'Toon star Roger is worried that his wife Jessica is playing pattycake with someone else, so the studio hires detective Eddie Valiant to snoop on her. But the stakes are quickly raised when Marvin Acme is found dead and Roger is the prime suspect. Groundbreaking interaction between the live and animated characters, and lots of references to classic animation. Written by Jon Reeves jreeves@imdb.com
Then:
The thing I remember first and foremost about Who Framed Roger Rabbit (WFRR) is that when I was a little tike, the end of the movie, when we discover that Judge Doom is actually a Toon, SCARED THE GODDAMN SHIT OUT OF ME. I kid you not, I will admit that I had to sleep on the floor of my brothers room that night. Who would have ever have thought that the lovable Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd played Judge Doom) would have been such a dick, scaring little kids like that? Fuck I was scared, so much so that I was hesitant to even undergo watching it again for HRWI.
Shit, I almost breezed past this other ‘thing’ that I remembered from WFRR. Jessica Rabbit. While Judge Doom made me shit my pants for the first time since potty training, Jessica Rabbit might have made my tiny pecker move for the first time due to arousal. I also recall that there was one human, he was a cop, I think. I don’t remember how he and Roger were connected or what else went on really. Toons were being killed I guess, but why? I didn’t remember anything else about the movie really, except for the end, and Jessica Rabbit.
Now:
The movie opens with Roger filming a scene in Toon Town for R.K. Maroon. (Side note: The voice of Roger, Charles Fleischer, also played Benny the Cab, Greasy, and Psycho; I’m impressed.) (Another side note: IMDB.com estimates that there was a budget of $70,000,000, a bit high if you ask me.)
As I was watching the opening scene, I started to remember things a little bit. The Baby Herman character was pretty cool. He pretended to be a baby when filming but talked like a grumpy old man, womanized, and smoked cigars when he wasn’t working. He also managed to get women (attractive women?) to push him around in a stroller. The woman he is seen with outside of Eddie’s office almost treats him like he’s actually a baby while he is treating her like crap. After some Googling, I find that the woman he’s with is his mother. How this woman has a child that is actually a man in a child’s body is beyond me.
There were scenes with Eddie, who ended up being a P.I., drinking throughout the beginning of the movie that were only slightly alarming. The scene when he bums cigarettes from some kids riding the streetcar was humorous as well. You find out early on why Eddie doesn’t like Toons, one killed his brother.
We also meet Judge Doom early on who is pretty creepy, even as an adult. He unveils some ‘dip’ that he invented which has the ability to kill Toons. Why the Judge wants to kill Toons is explained at the end of the movie, he wants to build a highway through Toon Town. Now, if the Judge were a human being, that might make some sense, but he’s a Toon. What the hell does a cartoon character need with cash? Careful, WFRR, you’re inching towards earning my 3rd straight Not Rad award (I’ll DO IT!!). One thing that really started to become apparent throughout the movie was how fruity Roger is. He’s kissing Eddie, has some semblance of an effeminate voice (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and loves to sing show-tunes. Once I notice this, I can’t stop thinking about how he ever scored Jessica Rabbit.
(Final side note: Going into watching this again I remembered Jessica, as noted above, but I didn’t remember if she was an actual rabbit or not. And if she wasn’t a rabbit, why was she called, “Jessica Rabbit”? While watching this again (ugh this is embarrassing), I clearly saw she wasn’t a rabbit. Here comes the embarrassing part, I still couldn’t figure out why she was called, “Jessica Rabbit.” About two-thirds of the way through the movie, I realized she was married to Roger Rabbit and therefore her last name was Jessica Rabbit. What the hell is wrong with me?!)
When Eddie and Jessica follow Roger into Toon Town you start to see more Disney characters intermingled with the WB characters. As a child I probably had no idea what the deal was because everything I saw on TV was a WB or Disney character. As an adult, my mind immediately thought of copyright infringement and I started to Google “Roger Rabbit Disney lawsuits” until I realized I didn’t give a shit if WB stole some Disney characters or vice versa. What is interesting is the idea of these very separate Toons living harmoniously in Toon Town. They come from very different worlds as evidenced by Jessica showing her naughty bits at one point during the movie. See how I slipped that little nugget in there? Steve gave me a tip to look at Snopes.com to verify and apparently when Jessica and Eddie crash the car they’re in, her dress flies up and Jessica goes commando. Maybe Disney and WB cartoonists weren’t that different all (as we all know those perverts slipped nudity things into many Disney movies, wait, everyone doesn’t know that?!). This new information led me to start thinking that my child eyes were faster than they are now and maybe I subconsciously saw Jessica naked setting off my remembering only her and a couple of other things from the film?
Finally, my review would not be complete without discussing in her own paragraph Jessica. She is still pretty damn hot for a cartoon. Her breasts are alarmingly gigantic, her waist hilariously skinny, and she had an ass big enough to scare rapper Juvenile out of his grill (editors update: timely reference). Like a cartoon version of Mad Men's Christina Hendricks, the laws of physics simply do not apply to Jessica Rabbit. In addition, Jessica’s assets tend to jiggle and bounce quite frequently; like whenever she is on the screen. I only noticed it the FIRST SECOND it happened, no big deal.
Overall, I had a couple of genuine belly laughs during the movie, I’m not lying just for Jessica’s sake. There was some nostalgia sprinkled in from other movies and cartoons, cameos from Warner Bros. and Disney characters that helped peak my interest. When Eddie uses Yosemite Sam’s gun and bullets (which all had their own personalities) I got legitimately excited. Also, at the end of the movie Eddie performs a little song and dance to kill the weasels who actually die laughing. It sounds really dumb, and maybe it was, but I enjoyed this part as well.
The ending still freaked me out a little, but rewinding to some of Jessica's best parts scenes, made it all better.
Don't judge me.
HOW RAD WAS IT?! Pretty RAD!
