Towards the end of the film, when Judge Doom unveils his plan to destroy Toontown, the weasels finish digging through the brick wall. One of the weasels pulls out a brick and the yellow light from Toontown shines through. The weasel lets go of the brick, and the brick remains suspended in mid-air! Obviously, the animators goofed.

Those cartoon eyes on the Judge were the scariest things I've seen in a long time.

Did you know that The Movie was based on a
semi-serious book called "Who Cencored Roger
Rabbit?" It was most certainly not G rated and
probably not Pg-13 either. Also it turnes out in
the end that Roger was the one to do it and he
hired the dectective to cover his tracks.(It has a
long convulted plot involving a wish giving genie
and dopplegangers of varies characters.) The guy
who wrote it stuck to the classic detective genre
with the cartoons thrown in. This book is
available at used book stores and garage sales
everywhere.

Or you can check it out from your local library if they have a copy.Like I did.This book really isn't for kids people.

AHHHHHH! reading this page brought back all the
nightmares that I had when I first saw the judge's
eyes. I'm going to go hide now.

And WHAT was that lady and her busom doing in a
Disney movie?

Hey, she wasn't bad. She was just drawn that way!

Christopher Lloyd's "after" Judge (don't want to spoil the ending) scared me when I was a kid, too. I loved the film, though, just the idea is worth a look...although Doom's plot is dumb. There already was a freeway by the time the film opened.

"Yeah... Check the probate. Why my Uncle Thumper had a problem with his probate and he had to take these big pills and drink lots of water."

"Not prostate, you idiot, probate!"

Why doesn't the Taxi die after driving through the dip?

Because he really didn't get submerged in the stuff. His tires got "burnt", as you can see when he stands up and starts groaning in pain. All the times a toon dies from dip, he gets covered in it.

Not sure whether this qualifies as a nit...

But the "That's all folks" Porky Pig delivers at the end of the movie is contrary to the origins of the line. When Porky stumbles/stutters on a word, he substitutes another word in its place. When he said "That's all folks" at the end of the cartoons, he was trying to say "The End." But he stumbles on the delivery and it comes out as "That's all folks!"

The movie implies that Porky always intended to say "That's all folks!"

Not sure if I've made any sense...

This movie had one really nasty scene, where the Judge dissolves a poor little cartoon shoe. He claimed that the "dip" was to punish cartoon criminals, but that shoe hadn't done anything but fall out of a broken crate. I always wondered why no one in that scene protested.

this movie has alot to do with race in a scence that there was no justice for toons. Roger knew he wasn't going to have a fair trial and be executed. I guess the shoe was killed for just being a toon. it's sad but it's alot like lynch mobs and all the injustice that happened toward blacks in the 40's and 50's.

How much do you think Disney paid for the rights to use the WB toons?

Great Line: "That'th the lattht time I work with somebody with a thhhpeach impediment!" -- Daffy Duck, referring to Donald

It wasn't really a Disney movie, kids, it was the work of the great Richard Williams, a British animator who did a lot of great commercials, some of the better Pink Panther movie title sequences, and the movie "The Thief and the Cobbler," which he never finished because it was stolen out of his hands pretty much. About the closest they ever came to releasing it like he wanted was in a video called "The Princess and the Cobbler," which you can sometimes get in Australia, and should definitely try to get a hold of. Williams and Disney don't get along anymore, since "Aladdin" was basically a big ripoff of "Thief and the Cobbler" and ruined his chances of box office success with it ... what came out in America was called "Arabian Knight, or The Thief and the Cobbler," and has an annoying voice track, with most of the silent characters talking nonstop, and although otherwise exactly like "Princess and the Cobbler" all of his best animation at the end is simply removed, and it IS his best animation too, great stuff. They cut it, because it was eventually released by Miramax, which is Disney-owned, and didn't want the movie kicking up too much fuss, lest they get sued for doing "Aladdin."

Are you any relation to Adam Gilchrist?

notv- Hey, you`re "notv" alone with your fear with the Judge`s cartoon eyes.

Porky fan- Actually, he stumbles over everything and doesn`t always replace it with something else. "That`s all folks" was said by some guy in a jester outfit before (though perhaps Porky was the one to say it first, I`m not sure, I haven`t seen all those early ones)

At the end, you can see Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, which is incorrect for the timeframe. Reportedly, the director knew this, but put them in anyway because they were his favorite characters.

Did anyone else see the Farscape 2 weeks ago
where they did the Looney Tunes?When they show
Aeryn it's as a cartoon and the first time they
show her she's JESSICA RABBIT!!!!!
They even have her say:"Don't tell me,let me
guess,'I'm not bad,I'm just drawn that way,'
can't you think of anything original?"

In response to MikeC's post on 11/13/99 about a freeway already being built by the time the film opened. Yes, lots of freeways were built by the time the film opened. The film doesn't take place in the present, it takes place in the 30s or 40s. I'm not sure, it's been a looong time since I saw it. I also have no idea whether there was a freeway in southern California at the time the movie takes place.

According to CalTrans, the Arroyo Seco Parkway (now the Pasadena Freeway), California's first freeway, was started in 1938.

At the end, you can see Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, which is incorrect for the timeframe. Reportedly, the director knew this, but put them in anyway because they were his favorite characters.

But since they are not featured characters they could simply be residents of Toon Town who have not yet been discovered and made no movies yet.

Of course, this doesn't explain how one of the barflies knows who Chilly Willy is, since his debut wasn't until the early to mid-50s.

Actually, the toons as movie actors brings up an interesting question...

At the end of Roger Rabbit, we see Pinocchio as a wooden puppet. Since at the end of the film, Pinocchio had turned into a real boy, the question becomes did a different toon play Pinocchio, the Boy? Or was it make-up to make the wooden Pinocchio look like a "real" boy?

Neither. The actor is a shapeshifting toon who can change between wood and flesh. When the producers of Pinocchio were casting, he was exactly what they needed.

Those toons sure do play havoc with the laws of physics.

Or they could have had two toons play the same character. One as a wooden boy the other as "real boy" and they used special effects to switch between the two.

Ahh... but such special effects technology wasn't available in the 30's, was it?

For a toon, how far do special effects extend beyond a can of Sherwin-Williams?

Any type of makeup, or cutting between shots of a person made up diferently between shots is a special effect. Check out "The Man of 1000 Faces", Lon Chaney's work in silent films.

Except Pinocchio's transformation is much smoother than the cutting tricks you're referring to. This is more like a morphing effect, which history shows Willow was the first to use.

I spotted these nits.

1: In the bar Eddie gives Roger a drink, if you look closly you can see the drink pass through his neck.

2: When Judge Doom is crushed glue covers the floor, but when he stands up the floor is clean.

3: When Judge Doom is flat they used an animated special effect, my nit is they forgot to colour it and he is black and white.

4: Roger is shocked when he sees Doom gets up after being crushed, my nit is Judge Doom didn't start moveing until after Roger reacts.

5: This is a big one, on Eddies desk you can see him and his brother setting up the dective buissness, but later on when he tells Roger how his brother was killed he tells Roger that they were still working as beat cops, did his brother rise from the dead to set up the buissness or something?

Good Point, the detective agenty is called Valiant & Valiant & Eddie pulls up Roger for sitting is his brother's chair.

I don't remember Valiant saying he and his brother were cops... I just remember him saying something about he and his brother working in Toontown

He mentioned that he and his brother were 'working a beat' in Toontown, and also at one point the camera falls on a picture of Eddie and Teddy as policemen with the rest of their precinct.

Whatever happened to Bob Hoskins?

He was just in "Maid In Manhattan."

Interesting... Roger Rabbit was recently re-released on DVD, but I discovered two instances of censoring...

One is early on when Baby Herman storms off the set and walks between a woman's legs. In a frame-by-frame analysis of the laserdisc and video release (and probably the original DVD), you can clearly see Baby Herman extend his middle finger and move it up into the woman's skirt (adding new meaning to her yelp). The sequence has been altered for the new DVD, with some digitally animated fabric to conceal the obscenity.

The second instance is later in the movie when Doom spills Dip into the street, causing Benny the Cab to crash and throwing Valiant and Jessica out of the vehicle. Again, a frame-by-frame analysis of the original sequence shows one frame in which Jessica's dress has lifted so far to reveal that she isn't wearing anything underneath (and she's a natural redhead ). Again, using digital animation, Disney has concealed Jessica's parts.

Both are obviously jokes thrown in by the animators (as animators have done for decades). Unfortunately, the advancement of video technology that allows sharp freeze-framing also allows political and religious groups to find ammunition. So Disney has apparently decided to "clean up" the offensive material, preventing anyone from sharing and appreciating the in-joke.

What really bugs me, though, is that there is nothing on the DVD packaging to let consumers know that the material has been altered from its original presentation... which smacks of false advertising. I am composing my letter... maybe I can get my money back.

So Disney has apparently decided to "clean up" the offensive material, preventing anyone from sharing and appreciating the in-joke.

Not only that, they're featuring it in the ads. The commercial I've seen for the DVD prominently hilites the Baby Herman-up-the-skirt sequence.

Debates about truth in advertising aside, I think it's a clever move on Disney's part. Those 'hidden' animator snerks have been common knowledge for years, everyone was gonna be looking out for them, why not give in and play them up a little? It is essentially a PG-13 and up movie, anyhow.

Now all they need to do is fix that moment during the 'Duelling Ducks' piano sequence wherein many people claim they can hear Donald shouting something very nasty at Daffy.

This is a big one, on Eddies desk you can see him and his brother setting up the dective buissness, but later on when he tells Roger how his brother was killed he tells Roger that they were still working as beat cops, did his brother rise from the dead to set up the buissness or something? - reddkryten

OK. I just rewatched the movie. Valiant does not say that he and his brother were working as beat cops when he died. He says they were investigating the robbery of a bank in Toontown.

According to the chronology established in the photos, Valiant and Valiant opened in 1938. According to the toon bullets, they hadn't seen Eddie in five years. Since Who Framed Roger Rabbit (which, incidentally doesn't have a question mark in its title) takes place in 1947, then we can presume Eddie's brother was killed in 1942.

Actually, I believe Valiant said he and his brother were 'working a beat down in Toontown.'

I'm telling you, I just saw the movie and am not working from old recollection. He says nothing about "working a beat."

Valiant does mention that their beat used to be Toon town, but I don't believe he says that it was when his brother died.

Thanks, Darth, for telling us that about the film's censoring. I may have heard of and/or noticed that finger thing at the time this film was first released and probably had since forgotten about it and thus didn't think to look for it on the DVD but I'll go over it again.

I'm also against censorship so I don't approve of that in this film. I can only wonder if they either didn't catch that finger thing or had but decided to leave it in if there would've been an uproar about it, which of course would then result in more units being sold, which of course is what Disney would want.

However, since they did censor the film then I'd've preferred they did the same thing as was done with 8 Mile and The Osbournes DVD's, releasing both censored and uncensored versions, and had them clearly marked as such so people could buy whichever one they preferred.

I find Donald calling Daffy a (offensive term for black person) - if that's what he does - to be simply a joke about the attitudes of the 1940s, which wasn't meant to be promoting racism or anything. I mean, Donald's hardly a positive character, is he?

He says (in Donald-speak), "Doggone, stubborn, little... WAAAAAH!" He's said the same thing in a number of older cartoons where he wasn't talking to a black duck.

Spec, Donald honestly didn't say that, and the fact that the word is a racist slur pretty much precludes it from being any sort of joke. There are much better ways to poke fun at the straitlaced attitudes of the 40's without stirring up massive controversy, which blatant use of the N word certainly would.

Snopes debunks this myth and provides the audio of that line of dialogue in RealPlayer for you to listen to it yourself.

the fact that the word is a racist slur pretty much precludes it from being any sort of joke.

Why? It's not like it's being used in a racist way. (even if Donald was saying that) Last I heard, poking fun at racist attitudes was hardly controversial.

I don't think you really realize how sensitive Americans can be to this issue. Even now, use of the word in the media could ignite a firestorm of angry articles, letters, and lawsuits. It's even bleeped out when black entertainers (rap artists) use it.

Racial attitudes in this country are very funny. Take "White Chicks" (the new comedy featuring some of the Wayons brothers), in which two African American men masquerade as white girls. From what I've been told, it appears to be very funny. But can you imagine a film being made today in which two white guys dress up as black and poke fun of racial stereotypes without it resulting in MAJOR controversy? Just ask Ted Danson!

Of course, this has nothing to do with Roger Rabbit, but the swing in the conversation reminded me of the discrepencies in what is/isn't tolerated in American culture.

Their was a movie in the 80s about a guy who dresses up as a black guy (Soul Man I think was the name) and it wasn't that controversial. The reason that Danson's thing was such a big deal is because the long and racist history of Blackface entertainment. And how he dressed up was not to look like a reall black guy, it was to look like a blackface entertainer.

I had forgotten about Soul Man. Thank you, Brian.

However, we're not living in the 80's. I think that our society has become much more sensitive, perhaps even "hyper-sensitive," in the last 20 years. People tend to jump at anything and everything nowadays.

I tend to doubt that characters like Archie Bunker would survive in today's world. Look at Barbershop, for example.

I think Soul Man wasn't controversial because the white guy who pretends to be black experiences all the subtle prejudices and learns from that experience: not only does he admit to cheating on the scholarship, so a real african-american woman can get it, and at the very end of the movie, he reacts to some white guys telling racist jokes (relative harmless ones compared to others). So I'd say the movie is non-controversial because the guy (and the viewer hopefully too) learns his lesson about how prejudices are bad.

Darth, wasn't the controversey over "Barbershop" about the Rosa Parks comment, rather than racial portrayals? I don't recall any controversey over that movie regarding race portrayals. Were there?

No, but the Rosa Parks bit is indirectly race-related inasmuch as it touched on an icon of the civil rights movement.
I think what Darth is getting at is that the character who made the comment in that movie was acting in a generally Bunkerish fashion, i.e. totally non-PC and proud of it.

There are much better ways to poke fun at the straitlaced attitudes of the 40's without stirring up massive controversy, which blatant use of the N word certainly would.

Yeah. The hidden gags in Roger Rabbit may be a little naughty, but they surely aren't designed to attract boycotts...never mind the mind-blowing concept of Disney allowing their second-most-beloved character of all time to be portrayed as a racist, uh, pig. (Which, as Richard Roeper once pointed out, is a pretty good argument against most of the 'subliminal messages' the fundamentalist fringe keeps finding in Disney kiddie films. What's in it for them?)

A classic case of reading too much into things.

Judge Doom should be Lloyd's iconic part, not the "on Mescaline" Doc Brown.

My personal fave is Rev. Jim from Taxi