Who Framed Roger Rabbit

The title of the book by Gary K. Wolf "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" could be considered an omen for its film adaptation. Some of you may know that the film was slightly altered when it was released on home video. Animators in the pre-VHS era liked to have fun with their characters and several scenes were spiced up in such a way that, at 24 frames per second, only the most trained pair of eyes could actually see it.

Apparently, in the theatrical version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Jessica revealed a little too much during her car accident, Betty Boop (voiced by legendary Mae Questel) went topless trying to adjust her stockings, and Baby Herman put his finger exactly where you’d expect he would. All of these were digitally altered subsequently.

Betty Boob

Obviously, the film rights to the non-Disney characters were negotiated with more ease with Steven Spielberg on board as producer, still, some scenes were planned with Superman, Popeye, Tom & Jerry, Casper, etc. and ultimately dropped for legal issues mostly. Look for some characters that did not make the final cut on the special edition DVD.

More importantly, an entire sequence was deleted from the feature to keep the pace of the story going, even though a brief moment of it appears in the trailer. Ironically the first completed animated sequence was in that scene, a parody of the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Storyboard of Marvin Acme's funeral

Known as “The pig head sequence”, it was supposed to take place right after Eddie frees himself from the handcuffs. He then attends Marvin Acme's funeral, and later sneaks back into the ink-and-paint club where he gets caught by Judge Doom while trying to snoop. He is taken into Toontown by the weasels where he gets “toon-a-rooned” (a giant toon pig head is stuck to his own head) as a punishment. He runs back home, gets a turpentine shower to erase the head which falls down the drain (that’s the shot I meant earlier).

The following scene where Eddie gets out of the bathroom to find Jessica Rabbit is in his living room is included in the final cut, but to justify Eddie’s visit to the bathroom, the sound of a toilet flushing was added to the mix.

The scene (minus the funeral, apparently never filmed) is included in the bonus features of the special edition DVD. The animation, sound effects and music were apparently completed. The DVD also includes rough animation and raw footage without the animation, which gives you a glimpse of how the special effects were created: Bob Hoskins wore a metal armature on his head onto which the head of the pig was later drawn.

Interestingly enough, Jessica Rabbit was modeled mainly after none other that Veronica Lake, a perfect movie icon from the 1940s which I wrote about in a previous article. To make her figure even more special that it already was, they designed it so that, when she walked, her bosom would move up when a normal woman's would move down and vice and versa.

Finally, did you know that the toon shoe sacrificed by judge doom to demonstrate the use of the dip is voiced by none other that Bart Simpson's voice talent Nancy Cartwright the year before the Simpsons first aired.
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That's all for today folks!