Ratatouille: Feeding Frenzy. The Disney Paris attraction Ratatouille: L'Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy (Remy's Ratatouille Adventure) opened in 2014, and Ratatouille was prominently referenced in the Oscar-winning 2022 film Everything Everywhere All At Once.