Who Didn't Frame Roger Rabbit?

25 years ago this summer, Walt Disney Productions made their biggest gamble ever since Walt had run things.  Their newest film had been proposed as at a sweat-inducing budget of $50 million and rejected, then greenlit for production at a still uneasy $29.9 million.  As filming proceeded, complications ensued with the costly trial-and-error of groundbreaking special effects and the shooting schedule extended well past what was originally intended, the budget inflated to $40 million and recently-instated Disney CEO Michael Eisner was furious, threatening to shut the film down.  By the time of the film's completion, the production budget was estimated at a (then) whopping $70 million.  The film was the studio's big effort to rekindle interest in animation, formerly their forte but now waning, and included Mickey Mouse's first appearance in a feature film in 41 years, but it the animation was crafted by independent animation legend Richard Williams and his team, instead of the Disney animation division (which had been reduced to an assortment of trailers and cubicles in Glendale, CA) and had been released under the four-years-old alternative Touchstone Pictures banner, as the studio had deemed unsuitable for the Walt Disney Pictures brand with its well-established reputation for family-friendly productions.  Their new film was called WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, and it would become Disney's first major hit in decades, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1988 with a worldwide gross of $329.8 million (not to mention untold success of related products and tie-ins), became their most critically-acclaimed film since MARY POPPINS (1964) with six Academy Award nominations, one Special Achievement Oscar, and three wins for Best Special Effects, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing.  It became an extremely-lucrative property for Disney and inspired additions to the three existing Disney theme parks, including the first new "land" for Disneyland in Anaheim since New Orleans Square opened in 1966, in the form of Mickey's Toontown.  In short, it became the revitalization the company had been in great need of and was the harbinger of the so-called "Disney Renaissance", which began one year later with the release of THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989). 
Very loosely based upon a little-known cult novel by Gary K. Wolf, Who Censored Roger Rabbit, the film depicted a fantasy version of post-WWII California where animated film characters (changed from the comic strip characters in the book) called Toons co-exist with humans in the Hollywood studio system, working on contract to make cartoons like movie stars.  When the greatest proponent of Toon culture, and owner of Toontown, a goofy old sugar daddy named Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye), is found murdered (a safe dropped on his head), cartoon up-and-comer Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer) is the number one suspect.  Caught up in the mix of all this is Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), a Toon-hating private detective who Roger convinces to help prove his innocence.  Meanwhile, an old gargoyle of a District Judge, the less-than-subtly monickered Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) is on a merciless hunt for Roger, and Roger's bombshell wife, Jessica Rabbit (voiced by Kathleen Turner) is up to some suspicious activities of her own.
The film is actually a bit more of a Steven Spielberg film (Spielberg produced the film) than a Disney film, and as part of his agreement to produce the film, Spielberg negotiated for creative control for director Robert Zemeckis and himself, but the Disney resources provided Spielberg with a full half of what the film necessitated.  In order to work, ROGER RABBIT required the all-but-impossible feat of bringing together the closely-guarded iconic cartoon characters of both Walt Disney Studios and the "Looney Toons" from Warner Bros., but if there is a door to something in Hollywood, Spielberg is the magic key to open any of them.  For the first time, and with all probability the last, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny appeared on the same movie screen together, skydiving in Toontown, and Donald Duck and Daffy Duck shared a slapstick violence-fueled piano duel.  In fact, that such characters only be onscreen at the same time as others, as well as each having equal words of dialogue, was among the strict stipulations on the part of Warner for use of the characters, as well as final approval on the screen-time of their characters.
Although there simply aren't many occasions to make use of technology for putting seemingly tangible cartoon characters onscreen with live actors, ROGER RABBIT made a powerful impact on the use of special effects in film.  Although previous films, such as Disney's MARY POPPINS, had had scenes of actors interacting with animation, none had done it at such a level of detail.  Each Toon, when in live set environments (as opposed to fully animated scenes), was first animated traditionally and then sent to George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic special effects studio where each frame of animation was fitted with three separate layers of lighting effects that gave the characters a three dimensional appearance, creating the illusion of light and shadows from the sets onto the characters.  In scenes where the Toon characters interacted with actors, props or set-pieces, various methods were used during shooting, such as robotic armatures or other puppetry to manipulate real objects, with the puppetry later animated over, and foam stand-ins gave the actors an onset figure to interact with.  Similar techniques have since become typical for films featuring CGI effects and characters, and the techniques developed to light Toons have been useful for understanding how to light today's computer effects.  The animation is not without flaw, such as lines crossing over each other, the mechanical way in which a weasel flashes a pistol or the liquor Roger throws back into his mouth splashes behind him, but I'm probably picking things out that most would not.  However, one particular scene that I always note is when Roger puts his hand on the dusty chair of Eddie's late brother's desk chair, as he removes it, a handprint remains in the dust, and that's just awesome.  Furthermore, every single line of animation was hand-drawn and painted.
Robert Zemeckis had petitioned to direct ROGER RABBIT a few years earlier in 1981 when Disney first attempted to get the film made, he was denied the job as he had not yet had a hit, and Disney's plans collapsed.  By the time that the new Disney leadership was revamping the film and Spielberg had come aboard as producer, Zemeckis was fresh off of two major hits, ROMANCING THE STONE in 1984 and the Spielberg-produced BACK TO THE FUTURE in 1985.  Zemeckis aptly described the film as "cartoon noir".  "Noir" comes from the French word for "black", and for anyone unfamiliar with noir as a genre, noir films are dark and portray a grittier side of urban life, usually with a crime/mystery plot, and the "gumshoe" private detective is an archetype particular to the genre.  With a final cut approval stipulation in his contract, Zemeckis was able to make the film the way he wanted, and the result was an imaginative live action/animation hybrid film with a refreshingly adult sensibility.  The animation was throwback to the loose and zany Golden Age of Animation (worth noting is that when the film was made, the second animation boom of the 1990's had not yet happened), especially the "dynamite-down-your-pants" extreme slapstick violence of the work of Tex Avery, beginning with the kind of animated sequence that puts today's parents on edge, with airborne kitchen knives and cleavers, characters roasted in ovens and a baby in precarious situations.  After the film switches to live-action, the main character, Eddie Valiant is a cynical detective struggling with alcoholism for most of the movie, a Toon is literally killed in darkly comic (but to young children, downright horrifying) fashion, and characters, including Toons, use innuendos, especially the cigar smoking Baby Herman who has "a fifty year old lust but a three year old dinky".
The childlike elements of goofy humor and cartoon characters with the tough, cynical and occasionally spicy adult elements create a deliriously inviting kind of film that we don't see enough of, and when it is attempted, is usually unbalanced.  The character of Jessica Rabbit is perhaps the most brilliantly-conceived in the film, and the epitome of its tone and nature.  She is the adult cartoon; a tall, impossibly curved, redheaded bombshell with copiously long legs and comically gargantuan mammary glands.  She's has a sultry voice, she's handy with a gun and in a hilarious twist, she's the devoted wife of Roger Rabbit.  The film is tongue-in-cheek noir, dark, violent, sexy, multi-layered and with an inexplicably gonzo sense of humor.  For me, it's a marvelous "man-child movie"; it doesn't at all talk down to its audience, it expects them to keep up, but it toys with the fantasies of our childhood in a mature but non-destructive way.