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The Appropriate Tune: 'The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down' by Eddy Duchin
People have been combining animation with live action for about as long as animation. Animation is a very costly process after all, and if you can cut down on the amount of animation by sticking some dude next to a cartoon mouse you can save a lot of cash. Of course the problem with that is the same problem we see with the advent of CGI, in that it can be really fucking hard for an actor to give a decent performance acting across from something that doesn’t exist, or a director to get you to believe that this thing that doesn’t exist is interacting with the real world. Some people don’t bother putting in the work, and are fine with stopping at the illusion. This isn’t about those people.
Released in 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman and produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts through Touchstone Pictures, Amblin Entertainment and Silver Screen Partners, based on the novel “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?” by Gary K. Wolf. It’s the year 1947 and in this Golden Age of Hollywood there’s nothing hotter than cartoons, especially since Toons are living, breathing things in this world. One of the big names in the biz is Maroon Studios, home of the famous Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer), except lately Roger’s home life has been affecting his work, and therefore Maroon’s bottom line. The owner, R. K. Maroon, hires private investigator and Toon hater Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) to dig up dirt on Roger’s wife Jessica, and dig it up he does, capturing her in the act with cartoon bigwig Marvin Acme. There, job done, only the next day Eddie learns that Acme has been murdered (the ol’ safe to the head gag) and that Roger is the prime subject, only Roger claims that he had nothing to do with Acme’s death. Toons loved Acme and Acme loved Toons after all, so much so that in his will he left the ownership of Toontown to them, a will that has since gone missing. So now Eddie has to find the will and unravel this jumbled mess of a mystery, all the while dodging Toontown’s personal gestapo Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) and his Toon Patrol, who have a strict ‘kill first and don’t ask questions’ policy. It’s the kind of thing that’ll make you take up drinking, so it’s a good thing Eddie’s already an alcoholic.
As I wrote before, combining animation and live action had been a thing for a while, as had the idea of cartoon characters being actors (particularly by the Looney Tunes), but Roger Rabbit takes it a step further. This isn’t just a world where a person might interact with a cartoon character under special circumstances, this is the real world but with Toons in it. They have their own neighborhood, they have jobs outside of show business, they have relationships with themselves and with humans, they have the capacity for good acts as well as evil ones, essentially it’s like if Los Angeles had a prominent ethnic minority that also happen to be nigh-immortal chaotic demigods. Although the ethical and moral questions of the Toon’s status as a minority aren't really touched upon in the film, this melding of the fantastical with the modern would prove to be a popular combination as time went on, as shows like Bojack Horseman would prove. The particular blend of cartoon innocence with the sex-and-violence grit of noir that we see in Roger Rabbit however still feels unlike anything else going on. Except for Cool World, but that movie sucked ass.
It’s not just that you’ve got people and cartoons interacting that makes Roger Rabbit work, it’s how the cartoons interact with the real world. When a Toon is in an area with low light he’s shadowed just like a real person would be, when they grab a dusty chair they leave a handprint, when they rush through a room objects are pushed out of the way. You wouldn’t think it would be that big of a deal but that, plus the fantastic work by the cast, goes a long way in giving the cartoons a physical weight and legitimizing the premise. Although it’s not as flashy as the special effects as Star Wars or Dune, the amount of work Zemeckis, his team, and especially the animators put into making it look as good as it does must have been staggering.
Another thing that Roger Rabbit has over Cool World? Name recognition. One of the wildest things about this movie is how it is absolutely stacked with famous cartoons. Betty Boop, Woody Woodpecker, and a cavalcade of characters from Disney and Warner Brothers, with A-listers like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny sharing the screen for the first time. While most of these amount to little more than glorified cameos, having them around at all gives the film an air of legitimacy that just couldn’t have been achieved with original characters. Like if you were making a movie set in 40’s Hollywood and had a chance to get Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable as they looked then to appear in your film you’d jump at the chance, and getting a bunch of drawings is way easier than that. Bakshi knew enough to get his own version of Jessica Rabbit in Cool World to appeal to…certain audiences, but when Zemeckis can have his characters feeding Dumbo peanuts or watching Donald and Daffy Duck on dueling pianos, the fact that they’re there, blows anything Bakshi could try completely out of the water.
As for the human cast, this might have been my first exposure to Bob Hoskins as a kid, that or the Mario Bros. movie, and it’s still crazy to me that the man was from the U.K. He so completely embodies the idea of a hardboiled American P.I. you’d think he was a husky, surprisingly mobile Sam Spade. Christopher Lloyd, who was on a genre film hot streak in the latter half of the 80’s after appearing in Back to the Future, Star Trek III, Clue, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, puts on yet another amazing performance as Judge Doom. Going from the lovable wacky Doc Brown to the ghoulish, almost demonic Doom would seem like it’d be a hard sell, but Lloyd has this particular presence about him that makes the transition from serious to silly characters a lot easier than it is for others. Also I didn’t realize this until just now, but Eddie’s love interest Dolores is played by Joana Cassidy, who we saw previously as Zhora in Blade Runner. Small world, am I right?
As for criticisms, would it be weird to say that I don’t have any? Not that Roger Rabbit, or any movie really could be considered ‘perfect’, but having seen this movie several times by this point there’s nothing that really stands out to me in that regard. Yeah the full mystery after it is revealed is a bit silly, but it’s a movie where the prime suspect in a murder is a talking cartoon rabbit, I wasn’t expecting Chinatown. Yeah there’s a lot of telling and not showing in the latter half, but they include enough action and suspense to keep the audience invested. Yeah they don’t explain how Toons exist in this world the way they do, how long they’ve been around, or much of anything about them, but it never really needed to in the first place. It’s a detective story with cartoons in it not the Silmarillion, as long as you can accept the premise any amount of worldbuilding they do is just icing on the cake.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit gets an easy recommendation. As a young cartoon fan the film was mind blowing (the whole thing, not just the parts with Jessica), and as an adult cartoon fan I can appreciate the craftsmanship and how Zemeckis maintains the balance between two disparate parts of the movie world, and I imagine most in a similar position would feel the same. Those with young children might find it a bit raunchy, but otherwise it makes for a perfect family film for Halloween. Pour everyone a glass of scotch and have a great time.
