November 20, 2011
Toontown City Council, c/o Cloverfield Development Co.
Acme Avenue & Avery Alley
Toontown, CA 90@#!
Dear Toons,
Well, gang, I just watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit again, this time for an online series called “Fixing a Hole.” (You know, holes, those convenient black discs you carry around in your pockets, portable escape hatches when you’re in a pickle – incidentally, how much those go for nowadays?) Anyway, the movie was a delight as always; though the climax is a bit drawn-out, the appearance of a one-dimensional Judge Doom, crushed and cackling like some maniacal cross between Johnny Paper and Johnny Rotten, is well worth the wait.
I dug that, and I laughed along with Roger, cringed for Baby Herman (somebody tell that middle-aged infant about Viagra, or better yet, don’t), and marveled at Bob Hoskins’ ability to play it straight even as he was acting against thin ai- er, I mean, against real, live Toons who must have been rather intimidating “in the flesh.” And Jessica Rabbit. Oh Jessica Rabbit. With her in their extended family, it’s no wonder the fluffy-tailed little mammals are so eager to breed.
Anyhow, not to sound too much like Eddie Valiant, bitterly hitting the keyboard instead of the bottle, but the movie got me thinking. Yes, thinking – I know you happy little animals are just supposed to provide escapist entertainment, but I can’t help myself. I was thinking that, compared to a Hollywood dominated be remakes, reboots, and rejects, Roger Rabbit seems positively avant-garde, a relic from an era when blockbuster entertainment surprised audiences with clever stories and witty details, a time when audiences were informed enough to delight in classic cartoon and noir references.
Ok, Chinatown it wasn’t, but still a sight better than the gruel we’re spoon-fed today. Hell, sometimes I wonder if Judge Doom himself hasn’t comandeered the American film industry like a runaway steamroller, spraying imagination with rancid Dip and paving over colorful contours with the cinematic equivalent of an endless, dreary freeway.
Sorry to be such a sourpuss, Rog. I’ll try to take your advice, and cheer up – but then again, maybe you should be listening to me. Come to think of it, are things really so swell for you folks?
I can’t figure out where you all come from, exactly, but it’s clear enough that you aren’t “out of the inkwell” like the characters in those old Max Fleischer or Chuck Jones cartoons. Those were clearly drawings, sprung from the page, sure, but at the mercy of their animators. No, you guys can hold your own in the human world, working, fighting, even fornicating with your live-action counterparts. And yet: you Toons are getting a raw deal. Reliant on perverted benefactors like Marvin Acme, at the mercy of mercenary moguls like R.F. Maroon, stabbed in the back by googly-eyed scabs like Judge Doom – and working for peanuts!
After all, why should a smart, sexy lady like Jessica be forced to fondle leering old men in nightclubs? What’s with the monochrome racism going on, whereby a black-and-white dish like Betty Boop is forced out of work (or was it the Code, and not the Color, that did her in)? Why do the police detectives just loaf about while that poor innocent shoe loses his sole to the monstrous Dip and the devious Doom?
What if you staged a revolution, a sit-in, what if Toontown “Occupied Tinseltown” to demand recognition of their rights and dignity? What would happen if the Toons went on strike? The theaters may not run shorts anymore, and television may have syndication, but sooner or later the kiddies would get restless and the moguls would grow nervous. You guys could have the town eating out of your white-gloved hands.
Citizens of Toontown, unite! (I’d say you have nothing to lose but your chains, but as a handcuffed Roger reminds us, you can slip in and out of those whenever you like.) Storm the studios, maroon the Maroons, flatten the Dooms, and tell the condescendingly patriarchal Marvin Acmes to take a hike off the nearest desert cliff. Let Porky inform the stinkers where they stand. And then Hollywood is yours, to run or run into the ground as you please.
And why not? After all, you couldn’t do a much worse job than the five-fingered lot running things now…
Your (five-fingered) friend,
Joel Bocko
Psst, Jessica: Could you drop me a line sometime? I don’t want to step on Roger’s paws, but I do play a mean game of paddycake.
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Next week will conclude November’s “Animated Animals” theme for “Fixing a Hole,” a series whose sole purpose is to review films that have not yet been covered on this site. Tune in same time, same place, to find out what the last film will be, and get a sneak peek of December’s theme. Cast, credits, and story summary, which usually precede the piece are featured below today, given the entry’s peculiar form (inspired in part by Daniel Getahun’s “Open Letter to Hollywood” in 2010):
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988/United States/directed by Robert Zemeckis)
stars Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy, Stubby Kaye, Alan Tilvern, and the voices of Charles Fleischer, Kathleen Turner
written by Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman from the book by Gary K. Wolf • photographed by Dean Cundey • designed by Roger Kane, Elliot Scott • music by Alan Silvestri • animation department: Dale Baer, Andreas Deja, Russell Hall, Max Howard, Nik Ranieri, Wes Takahashi, Simon Wells, Richard Williams, and others
The Story: Private detective Eddie Valiant has hated Toons ever since his brother had a piano dropped on his head in Toontown. But when he photographs animated sexpot Jessica Rabbit in a compromising position with Marvin Acme, and Acme turns up dead, Jessica’s husband Roger comes to Eddie for help in clearing his name. Will they find out who framed Roger, or end up going for a Dip?
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Last week’s entry: Dumbo
Interesting take, Joel. “Roger Rabbit” is a movie I still like, somewhat, but have mostly outgrown the charms of. No, not outgrown as in gravitated away from the whole cartoon aspect (lord knows that’s an exercise in futility) or even graduated from the Western animated angle in my own snide otaku superiority (I will say– I wonder what an anime ‘toon would be like…). No, it’s the odd noir-pastiche thing that rubs me ever-so-gently in just the wrong way, nowadays. It’s all handled quite well, mind you– Bob Hoskins was born to play tough-guy, all-American private-eyes as only a Brit can be– but there’s a shallow quality to the way that the film plays out the detective story as opposed to the depth it offers to the world of the ‘toons in the Hollywood industry. Naturally, one shouldn’t expect much more than that from it, as the noir angle is just a way into that ‘toon world, and a way of giving it more credibility– just as much as the special effects, the genre-pastiche really helps you nail the role all these off-the-wall characters play in the film’s particular brand of reality. Still, it is a rather thin construct once you go deeper into the films it’s homaging (“Chinatown” almost singlehandedly spoils the fun of this movie for me nowadays– another item to add to the list of Roman Polanski’s sins).
I like it, but it’s not a movie I feel any real drive for, anymore, aside from when it’s on cable. It is probably Robert Zemeckis’ best movie, all things considered. And besides, I can’t help but love all the little cameos it offers for the forgotten stars of yesteryear’s cartoons. Especially Betty, running into Eddie in the nightclub, just a little embarassed, like they’re old flames, looking for one last fling. Wouldn’t that be a privilege?
Watching it this time the noir pastiche had a little less charm for me too, because it was almost a pastiche of a pastiche (true in a sense, if you consider how much closer the film is to Chinatown than the original noirs, though I suppose it’s a bit unfair to refer to that film as a “pastiche”). The cartoon stuff is so inventive, though. And Hoskins is fantastic. I wonder if Mona Lisa helped him get this role? I guess he’s got a strong rapport with tall, beautiful women way out of his league, haha.
You mean Jessica? Let Roger have her. The real tragedy is Betty. She’s out of everyone’s league.
She should be – but a few weeks ago I was able to buy an 8 VHS tapes of her classic cartoons for 30 cents; not 30 cents per tape, 30 cents for ’em all. I almost wanted to volunteer more money!
I have to agree on everything BOB says here. I find the “noir” elements thin and the plotting distractive to the bigger picture here. However, the film is so inventive in so many other ways that you forgive it for its sins.
Besides, the illusion is the key and it gives us Roger who, in my humble opinion, is one of the great toon characters I wished they explored more in shorts. Disney and Touchstone did a few of them with Roger, Jessica, Baby Herman and Tex Avery’s Droopy, with ROLLERCOASTER RABBIT and TRAIL MIX UP being absolutely breathtaking and hysterically funny (TRAIL MIX UP-Roger to Baby Herman who’s roasting a hot dog on a open fire in the forrest: “Dddddddon’t sit so close to the fire Baby Herman, you might burn your weineeeeeee!”-LOL! Cracks me up every time!) and all of which are included on the special edition DVD set, but they could have done so much more with him. Rumors had circulated in the early nineties of a sequel of sorts but they never saw fruition and Roger kinda slipped away. Pity. Disney had the opportunity of something there that could have seen shorts reintroduced to theatres years ago.
PS-I also agree, wholeheartedly, that this is Robert Zemekis’s best film (although I like his BACK TO THE FUTURE stuff and CAST AWAY is pretty damn good too-you can keep or flush FORREST GUMP and his ROMANCING THE STONE stuff into a deep pit!)…
Though I don’t think a sequel would have been advisable, I too would have loved to see more shorts. Especially since for a while they returned to the habit of putting shorts before the feature (I remember they did this with Rescuers Down Under, coupling it with The Prince and the Pauper) which gave us kids at least a whisper of a taste of what the good old moviegoing days were like.
You have to either not like cartoons or not have a heart to bash a film like WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?
Technically dazzling, written with great wit and performed perfectly by the leads this is a tour de force of imagination and innovation. What’s even better is that all the elements come together so perfectly that you really begin to believe in Roger who, by most critics accounts and audience reactions, is one of the great fictional characters brought to the screen in the 1980’s. He’s so perfectly fleshed out that you can feel his pain, laugh when he’s giddy and cheer him in his exploits and adventures. It may be an illusion in the end but, for two hours he’s alive and vital.
The film is a powerhouse of tremendous moments (Jessica’s song at the INK AND PAINT CLUB, the raid of the Weasals on Eddies apartment as he and Roger get accidentally handcuffed, Eddies fall from the giant building due to a lack of mercy from Tweety, the chase in Eddy the cab) that proved that enormous technology and over the top special effects do nothing to diminish the essentials: good story, character development, tight direction, astounding editing and a cast that believes in the project.
You just can’t help but love this film.
The moment the director yels cut because Roger is seeing birds instead of stars after the refrigerator falls on his head and sends Baby Herman into a tirade of profanity trailed in cigar smoke is brutally, achingly and hysterically funny.
You brought back memories here Joel…
Great piece for a great film…
Yup, there’s just a magic to the whole enterprise that makes you giddy – I guess that’s what pushed me in this direction (meaning that the Toon presence was so realistic I wanted to address them as real people, and that the gap between this sort of popcorn entertainment and what’s churned out now – and some of what was churned out then, to be sure – was inescapable).
The whole Toontown sequence is one of the great episodes in 80s cinema, almost making the more conventional will-they-stop-the-bad-guy-in-time? climax a bit of a letdown.
OK I’ll admit I was never all that big a fan of this particular film, finding much of it disjointed, but that won’t stop me from praising Joel for a splendidly inventive piece -the letter is an awesome way to go here!- that again shows his blend of creativity and appreciation. It’s been years since I saw this film in the theatre though.
I actually did not get to see it in a theater when it came out (I was 4 or 5 at the time, and while this was a cartoon it was a bit more adult/teenager-oriented than little kid-friendly) and it was verboten on video for a few years as my mother and several aunts found it rather sexist. No doubt this heightened the forbidden allure of the film, and made me want to see it all the more!
Yes, I like this movie for its technical aspects, this is easily the most incredible achievement of making live action mix with animation, but I’d have to say that the situations you put in the letter would make a better and even perfect movie than the one we finally got. It’s amazing to find all the cartoons together, it’s so nice to see them all, but it needed a better story to flesh it out. Now, I’m not saying it’s bad, just that it’s not perfect.
I remembered the best part of a dreadful and really bad movie: Space Jam. The best part, easily, is when Porky comes on a Coyote cartoon and tells that they must go away, and the cartoon stops with a blank landscape, and that image came to mind when you described the cartoon strike.
Yeah, Space Jam was on my mind too. It may have been on the Disney dollar, but I think the Warner cameos in this film serve to better reboot the Looney Tunes characters than the entirety of that film. Great soundtrack though – Hit Em High w/ Coolio, LL Cool J, Method Man, Busta Rhymes and B. Real? Classic.
Agreed that in Roger Rabbit, it’s the world, not the story, that’s the thing. But the world is crafted so well and the story does such a good job (maybe until the last 15 minutes anyway) of delivering it to your doorstep, that I’m satisfied.
If they did ever do a Roger sequel, as Dennis says was in the works at one point, they could do worse than going with the scenario I outline here. But they’d probably mess it up, the five-fingered bastards…