Flashback Movies:"Who framed Roger Rabbit?"(1988)

Eddie & Roger

DVD cover

Last week the 1988 animated and live action movie "Who framed Roger Rabbit?" came on one of the cable channels and my little girl goes"Mama,theres real people in a cartoon!!!!"That is part of what propelled this movie to the number 2 spot on the top movies of 1988,just below "Rain Man".It combined animation and live action in a whodunit style plot that featured "cameos" from dozens of current and past characters from Disney,MGM,Warner Brothers and Paramount.

In the film,which takes place in "Toon Town",Marvin Acme,the owner of Acme Company(where Wile Coyote gets all his rockets!)and owner of Toon Town,is murdered and Roger Rabbit,a character for "Maroon Studios" is framed for the crime.His wife is the sexy Jessica Rabbit.He,along with washed up human detective Eddie Valiant(Bob Hoskins) ,must find a way to clear his name and stop Toon Town from being taken over and torn down.

Numerous injoke references to other cartoons appear in this movie and there are alot of rumors swirling around supposed"hidden messages" in this movie,as well as a crotch-shot by Jessica Rabbit.Allegedly if viewing on laser disc or DVD,you can see the phone number of Disneys Michael Eisner onscreen.The alleged crotch-shot is semi-truth.In an earlier edition of the laser disc and VHS,when Jessica tumbles out of the wrecked cab,she appears to have no undies on and Disney attributed this to a "badly painted animation cel",Subsequent editions are altered,with the 1999 release cels showing her wearing white panties and the 2002 DVD releases edited to keep her skirt discreetly covering her undies.Try it out and see for yourself-the Tv version always has the undies!

Also,Just before Eddie falls off the building, the words "For Good Times, call Allyson 'Wonderland'" can be seen on the wall behind him.
A brief scene consisting of the toon Baby Herman passing by a female (human) extra on the set of the opening cartoon and sticking his middle finger up her dress, and then coming back from under the dress with a drool of spit on his lip. This was edited out of the first DVD edition of the movie, though it can be found on editions of the VHS and laserdisc.Pretty funny,eh?

Some even swear that Daffy Duck utters the "N" word in this movie but he does not-with closed captioning you can clearly see what he is saying and it is NOT "N".

However if you look close during a scene where Eddie is falling from the sky with Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny,you can clearly see Bugs flipping off Mickey with a one-finger salute!I am not lying,its there if you look!

While there were plans to do a second film,which would be a prequel set in 1940 and with a Nazi plot,as of 2007 it is not in development,mostly due to high production costs but Frank Marshall has expressed interest on producing it.

The movie also spawned toys,comic books and other collectibles-McDonalds partnered with Disney to distribute dolls from the movie-which have become bona fide Disney Collectibles.

All in all,it is a one of a kind movie and it was quite different from what we were used to in 1988.Disney gambled with it,and it was a success.If you have never seen it,I recommend it-its appropriate for kids as well as adults.