Aidan At The Movies: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

What's there to say about this classic? It's hands down a masterpiece of flesh and cartoons. From Disney, Touchstone, and Robert Zemeckis, it's Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Loosely based on the book, "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" by Gary K. Wolf. Starring Bob Hoskins as private detective Eddie Valliant. Charles Fleischer, a character voice actor, as Roger Rabbit, the victim. Kathleen Turner in an uncredited voice role as the beautiful yet suspicious Jessica Rabbit. Blade Runner's Joanna Cassidy as Dolores, a friend of Eddie's. And last but not least, an epic villain performance by Christopher Lloyd as the dreadful Judge Doom.

Imagine a world where humans and cartoon characters live and work together. Cartoon superstar, Roger Rabbit, was having a happy-go-lucky life until one night... he discovered that his lover, Jessica, was "playing a game of patty-cake" with Marvin Acme, the owner of Acme Corporations and Toontown. Suddenly, Marvin was found murdered the next day. Roger, as you can guess, was framed for the crime. Now it's up to Eddie Valliant, a private detective who deeply hates cartoons, to prove Roger's innocence. (The reason why Eddie hates cartoon characters was because a toon killed his brother.) Along the way, the cartoon rabbit and the toon hating detective have to avoid the terrible, wicked Judge Doom, a man who wants to rid the world of cartoon characters with dangerous chemicals.

I, believe it or not, grew up with this movie. What I mostly like about the movie is the combination of live-action and animation. Walt Disney, decades back, has done this before. But Roger Rabbit takes the process to a different level. The story is very interesting, too. It has that film noir style to it. Another thing I loved about the movie was Christopher Lloyd's performance as Judge Doom. As much as I liked Lloyd in Back to the Future and all, I think Roger Rabbit was his shining moment. Everything else in the movie, well, there's so many words to describe it. I think it's a well done piece of work.

Parents Guide: I don't think kids under 6 should watch this flick without a parent. Yes, it's rated PG, but I think it should be PG-13 for the language and violence and sexual stuff. Jessica's appearance is very suggestive. A majority of the scenes have mild and wacky cartoon violence. The scene where Judge Doom kills an innocent cartoon shoe with chemicals can scare little kids. Eddie is a heavy drinker. And Judge Doom, being a psychopath and all, may scare kids, too. One of the weasels is named "Smartass".

Did You Know?: Actors considered for Eddie Valliant were Kurt Russell, Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, Robert Redford, and Joe Pesci. Actors considered for Judge Doom were Tim Curry, Peter O'Toole, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Roddy McDowall, and Sting. And Robin Williams was considered for both the hero and villain. There were actually supposed to be seven weasels to parody the Seven Dwarfs. The test audiences, which were 18-19 year old kids, hated the movie. The song at the end of the movie "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile" was believe it or not sung by the animators of the movie. Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) was the original choice to voice Roger Rabbit.