Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Robert Zemeckis
Bob Hoskins
Joanna Cassidy
Stubby Kaye
Christopher Lloyd
Richard Le Parmentier
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
It's post-war Hollywood, and a hard-boiled human detective is hired to tail hot-to-trot toon Jessica Rabbit. But when the object of Jessica's affections is murdered, all eyes turn to her rascally husband and the chase across worlds in on.
Cast
Bob Hoskins
Joanna Cassidy
Stubby Kaye
Christopher Lloyd
Richard Le Parmentier
Pat Buttram
Mike Edmonds
Les Perkins
Eric B Sindon
April Winchell
Richard Williams
Alan Tilvern
Randy Waldman
Sally Cole
Joe Alaskey
Eugene Guirterrez
John-paul Sipla
Kathleen Turner
Jim Cummings
Mae Questel
Jim Gallant
Joel Cutrara
Lou Hirsch
Tony Anselmo
June Foray
Lindsay Holiday
Frederick G Newman
Frank Sinatra
Joel Silver
Danny Capri
Mel Blanc
Edwin Craig
Billy J Mitchell
Mary T Radford
Jerry Hey
Betsy Brantley
Chuck Domanico
David Lander
Russi Taylor
Morgan Deare
Wayne Allwine
Charles Fleischer
Laura Frances
Peter Westy
Richard Ridings
Paul Springer
Ed Herlihy
James O'connell
Tom Scott
Richard Parmentier
Christopher Hollosy
Harvey Mason
Cherry Davis
Tony Pope
Crew
John Aardal
Barbara Adamski
Peter Albrecht
Colin J Alexander
Jon Alexander
David Allan
Margot Allen
Louis Alley
Leroy Anderson
Rick Anderson
Steven E Anderson
Steven E Anderson
Charlotte Armstrong
Gordon Arnell
Carol Ashen
Larry Aube
Don Austen
Donald Austen
Hans Bacher
Michael Backauskas
Dale Baer
Dale Baer
Jane Baer
Lynne Bailey Smith
Del Baker
Dorothea Baker
Gordon Baker
Sue Baker
Denise Ball
Stephen Banks
Alexander Barclay
David Barclay
Mike Barclay
Amanda Xanthe Barnes
Roy Barnes
William Barr
James Barton
James Baxter
Michael Bayliss
Richard Bazley
Maggie Beamer
Greg Beaumonte
Ron Beck
Dennis Becker
Mick Becker
Paul Beeson
Carl A Bell
Edward D Bell
Lisa Belt
Ted Bemiller
Stella Benson
Robert R. Benton
David Bifano
Peter Biggs
Graham Binding
Timothy Bjorklund
Chris Blair
Keith Blake
Edward Blier
Sarah Bloomberg
Bonnie Blough
Allen Blyth
John Boldroff
Mike Bolles
Thomas Bookout
Alan Booth
David A Bossert
Rejean Bourdages
David Bowers
Sharon Boxall
John S Boyd
Neil Boyle
Neill Boyle
Andy Bradford
Clare Bramwell
Bill Brazner
Bella Bremner
Barbara Brennan
Bob Bridges
Danny Brittain
Chris Brock
Denis Brock
Guy Brockett
Jon Brooks
David Byers Brown
Kris Brown
Maggie Brown
Derek Browne
Andrew D Brownlow
Clyde E Bryan
Ian Bryce
Ian Bryce
David Bulbeck
Sally Burden
Kathy Burrows-fullmer
Graham Burt
Lois Burwell
Wally Byatt
Anthony Cain
Roger Cain
Syd Cain
Charles L Campbell
James B Campbell
Rocky Capella
Ronald Cardarelli
Paul Carden
Larry Carow
Patricia Carr
Angie Carroll
James L Carter
Mark Cary
Shaun Caton
Stephan Cavalier
Lanny Cermak
Thomas J Cesarz
Glenn Chaika
Brenda Chapman
Valerie Charlton
Ken Chase
Brenda Chat-mckie
Graham Chenery
Roger Chiasson
Gregory Childers
Marc Christenson
Lynn Christopher
Paul Chung
Blair Clark
Donald Clark
Tony Clark
Christopher Clarke
Ken Clarke
Malcolm Clarke
Marcus Clarke
Lisette Coate
Dan Cohen
Martin Cohen
Tina Cole
Cy Coleman
Karen Comella
Chris Conklin
Ian Cook
Ceri Evans Cooper
J L Cooper
Jim Cooper
Michael Cooper
Lisa Corcoran
Alain Costa
Annamarie Costa
Kim Costalupes
Irene Couloufis
Katherine Cowan
Terry Cox
David Craig
Laura Craig
Jeffrey Cranford
Caron Creed
Charlie Croughwell
Kent Culotta
Dean Cundey
Dean Cundey
Selena D'santos
Sue Dacre
Eric Daniels
Diane Davies
Kevin Davies
Larry Dean Davis
Shep Dawe
Tony Dawe
Michael Dawson
Humberto De La Fuentes
Andreas Deja
Lily Dell
Patsy Delord
Mark Dempsey
Frazer Diamond
Peter Diamond
Ron Dias
Claudine Diaz
Don Digirolamo
Joseph Dipple
Jeff Doran
Claire Dorey
Phil Downey
Anthony Driver
Annie Dubois
Sheila Duignan
David Dunnet
Tony Dunsterville
Anthony Ealey
Robert Eames
Timothy Eaton
Selwyn Eddy
Louis L Edemann
Craig Edgar
Helga Egilson
John Ellis
Marc Ellis
Annie Elvin
Harry Elvin
Martin Elvin
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Wins
Best Editing
Best Sound Effects Sound Editing
Best Visual Effects
Award Nominations
Best Art Direction
Best Cinematography
Best Sound
Articles
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Shortly after its publication, Walt Disney Pictures bought the film rights to the 1981 novel, Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, by Gary K. Wolf. The book is set in modern day, and Roger is the star of a newspaper comic strip. He and his comic strip friends exist three-dimensionally in the real world, their word balloons visible above their heads when they speak. Early in Disney's script development, the concept was changed to cartoon characters living amongst humans. Director Robert Zemeckis was shown a draft of the script in 1982; he was enthusiastic, but the Disney regime of the time backed off due to budgetary concerns. Steven Spielberg later saw the script and arranged for his production company, Amblin Entertainment, to co-produce the film with Disney, and bring Zemeckis in as director. Zemeckis turned the story into a period piece, specifically setting it in 1947. As he told Animation Magazine, "I had three reasons for that change: First, that it would make it timeless, second, it would help suspend the disbelief that this was happening in a 'Once upon a time' era; and third, I couldn't figure out how you could mix the different styles of animation, so I felt we had to draw the line before the era of television."
Zemeckis brought in scriptwriters Jeffrey Price and Peter Seaman to knock the story into shape. In 1947 Hollywood, "Toon" star Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer) is having trouble concentrating on his work. His boss, R. K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) hires a down-and-out private detective named Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) to tail Roger's wife, Jessica Rabbit (voiced by Kathleen Turner). The Toons, who are a carefree bunch with an "anything for a laugh" attitude, live in a segregated area near Hollywood called Toontown. Eddie hates Toons because he had to patrol Toontown when he was a cop; his brother was killed there when a Toon dropped a safe on his head. Tailing Jessica, Eddie discovers that she indeed seems to be "playing patty cake" with a human, Marvin Acme, a prop-supplier for the cartoon industry. When Acme is later found dead (a safe has been dropped on his head), Roger seems to be the natural suspect. Roger has been framed, though, and Eddie agrees to help him clear his name, uncovering a complex plot which involves larger economic and political forces and a plan to eliminate Los Angeles' trolley-car transit system. With its unique blending of Film Noir and golden age cartoons, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the only movie that can be unhesitatingly mentioned in the same breath as both Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) and Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)!
Early in pre-production it was realized that there would be an enormous amount of animation required for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, much more than in any previous mixture of cartoons and live-action. The task would also require an expert animation director, someone capable of handling the unique requirements of the type of perspective changes seen in live-action photography. Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones had been brought on as a consultant for the picture by his friend Spielberg, and he recommended a Canadian animator working in England, Richard Williams. Jones and Williams had worked together on an OscarĀ®-winning animated version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1971). Spielberg and Zemeckis screened footage from Williams' unfinished feature film The Thief and the Cobbler, and were floored by the animator's obvious technical skills. The plan was to shoot all of the live-action footage first, then have Williams and his team in England laboriously animate the "Toon" characters. The final animation, on sheets of celluloid (cels), was flat colors; another layer of cels, called shadow mattes, indicated shadows on the characters. The final compositing of live-action and animation was done by the effects artists at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), headed by Ken Ralston. There, the hand-drawn shadow mattes were used to create three-dimensional shading on the cartoon characters. All of this was accomplished optically, as was the norm in the days before computer-generated graphics. To minimize any degrading of the image, the live-action portions of the effects shots were filmed in large format VistaVision.
Richard Williams had his own drawing style, but for Who Framed Roger Rabbit he took his cue from Zemeckis. As Williams told Animation Magazine shortly after the film opened, "Bob Zemeckis loves [cartoon directors Tex] Avery and [Bob] Clampett. He told me he wanted three things: Disney articulation, i.e., believability, weight, skill of movement and sincerity when we needed it; Warner Bros. characters, because they're zanier, they do more interesting things; and Avery humor, but not so brutal." Williams also spoke of the reasoning behind the design of the lead character: "Roger has that Tex Avery cashew nut shaped head, the swatch of red hair is like Droopy's, Oswald the Rabbit's overalls, Porky Pig's bow tie, Freddy Moore's Mickey Mouse gloves, and he's the color of an American flag."
Every scene in which live actors interacted with cartoons was filmed in full twice. A reference take for each shot was filmed with large foam-rubber stand-ins for each cartoon character, manipulated in rough poses by puppeteers. The stand-ins were a solid, light color so that the on-set shadows could later be observed and replicated by the ILM artists. Comedian Charles Fleischer was cast as the voice of Roger, and in a very unusual move, he was present on the set during the main live-action filming. While Bob Hoskins was performing a scene with thin air, Fleischer would deliver his lines - dressed in a makeshift rabbit suit, no less - offstage for Hoskins' benefit.
The actors - British-born Hoskins in particular - had to be unusually adept at performing with invisible costars. In his book The Animator's Survival Kit Williams said, "One day animator Simon Wells came to me and said 'We've got a problem - Hoskins is looking at a 6 foot high rabbit - what do we do?' He was right. Hoskins had temporarily lapsed and was looking and talking to a wall about 6 feet off the ground. I thought, 'Well, the rabbit's got these huge feet - let's just stretch him up on his toes against the wall.' 'For no reason?' 'What else are we going to do? The rabbit's neurotic - it should work.' They even used the shot in the promotional trailers and no one ever questioned it."
One of the most delightful aspects of Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the unprecedented number of cartoon characters who make cameo appearances. There are a full range of Disney stars (Mickey Mouse, Dumbo, Goofy) and supporting players (the Big Bad Wolf, The Reluctant Dragon, the broomsticks from Fantasia 1940), of course, but remarkably, there are a number of characters from other studios as well. Spielberg personally persuaded Warner Bros. executives to allow appearances by such stars as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Yosemite Sam. For many cartoon buffs, the highlight of the movie is a scene in which Hoskins watches a nightclub act in which Donald Duck faces off in a piano duel with Daffy Duck. Also making appearances are characters from Fleischer Studios (Betty Boop and Koko the Clown), Universal Studios (Woody Woodpecker), and MGM (Droopy). For the most part, the original voice actors were also brought in for the roles: as she had in the 1930s, Mae Questel voiced Betty Boop, and the venerable Mel Blanc provided the voices for all of the Warner Bros. characters.
Reviews were almost universally enthusiastic, particularly of the technical innovation. In The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "[the] best moments are so novel, so deliriously funny and so crazily unexpected that they truly must be seen to be believed." Desson Howe of the Washington Post said, "If you don't like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit,' have your pulse checked. Robert Zemeckis' multi-dimensional free-for-all, where cartoon figures bump, quip and cavort with flesh-and-blood characters, is not only a technical tour de force, it crackles with entertainment." Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of the most expensive of the era, with a cost estimated at $70 million. The gamble paid off for Disney and Amblin, as the film was a worldwide box-office hit.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a landmark movie to those in the animation industry. It came as a much-needed shot in the arm at a time when TV cartoons had reached a low point and feature-length animated films were bombing at the box office. Soon after the feature was released, The Simpsons and The Ren & Stimpy Show reinvigorated TV animation, while Disney saw such theatrical hits as The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). Who Framed Roger Rabbit is invariably credited with starting the "animation boom" of the period.
Producer: Frank Marshall, Robert Watts
Executive Producer: Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Animation Director: Richard Williams
Screenplay: Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman
Story: Gary K. Wolf (novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?)
Cinematography: Dean Cundey
Film Editing: Arthur Schmidt
Music: Alan Silvestri
Production Design: Roger Cain, Elliot Scott
Costume Design: Joanna Johnston
Cast: Bob Hoskins (Eddie Valiant), Christopher Lloyd (Baron von Rotton/ Judge Doom), Charles Fleischer (voice of Roger Rabbit), Joanna Cassidy (Dolores), Stubby Kaye (Marvin Acme), Alan Tilvern (R. K. Maroon), Kathleen Turner (voice of Jessica Rabbit), Amy Irving (singing voice of Jessica Rabbit), Mae Questel (voice of Betty Boop), Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Porky Pig).
C-103m.
by John M. Miller
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States Summer June 22, 1988
Released in United States on Video October 12, 1989
Released in United States November 1988
Shown at FestRio in Brazil November 17-26, 1988.
Based on the novel "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" by Gary K. Wolf; published by Ballentine Books in 1981. The author subsequently turned the book into a series of novels after the success of the film.
Released in United States Summer June 22, 1988
Released in United States on Video October 12, 1989
Released in United States November 1988 (Shown at FestRio in Brazil November 17-26, 1988.)
Began shooting December 12, 1986.