Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
The story of a man, a woman, and a rabbit in a triangle of trouble...
My philosophy is this: if you don't have a good sense of humor, you're better off dead!
— Roger Rabbit
A brilliant (and very expensive by that time's standards) 1988 film set in late 1940s Los Angeles, where a whole bunch of cartoon characters live among human beings. At the center of this story is Roger Rabbit, a wild and wacky "Toon" who is on the run after being accused of murdering Marvin Acme, the human maker of many cartoon gadgets and owner of Roger's home of Toontown.)
His only hope is that of a grizzled alcoholic detective named Eddie Valiant, who despises Toons because one of them killed his brother by dropping a piano on his head. He winds up getting sucked into the investigation after Roger hides out at his apartment. Together, the two of them uncover a conspiracy to destroy Acme's will and turn over Toontown to a maniacal judge who wants to pave the whole thing over and build a freeway system, thus lining his own pockets with money.
The film is ( very) loosely based on Gary Wolf's 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? It also owes a lot to Chinatown.
It also had three Spin Off theatrical shorts that ran from 1989 to 1993.
(Note: The title of the film officially has no question mark at the end. Rumor has it that this is the result of a market survey showing that films with question marks make less money.)
A sequel was planned shortly after the booming success of the original, but it never came to light; first it was because Steven Spielberg refused to work on a film that satirized Nazis after finishing Schindlers List, and this film would have been a prequel set during World War II. Then, a skyrocketing (for the time) budget and the advent of computer animation landed the second movie in deeper waters. However, director Robert Zemeckis recently confirmed that a second Roger Rabbit movie is indeed on the way; he himself will return to direct and the original screenwriters, Seaman and Price, are both back on board. Here's hoping for the best!
This film provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Lena Hyena herself makes an appearance and attempts to pursue Eddie.
- Adaptation Distillation: Let's put it this way - The original book, titled Who Censored Roger Rabbit, was about Valiant (having been hired to investigate his bosses' broken promises by Roger) investigating Roger's murder (or "censoring") with the help(?) of Roger's antagonistic wife, Jessica. The movie was basically "An anti-hero and a toon, forced together in a strange bedfellows kind of way, investigate someone else's death, with a basic plot built around the GM Streetcar Conspiracy."
- Ambiguously Human: Judge Doom
- Anachronism Stew: A number of cartoon characters appear who had not yet been created at the time in which the film takes place.
- Fridge Logic: It could be argued that those characters had always existed as residents of Toontown; they just hadn't started working for animation companies until a few years later.
- The head of Warners seems to be happy to have half the cast of Fantasia on loan from Disney. Fantasia was a flop, it'd be like having Chris Tucker in your movie.
- Animated Actors: Roger and Baby Herman.
- Animation Bump: The opening sequence.
- The entire film is pretty lavishly animated, as necessitated by matching the drawings to the lighting and frame rate of the live action footage. One of the few exceptions is the Toontown sequence, where everything is (relatively) more lax traditional animation with a blue-screened Eddie.
- Anvil On Head
- Applied Phlebotinum: Averted by the Dip. Turpentine, acetone, and benzene? All of them solvents, and two of which basically amount to paint thinner.
- Ax Crazy: The Weasels.
- Judge Doom at the climax.
- Badly Battered Babysitter: Roger's role in the Maroon shorts with Baby Herman.
- Blackmail
- Can't Grow Up
- Cartoon Crossovers: A whole lot of Disney and Warner Bros. characters have at least a cameo appearance.
- Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are: Judge Doom trying to flush out the hiding Roger Rabbit with "Shave and a Haircut."
- Chained Heat: Roger and Eddie.
- Chekhovs Gun "One of these days, you idiots are gonna die laughin'!"
- Also the big mallet and portable blackhole, introduced for laughs early on and proving crucial in the final action.
- Don't forget the Disappearing And Reappearing! Ink
- And Roger's love letter written on a blank piece of paper. It's Acme's will in disguise.
- Chekhovs Skill: Not a "skill" per se, but Roger's...destructive reaction whenever he takes a shot of bourbon is put to good use later.
- Circling Birdies: Roger gets chewed out on the set for providing birds when the script calls for stars.
- Cloud Cuckooland: Toon Town
- Complete Monster: Judge Doom.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: R.K. Maroon.
- Deconstruction Crossover: No matter how family friendly, the film was still a Deconstruction of classical animation. Being much more well-known and popular than the original novel, it probably became the Trope Maker for this trope.
- Dope Slap: Eddie Valiant delivers one to Roger Rabbit.
- Drives Like Crazy: All Toons, whether they are driving human vehicles or Toons like Benny the Cab.
- Duck Season Rabbit Season: Just before Roger is about to get "dipped", Eddie does this to trick him into drinking another shot of bourbon to produce the same effect the stuff had on Roger at R.K. Maroon's office.
- The animators admit that they made a mistake in the "20 Years" remake... Roger's head was supposed to turn red again.
- End Of An Age: The overpass ending toons.
- Efficient Displacement: The result of Roger running off in a fit of pique... through Mr. Maroon's office window.
- Escalating War: Donald vs. Daffy at the Ink and Paint Club.
- Everythings Better With Sparkles: Jessica's dress on stage.
- Justified, in that she is performing. Any other time she's on screen, her dress is the same but never has that sparkle again.
- Actually, she was supposed to have the sparkles throughout the whole movie, but it would have been too difficult and expensive to do it.
- Executive Meddling: Disney and Warner Brothers only allowed the use of their iconic characters if they got exactly the same amount of screen time, hence the "Ducks on Stage" and the "Mickey/Bugs" scenes. (Look close in the backgrounds, however, and you'll see they found ways to get around this.)
- The Exit Is That Way: "That's the closet! Toons..."
- Eye Shock: In the nightclub scene when Jessica Rabbit was on stage, combined with Wolf Whistle.
- Foreshadowing: "Someone musta made her do it!"
- Genre Savvy: Eddie Valiant and Judge Doom both know enough about cartoons to manipulate the various toons they work with (mostly Roger).
- Getting Crap Past The Radar: Lots
- G Rated Sex: Roger reacts to secret photos of his wife Jessica and Marvin Acme playing "Patty-Cake" as if he'd been presented with photographs of them having acrobatic sex.
- In universe, it seems that Patty-Cake is the Toon equivalent. So his freakout is rational, as her husband.
- Gravity Is A Harsh Mistress: Eddie figures this out firsthand upon his return to Toontown in the "Mickey/Bugs" scene.
- Hanging Judge: Judge Doom.
- Hello Nurse: Jessica Rabbit.
- Heroes Want Redheads: Jessica Rabbit. Virtually EVERYONE in the movie wanted her.
- High Pressure Emotion: Roger's reaction to alcohol is rather... explosive.
- Hoist By His Own Petard: Judge Doom is killed by the dipping machine he was going to use on Roger and Jessica.
- The Hyena: Well, weasels in this case. Their hyena cousins were mentioned. Poor guys, laughed themselves to death.
- If You Know What I Mean: Jessica's infamous "pattycake" session with Marvin Acme.
- Illogical Safe: Done with a fridge.
- Impossibly Low Neckline: Jessica
- This Troper sees it as more of an Impossibly Extended Neckline.
- It Will Never Catch On: Judge Doom's vision of the freeway after its construction. One reason Eddie isn't that surprised to learn Doom is actually a Toon is because, as he sees it, only a Toon would have come up with such a scheme.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Eddie does this to RK Maroon.
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Eddie Valiant.
- Just Whistle: "If you should ever need a ride, just stick out your thumb!"
- Kick (or rather, Dip) The Dog: Judge Doom testing out his Toon-erasing concoction on a shoe at the Acme warehouse.
- Knight In Sour Armor: Eddie Valiant.
- The Krusty: Baby Herman.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Cartoon characters from every animation studio in existence in the 1940s appear in the movie.
- Malaproper: The leader of the weasels.
- Meaningful Name: Judge Doom
- Medium Blending: Defines this movie, and the trope.
- Moral Event Horizon: The death of the cartoon shoe that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time clearly shows how far over the horizon Judge Doom and his minions are.
- Ms Fanservice: Jessica Rabbit. Okay okay, she's integral to the plot, but seriously...look at her.
- Naked Sally: Jessica Rabbit
- Nice Character Mean Actor: Baby Herman.
- Nightmare Fuel:
— Judge Doom:"Remember me, Eddie? When I killed your brother, I talked JUST... LIKE... THIS!!
- Many scenes in Toontown, at least to this troper when he was younger.
- No Name Given: The unspoken names of the Weasels are Smartass, Wheezy, Greasy, Psycho and Stupid. Guess who's who.
- Not The Fall That Kills You: From Gravity Is A Harsh Mistress, above, Eddie would've splatted on the ground, had not Lena Hyena caught him on the ground. But then, they were in Toontown, so Rule Of Funny applies.
- Not What It Looks Like: Dolores catches Eddie with his pants down with Jessica in the room.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: "We toons may act idiotic, but we're not stupid!" Acting like an idiot is standard operating procedure for a toon, according to Roger.
- One Winged Angel
- Parent Service: The entire reason of Jessica Rabbit's existence.
- I'm not sure the movie is entirely meant for kids in the first place.
- It's also a Film Noir Parody, and there are the much older cartoon characters appearing in the background (Betty Boop, Harvey Toons, etc.)
- Perverse Sexual Lust: Jessica Rabbit is the trope pin up girl.
- Pretend Prejudice
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Weasels, a.k.a. "the Toon Patrol"
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old: "Baby" Herman.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: Named it, made it famous, and probably perfected it.
- Rule Of Funny: Explicitly spelled out by Roger:
Eddie Valiant: You mean you could've taken your hand out of that cuff at any time?
Roger Rabbit: No, not at any time, only when it was funny.
- Schrodingers Cat: The main character dies in the book.
- Sexy Silhouette: Subverted. When Eddie visits Toontown and thinks he's stumbled on to Jessica Rabbit undressing, he actually runs into Lena Hyena (from the old Li'l Abner film). One word: "butterface".
- Shave And A Haircut
- Shout Out: So many... so, so many.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Jessica and Roger.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Jessica and Roger.
- Species Surname: Subverted with Jessica Rabbit, who turns out to be only a Rabbit by marriage.
- Start Of Darkness: The graphic novel sequel Roger Rabbit: The Resurrection of Doom revealed Judge Doom's at the beginning.
- Steven Spielberg: One of the executive producers.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: "'Nose'? That don't rhyme with 'walls'!" (Cue Groin Attack from Eddie.)
- Talking To Himself: During the film's car chase scene, Roger Rabbit and Benny The Cab, both voiced by the same actor, scream rapid-fire dialogue at each other.
- Tap On The Head: Roger himself, courtesy of a frying pan wielded by his wife Jessica.
- That's All, Folks!
- This Is Sparta: Judge Doom:"Remember me, Eddie? When I killed your brother, I talked JUST... LIKE... THIS!!
- And earlier on by Valiant: "Get this through your head, meatball...I...don't...work...FOR TOONS!"
- Ugly Guy Hot Wife: Roger and Jessica... from a human's point of view. From the Toons' point of view, Jessica lucked into a real catch with Roger.
- Unwilling Suspension
- Vapor Wear: Jessica Rabbit.
- Very Loosely Based On A True Story: The Cloverleaf plot was a real plot, but by General Motors and a couple of oil companies, that really did buy the Los Angeles Red Car Trolley system to shut it down.
- Victorias Secret Compartment: Greasy Weasel tries to search Jessica's cleavage for Acme's will, and gets his hand caught in a bear trap. She's definitely not happy to see him.
- Visual Pun: "Hey, Roger! Whaddaya call the middle of a song?"
- What Does She See In Him
- Will
- Window Pain: Roger smashes out through a window leaving a Roger-shaped hole on finding out Jessica's been playing Pattycake with Marvin Acme.
- Wingding Eyes Judge Doom
|
|
