Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
We love it and it turns out you guys love it.
So I guess now is as good a time as any for
us to drop some Roger Rabbit things on you.
Here are seven things you didn't know about Who Framed Roger Rabbit, probably.
(Music)
You guys probably already know about the the legendary Jessica Rabbit up skirt shot
after Benny's crash.
And it's been animated out of the DVD release anyway, so
it's not worth spending our first thing on.
If for some reason you didn't know about that, I'm sure you're already googling it.
And you probably aren't even hearing what I'm saying right now, you complete tool.
Either way, this is a family show so no crotch talk.
Instead, let's start with those tasty cartoon hoots.
>> I'm not bad.
I'm just drawn that way.
>> Animation director Richard Williams designed Jessica Rabbit.
And since she's a humanoid, the animators wanted to make sure that they
couldn't be accused of just rotoscoping a real live woman to create her.
Williams' design for Jessica was based in part on
Red Hot Riding Hood from the old Tex Avery cartoons.
But, the challenge was to make Jessica even more exaggerated and
toony without making her look, well, scary or grotesque.
That's how Jessica wound up with the impossibly tiny waist and
that pretty much nonexistent nose.
Even once they'd nailed the character design,
they had to animate her to move in ways that wouldn't be possible in reality.
They reversed her anatomical movements,
specifically the movement of those gazongas.
Hers are animated to bounce upward when a real woman's would bounce downward.
Now that you know that, just try not to perv out too much on those cartoon cans
next time you watch the movie.
I will but you shouldn't.
This may seem obvious to anyone over the age of thirty.
But to anyone else it may be a surprise to hear that there's not a single a shot
done by computer in the entire film.
Not one.
>> This ain't no cartoon you know.
>> The filmmakers definitely talked about doing some 3D work with computer effects
but they decided against it.
They felt that computer generated imagery wouldn't give them the character and
the 1940s aesthetic they were going for.
That meant creating an astounding 1,035 optical illusions for the film.
And each of those effects needed anywhere from 15 to 185 shots.
Overall, Who Framed Roger Rabbit has 82,080 frames of multiple layer animation,
all of which were hand-drawn.
Remember it's 24 drawings for every one second of animation.
So take this scene with the weasels.
Each weasels had five lightning effects layers which then added up
to 25 pieces of artwork per frame or 600 drawings per second.
Or this part where Eddie is working into the studio's backlot.
This sequence has about 190 separate pieces of film that had to go through
an optical printer to put it all together.
Once all the elements were stacked together, it was eight feet tall.
That's eight feet of animation cells and pieces of film for
about 30 seconds of screen time.
It took a lot of help to do it all.
At the time of it's release, Who Framed Roger Rabbit had the longest end credits
in the history of movies at about six and a half minutes.
I'll admit six and a half minutes sounds kind of short.
But it took 743 people to make Roger Rabbit happen.
743 is definitely a lot of anything really.
(Music)
Even though Mickey Mouse is in the actual movie,
they still stuck in some obligatory Mickey Mouse easter eggs.
Here´s one in the photo on Roger´s wallet.
In this photo, Roger and Jessica are supposed to be at the Brown Derby
in Hollywood, which is famous for the celebrity portraits on the wall.
In this case, the celebrities include Roger himself and Mickey Mouse.
By the way, the other caricatures are all of the different filmmakers who
made Roger Rabbit, including Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg,
Arthur Schmidt and others, who I don't care about.
And right here,
when Eddie picks up the bombs, the way he's holding them creates another Mickey.
Finally, the hole in the wall leading to Toon Town, right there,
with the yellow light coming through is also in the shape of Mickey Mouse.
So now you know that.
Next Thing.
>> Come on, you're making a big mistake.
I didn't kill anybody, I swear.
>> You probably didn't know, or maybe you didn't notice that the title of
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is missing something, punctuation.
Even though the title of the movie is a question, it doesn't have a question mark.
And it's not because someone forgot or screwed up.
Robert Zemeckis and the team decided against including the question mark on
the end for one simple reason, it just didn't look right.
Fair enough, Bobby Z.
I guess we'll have to take your word for it.
You don't mind if I call you Bobby Z, right?
That does have a question mark on the end,
by the way, because I'm actually asking you.
>> Sorry.
>> For Bob Hoskins and the other actors in Who Framed Roger Rabbit there were
several instances where they had to act with basically nothing.
All of the animation was completed in the year after they shot the live
action portions which means Bob Hoskins had to get really good at miming to do
his his job.
>> So I'm looking at his eyes there.
>> And then you just drop him to throw the plate, and then back up to that level.
>> But they did at least have the voice actors on set just off camera so
that the live performers would be able to run their dialog with them.
And one person who took his off camera roll very,
very seriously was Charles Fleischer who played Roger Rabbit.
>> Look, stars!
Ready when you are, Raul.
(Sound) He also did the voices for Benny the Cab
and the weasels Greasy and Psycho, which is boom, a bonus thing you didn't know.
Anyway, the first day on set,
Fleischer insisted that wardrobe outfit him with a costume for
Roger, even though Fleischer himself was never actually going to be on camera.
Not only did wardrobe do it, but Fleischer actually wore the costume to set everyday.
>> I'm a rabbit.
Three years of acting school, and I'm a rabbit.
>> Whatever helps you get into character I guess.
(Music)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is full of achievements in special effects.
But it also represents another historic moment.
It was the first time that major studios allowed their cartoon characters to
appear in a competing studio's project.
>> It's just Dumbo.
>> I know who it is.
>> I got him on loan from Disney.
>> It was a nearly impossible thing to accomplish.
And the only way it got done was by Steven Spielberg asking the studios himself.
At the time of Roger Rabbit Spielberg had already made several of the top
grossing movies of all time.
So there wasn't really anyone left in Hollywood who wasn't willing to
lick his balls and grundle.
But there were a few caveats and details to work out for the cartoon deal,
not the careful yet thorough tonguing of Steven Spielberg's genitalia.
For one, Warner Brothers only agreed to loan Daffy Duck and
Bugs Bunny on the condition that they'd have equal screen time with Donald and
Mickey, respectively.
And for this all-important moment of Bugs and Mickey being on screen together for
the first time,
the filmmakers had to make sure that Bugs is the one who hands Eddie the spare tire.
Mickey just wouldn't play a cruel joke on someone like that, but Bugs would.
>> Poor fellow (Laugh).
>> Yeah, ain't I a stinker?
>> Beyond that, there were money considerations.
Thanks to animation that cost $250,000 to $300,000 per minute,
Roger Rabbit ended up going a good $17.5 million over budget.
And remember, this is 80s money, so
it was really a lot of cocaine the studio couldn't buy now.
(Sound) So they had to negotiate how many toons they could even afford for
this finale shot.
Even here, the characters are all on multiple cells.
So it was a ton of labor on top of just paying for the rights to the characters.
Considering how hard it was to make all this happen in the first place,
we'll probably never see these characters from Disney, Warner Brothers and
MGM in one place ever again unless someone still owes Spielberg a scrote lick.
(Sound) >> Toons.
>> Since Who Framed Roger Rabbit kind of represents an unprecedented mashing up of
all the big cartoons of the 1940s,
Richard Williams used that as an Inspiration when designing Roger.
Roger is basically a bunch of other famous characters in one.
Williams started with Droopy Dog's orange hair and head, and
then took Bugs Bunny's cheeks.
He then went with Porky Pig's bow tie and
Mickey Mouse's yellow gloves from the 1940s version of Mickey of course.
And finally Goofy's pants.
Lastly, he decided to go with an overall style most similar to Tex Avery's.
After gathering those elements,
he settled on making Roger a white rabbit with red pants and
blue bow tie to create a subliminal resemblance to the American flag.
Kind of a long walk if you ask me.
But then again,
that rabbit does make me love this country and grundles, for some reason.
All right, your demands have been granted and hopefully,
you learned upwards of seven new things about Who Framed Roger Rabbit,
not counting any bonus things, of course.
And if you guys would ever be up for a part two, let us know.
Feel like I may have made a mistake by opening that door.
Thanks for watching.
Be sure to check out cinefix.com.
And subscribe for more truish things about movies and sometimes men wearing rabbit
costumes when they really don't need to, right here on Things You Didn't Know.
(Music)