Revisiting the movies and TV shows from our childhood is always fun. Sometimes you find that your favorite movie doesn’t hold up or that it makes you laugh just as much as it did years ago. Many of these classic titles are much darker than our little kid brains could comprehend, and watching them now as adults is a trip with several WTF moments.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of these revelatory movies that has a lot of innuendo and adult themes that went right over our little heads. This isn’t surprising when you learn that it was based on Gary K. Wolf’s 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, though only a few elements made it into the film. The book’s storyline involves doppelgangers, genies, tea kettles, physical speech bubbles, and a lot less laughing.
Walt Disney Pictures bought the rights from Wolf and produced the film alongside Steven Spielberg (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) and Amblin Entertainment. Unsurprisingly, Spielberg was able to get studios to lend their IP. Negotiations resulted in a blend of cartoons from Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, Fleischer Studios/Paramount, and more, featuring everyone from Betty Boop to the Looney Tunes to the magic brooms from Fantasia. Truly an eclectic bunch.
With the direction of Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) and a screenplay by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman (How the Grinch Stole Christmas), the Disney-fied Who Framed Roger Rabbit that hit theaters June 22, 1988, was a huge box-office success. The revolutionary animation and live-action hybrid is often credited for igniting the Disney Renaissance and influencing countless filmmakers and animators. It wasn’t the first film to feature real actors and animated characters together, and it wasn’t the last. However, it was arguably the most influential and innovative. (Plus, it’s the only film to have Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny together on-screen.)
To honor its 35th anniversary, let’s look back on Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
It’s 1947 Los Angeles. Before any humans appear on-screen, we’re treated to the latest Baby Herman (Lou Hirsch) and Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer) wacky collaboration. It has all the usual cartoonish elements — bulging eyes, an inept caretaker, a dangerously curious child, electrocution, and post-head injury circling little birdies, the telltale sign of toon dizziness. The camera pulls back to reveal they’re on a film set with a frustrated director because Roger flubbed his line.
Also on set is the disgruntled private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) casually taking a swig from a bottle (not even obscured by a paper bag). He grumbles, “Toons.” (What’s his deal with cartoons? Stay tuned.) Maroon Cartoons owner R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) gives Eddie the details of a new PI job following Roger’s knockout wife Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner), who is suspected of having an affair. Eddie begrudgingly accepts.
The grumpy gumshoe pays a visit to Dolores (Joanna Cassidy) (His ex-girlfriend or maybe ex-wife? Longtime friends with benefits? We don’t know, but they have a thing going on), and groans about his toon-related business. When he leaves, she tells (us) the bar patrons that his brother and detective partner Teddy was murdered via a plummeting piano by a toon. Later in his apartment/office, Eddie passes out from hitting the bottle too hard. The camera takes us on a grim trip around his brother’s dust-covered desk, telling their story through expository newspaper headlines and old photos.
At the Ink and Paint club, Eddie’s stunned by Jessica’s outrageous body dimensions and sultry voice (Amy Irving stepping in for Turner). But when he gets it together he catches the crooning beauty playing an oddly sexually-charged game of patty-cake with Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). Upon seeing the photos, Roger loses his head and takes off into the night to mourn his marriage. Eddie’s spy job is done, but the next day he’s tasked with clearing the rabbit’s good name, which leads to a wacky investigation that takes him all over the city and into the fever dream that is Toontown. He ultimately uncovers a Chinatown-esque real estate conspiracy involving public transit, freeways, and blackmail.
Cartoons characters are historically immortal, always able to bounce back (sometimes literally) from any injury and everything resets for the next series of zany violence. But then there’s Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd), the terrifying toon-in-disguise, toting around a chemical cocktail known as the Dip that contains paint thinner, melting them out of existence completely. We’re shown an innocent, ridiculously adorable cartoon shoe only to then see it squealing and whimpering for its life as Doom submerges it in the Dip, leaving many a millennial with lifelong nightmares.
In a Twitter Q&A, Lloyd recalled a technique he used for maximum creepiness: “A toon doesn’t have to blink their eyes. … I mean, they’re not human. So I just felt Judge Doom should never blink. It makes him even more ominous, more scary. I just loved to find little things that make him even more evil.” I didn’t even notice this but he still freaked me out, so mission accomplished.
Anyone with a basic working knowledge of filmmaking realizes this production would have been daunting and time-consuming. Zemeckis filmed the live-action part with the actors miming their motions and speaking the lines as if the toons were right there in the scene. Even though he’s acting opposite air or a rubber stand-in, Hoskins has great chemistry with Roger, meaning the actor had to use the extent of his imagination just to perform. Some voice actors were on set, including Fleischer, who actually dressed up as Roger Rabbit (unprompted). Puppeteers found ways to create the illusion of the toons actually manipulating props, using poles and wires to dangle guns, serving trays, and Baby Herman’s cigar. They also built arm-like robotic devices to put in place of the toons to physically move objects.
Animators and their director Richard Williams (The Thief and the Cobbler) used the live-action footage to physically draw their two-and-a-half dimensional characters and how they’d fit into the physical spaces of the scenes. That’s right, everything was hand-drawn. Footage from both productions was sent to George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) where the cartoons were given depth and shadows, making them look like a part of the real environment. In 2018, cinematographer Dean Cundey (Jurassic Park) told The Wrap, “They developed a completely new technique in order to create this illusion of shape. So it was that kind of dedication.” And it’s this dedication that earned them six Academy Awards nominations and three wins. I highly recommend seeking out any behind-the-scenes videos you can find.
Talks of a Roger Rabbit sequel started immediately after its success in 1988 but a film never came to be for one reason or another. One idea for a prequel involved WWII and Nazis, so it’s not too surprising that that one fell through. Last year’s animated/live-action hybrid Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers turned out to be a surprising spiritual sequel to Roger Rabbit, featuring visual callbacks and a cameo by the rabbit himself (Fleischer reprising his role).
Although animation, and filmmaking in general, have come a long way since the 1980s, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is still a one-of-a-kind cinematic achievement. The production’s painstakingly detailed animation, innovative practical effects, and overall dedication to the film are unprecedented. Price and Seaman’s script tells an intriguing detective story that explores grief, alcoholism, murder, adultery, and corruption. But it’s also a love letter to old Hollywood and the Golden Age of American animation.
Despite all its mature topics and cinema history, Who Framed Roger Rabbit still managed to be a kids’ movie — a genre-bending Disney (technically Touchstone) classic that introduced young viewers to the stylish, brooding world of film noir while still delivering the familiar animated slapstick comedy they love.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is available to stream on Disney+.
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