(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
Doug (vo): By popular demand, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. A lot of people have been asking me to do this film, and I guess I can sort of see why. It is technically Disney animation, even though it’s mixed with live-action. It had groundbreaking technology, and it was the first time you saw characters like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny together. That’s still so surreal to me. I’ll spell the story real quick for all...what, two of you that don’t know it.
Story
Doug (vo): Eddie Valiant, played by Bob Hoskins, is a detective in Hollywood. Apparently, a very wealthy prankster named Marvin Acme has been murdered by a Toon. Eddie doesn’t mind too much, seeing how he has this incredible prejudice against Toons. Why? Because a Toon killed his brother. How?
Dolores: Dropped a piano on his head.
Doug (vo): That...is hilariously tragic. Everybody thinks Roger Rabbit is to blame, and so he goes to Eddie Valiant to try and solve the case. Despite his prejudice, he does believe that the rabbit is innocent, and so, with the help of the characters from Toontown, including Roger’s saucy hot wife named Jessica, they set out to solve the mystery.
Review
Doug (vo): I’m trying to think what I can say about this film that everybody else hasn’t already. Everybody’s seen it, everybody loves it. In fact, they more than love it, they go crazy for it. So, okay, let’s talk about why people go crazy for this film, because to be honest, I never quite understood. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I go crazy for it, too. I am in love with this movie. But I mean, everybody in the world seems to like this film, even the biggest sourpusses. Is it the story? I guess, but I don’t know. It’s not really much of a mystery. I mean, take a guess who the bad guy is. No, really, come on. Take a wild guess!
[The film's villain, Judge Doom, played by Christopher Lloyd, is briefly shown]
Doug (vo): Is it the characters? Yeah, they’re pretty good, too, but again, nothing really groundbreaking. We’ve seen characters with prejudices before and they go through a story arc that changes them back. Is it how technically groundbreaking it is? I suppose, but there’s a lot of technological groundbreaking movies that people don’t go ga-ga for it like they do with this movie. Even the idea of live-action actors interacting with cartoons is not a new idea. It’s been done almost since the beginning of animation. So, really, what’s the secret formula that everybody can identify with? Well, I thought about why I like the movie. I mean, sure, the story and characters are great, but what is it I love about it now that I love just as much when I was a kid?
[Various clips, mostly showing many of the cameo appearances by various cartoons in the film, are shown]
Doug (vo): And then it hit me. This is the movie I always wanted to see as a kid. The film’s very clever at not taking modern day cartoons, but rather the timeless cartoons that everybody grew up with. They’re the characters that fill up the screen. And like I said before, it’s not just Disney characters, it’s Warner Bros. characters, Paramount characters, it runs the gambit. And I can guarantee you, everybody that has ever grown up watching cartoons has envisioned this. Imagining a film or a story where every single one of their favorite cartoon characters come together, and that’s what this movie did. It brought everybody’s childhood fantasy to life. It made these cartoon characters that we grew up with real. It treated them with the same dedication and love that we felt every single time we watched them. You don’t see a modern day manipulation of Bugs Bunny, you see Bugs Bunny. You don’t see a writer trying to re-create Mickey Mouse, you see Mickey Mouse. And because it was set in the past, everybody knows these characters and absolutely love them. And because of the technology they have, they seem more real than ever.
Final thought
Doug (vo): Add a good story, some scary moments, funny moments, dramatic moments, romantic moments, top it off with some great writers and a good director [Robert Zemeckis] who put all their time and energy into making these characters seem just as real, alive and believable to us now as they were when we were children, and you have a movie that captures all the zaniness, all the goofiness, and all the joy that we felt as children watching these cartoons. Quite honestly, it’s a perfectly written love letter to our childhoods.
[The final scene of the film, showing the main characters walking through a crowd of famous Toons, is shown]