Valiant takes the photographs, but then Acme is murdered and Roger is chief suspect. Valiant, a confirmed Toon-hater, reluctantly accepts from studio boss R K Maroon (Tilvern) the commission to dog Jessica and capture her indiscretions on film, with the intention of shocking Roger out of his anxiety. Another Toon, Roger Rabbit (Fleischer) – co-star in Maroon Cartoons' series of animated shorts starring Baby Herman (Hirsch) – is fluffing his lines because concerned that his wife Jessica (speaking voice Turner singing voice Irving) has become involved with the owner of Toontown, Marvin Acme (Kaye). Private eye Eddie Valiant (Hoskins) has turned to drink since the murder of his brother by a Toon, one of the animated characters who co-exist with humans in this Alternate-World 1947 Tinseltown. Voice cast includes Mel Blanc, Charles Fleischer, Lou Hirsch, Amy Irving, Kathleen Turner (uncredited) and Richard Williams. Cast includes Joanna Cassidy, Bob Hoskins, Stubby Kaye, Christopher Lloyd, Mae Questel and Alan Tilvern. Special effects by Industrial Light & Magic. Written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S Seaman, loosely based on Who Censored Roger Rabbit? ( 1981) by Gary K Wolf. Producers: Frank Marshall and Robert Watts. Animation director: Richard Williams (uncredited). These moments are so enchanting that one almost dreads the inevitable return to the central story line.US live-action/animated film ( 1988). Though the film's sensibility is a resolutely adult one (with plenty of potentially frightening moments for smaller viewers), parents won't be blamed for wanting to show their child the only screen union of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, or a raucous piano duet between Donald Duck and his WB counterpart, Daffy. At these points, viewers are treated to the (unfortunately brief) interaction of cartoon immortals from the Disney/Warner Brothers, and Fleischer stables. What can be re-seen numerous times are the truly magical sequences when Valiant visits toon territories. Zemeckis and company unfortunately dote on the plot's machinations, slowing the movie's pace down to a crawl at a few points. As with any detective story, the film focuses on a myriad of details and double crosses as with any decent farce, the plot is nothing but a pretext for a number of comic situations. Thought to contain the ultimate in technical innovation at the time of its release, the film's landmark mixture of live action and animation is not as impressive today in light of the more sophisticated and complex computer-generated animation featured in features like Shrek and Finding Nemo. The movie that popularized the term "toon," Who Framed Roger Rabbit rightly deserved the four Oscars it won for its imaginative visual effects. Their review is “Yeah! I liked it!” (5 year old) and “Didn’t like it as much as Space Jam” (7 year old). As I say, Christopher Lloyd’s character might be a bit much for some little ones (and even some adults), but any child older than 7 shouldn’t be too stressed. But hey! Toughen your kids up and they’ll grow up well adjusted and happier for it. Also the shoe dying in the dip scene is sad but it needs to be to establish the bad guy as dangerous. There is a moment when this guy gets shot in the back but the actual depiction of that is brief and (funnily enough) a bit cartoon like, so it’s not actually that emotional a moment. And they laughed at all the cartoons and the rest of the adult stuff was mild and brief and over their heads. Don’t you remember when you were little and something on the tv made you run behind the sofa? It didn’t kill you, did it? It toughened you up a bit. It’s teaching them that imaginary worlds and real worlds are distinct, and the fun here in this movie comes from seeing them both put together. They know cartoons like Tom and Jerry and Wile E Coyote and no matter what cartoon mishaps befall those characters, they are back on screen the next moment. They both loved every other second of the film, especially the cartoon violence which they have talked about as “not being real” and how in real life “you can’t be like a cartoon”. Good girl! She could tell what the film was doing. The five year old just sat there totally unaffected and said “he’s the baddie”. I’ve shown this film to my little daughters, 7 and 5, and my 7 year old only freaked out and ran off for a moment when Christopher Lloyd’s character turned into an evil cartoon at the end.
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