Pintel and Ragetti

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Ragetti and Pintel.

"Pin, I bet people would pay a shilling to see this. And another shilling for a sketch of them sitting atop!"
"Pintel and Ragetti, Kraken slayers."
"We could serve up a slice as a souvenir."

―Ragetti and Pintel

Pintel and Ragetti were a tagteam duo during the Age of Piracy. They muddled their way from one situation to another, small minds in the middle of great events. A dim-witted duo, they were members of both crews of Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa.

The duo were cutthroat pirates but more often than not their lack of common sense and their constant bickering made them the clowns of any crew. They were pressed into service by the English Navy, but jumped ship after a year of beatings, bad food, and boredom, eventually found themselves on the Black Pearl.

Known members

"This was your idea. And the fact that I went along does not make you any less stupid."
"Well, it don't make you no more smart, neither."

―Pintel and Ragetti

• Pintel – A sallow-looking pirate with a bald head, and a "belligerent homunculus" as Jack Sparrow once referred to him as. Possible uncle of Ragetti.
• Ragetti – Lost his eye in battle, the wooden replacement "splinters 'somefink' terrible." Later replaced with an eyepatch. Possible nephew of Pintel, and son of a prostitute.

Behind the scenes

• The duo had been named "Pintel and Ragetti" in various Pirates of the Caribbean media.
• Pintel and Ragetti were portrayed by Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook in The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End and the latter's video game adaption. Greg Ellis provided the voices for both characters in The Legend of Jack Sparrow video game.
• Outside the films, Arenberg and Crook appeared in several DVD featurettes, one of which was a behind the scenes look at Dead Man's Chest. They also appeared in a series of advertisements, usually promoting an upcoming Pirates film, most notably VISA credit cards (in which they try multiple ways to "get treasure" from out of a VISA card) and Walmart. But they weren't always appearing together; for instance, only Crook made an appearance in an M&M's commercial. Arenberg starred in several videos (along with Martin Klebba as Marty) to promote Pirates of the Caribbean Online.
• During the early development of On Stranger Tides, Pintel and Ragetti were originally supposed to make an appearance. Terry Rossio planned a subplot for the movie which would have shown Pintel and Ragetti in separate crews, each thinking that the other was dead, and then being reunited during the Battle for the Fountain of Youth at the film's climax. However, director Rob Marshall opted out of the idea as he feared their roles would be cut.
• During the early development of Dead Men Tell No Tales, Pintel and Ragetti were originally considered to make an appearance. Both Arenberg and Crook commented the possibility of reprise their roles due their absence in On Stranger Tides. However, Crook ultimately decided to not reprise his role as Ragetti in order to focus in his TV series Detectorists and before filming Arenberg stated that he was no longer interested in reprise his role as Pintel although he was early interested in do so.
• Director Gore Verbinski stated, "Pintel and Ragetti are Laurel and Hardy on acid; they're dangerous villains, but you like them because they're funny." Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook returned as eternally bickering and philosophizing piratical best mates Pintel and Ragetti—who endeared themselves to audiences as a sublime comedic pairing in The Curse of the Black Pearl. "Pintel and Ragetti are marvelous characters to begin with," says producer Jerry Bruckheimer, "but Lee and Mackenzie did a brilliant job of taking something that was on the page and amping it to the nth degree." True to their roles, the U.S.-born Arenberg and British native Crook genuinely hit it off during the filming of the first Pirates film, inseparable off as well as on screen. "We sort of stick together like some sort of 18th-century piratical Laurel and Hardy," notes Arenberg. "I always say that the luckiest thing that happened to me is that they couldn't find short, bald and crazy in London who was the right match for Mackenzie. So they had an audition for short, bald and crazy guys in Hollywood, and that was a little bit of Kismet for me." For such grizzled Pirates veterans as Arenberg and Crook, At World's End presented another opportunity to expand their characters. "We were funny bad guys in the first movie and funny good guys in the second one," says Arenberg. "And from here on out we're funny good guys no matter which team we're on. We certainly don't gain any intelligence. I always say that Pintel and Ragetti still share half a brain."

"Absolutely! I'm his uncle, it was like he was like my sister's kid, and that was what we played. You know, basically, is that I was Uncle Abner. He was Terry Ragetti, I was Abner Pintel. We just created our own backstory to give us a reason why we would do some of the silly things, you know. And then we shared half a brain, right? The characters are not the smartest dudes, so that was part of it as well."

―Lee Arenberg

• As part of a backstory worked out by both Arenberg and Crook, their characters' full names are Terry Ragetti and Abner Pintel, and that Ragetti was the son of Pintel's sister, and they shared half a brain. Arenberg also said that Ragetti may have came to sea with Pintel after his father's death. It was also said that Ragetti is the son of a prostitute. However, as none of it was revealed in any Pirates media, it is unknown if the information is canon or not.
• Of the duo, only Pintel appeared in the first draft of the screenplay for The Curse of the Black Pearl. Ragetti's role was (separately) given to other pirates, i.e. "Smoldering Pirate", "Deadeye", and Twigg.
• It was said that (for The Curse of the Black Pearl) Pintel and Ragetti were the counterparts to Mullroy and Murtogg, a pair of Commodore Norrington's bumbling subordinates, portrayed by Angus Barnett and Giles New, respectively. The two comic relief pairs are united at the end of At World's End, where Mullroy and Murtogg, disguised as pirates, join the crew of the Black Pearl.

• Both Pintel and Ragetti's names were almost never mentioned in the films, save for several scenes from At World's End. Their names appeared in various books and video game credits, but was most prominently used in the films' junior novelizations, first spoken in the At World's End junior ovel.
• Pintel and Ragetti appears in the graphic novel Pirates of the Caribbean: Six Sea Shanties. But, since that book was canceled, it is unknown if their appearance in the book is [[Wikipedia:Canon (fiction)|canon]

Appearances

• The Price of Freedom (In flashback(s))
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Six Sea Shanties
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow
• Breakout!
• The Escape of Pintel and Ragetti!
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (video game)
• LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Non-canonical appearance)
• Disney Infinity (Non-canonical appearance)

Sources

• Pirates of the Caribbean (film series)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide