Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American live-action/animated comedy mystery film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts, and written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman. Loosely based on the 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf, the film stars Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Charles Fleischer, Stubby Kaye, and Joanna Cassidy. Set in a 1947 version of Hollywood where cartoon characters (commonly referred as "toons") and people co-exist, the film follows Eddie Valiant, a private investigator who must exonerate Roger Rabbit, a toon who has been accused of murdering a wealthy businessman.
Walt Disney Pictures purchased the film rights for the film's story in 1981. Price and Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought in executive producer Steven Spielberg and his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Zemeckis was brought on to direct the film while Canadian animator Richard Williams was hired to supervise the animation sequences. Production was moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams and his group of animators. While filming, the production budget began to rapidly expand and the shooting schedule ran longer than expected.
The film was released through Disney's Touchstone Pictures banner on June 22, 1988. It received acclaim from critics, who praised its visuals, humor, writing and performances, with critics and audiences considering it to be "groundbreaking". It grossed $329.8 million worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing films in the year. It brought a renewed interest in the Golden age of American animation, spearheading modern American animation and the Disney Renaissance. It won three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects and received a Special Achievement Academy Award for its animation direction by Williams. In 2016, it was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot[]
In 1947 Los Angeles, "toons" act in theatrical cartoon shorts as with live-action films; they regularly interact with real people and animals and reside in Toontown. Private detective Eddie Valiant and his brother, Teddy, once worked closely with the toons on several famous cases, but after Teddy was killed by a toon, Eddie lapsed into alcoholism, lost his sense of humor, and vowed never to work for toons again.
R.K. Maroon, head of Maroon Cartoon Studios, is concerned about the recent poor performances of one of his biggest stars, Roger Rabbit. Maroon hires Eddie to investigate rumors about Roger's attractive toon wife Jessica being romantically involved with businessman Marvin Acme, owner of both Acme Corporation and Toontown. After watching Jessica perform at an underground nightclub, Eddie secretly photographs her and Acme playing patty-cake in her dressing room, which he shows to Roger. Roger angrily declares that he and his wife will be happy, and he flees.
The next morning, Acme is discovered dead at his factory, and evidence points to Roger being responsible. While investigating, Eddie meets Judge Doom, Toontown's sinister superior court judge, who has created a chemical substance capable of killing the otherwise invulnerable toons: a toxic "dip". Eddie later runs into Roger's toon co-star, Baby Herman, who believes Roger is innocent and that Acme's missing will, which will give the toons ownership of Toontown, may be the key to his murder. In his office, Eddie finds Roger, who begs him to help exonerate him. Eddie reluctantly hides Roger in a local bar, where his girlfriend Dolores works. Jessica approaches Eddie and says that Maroon forced her to pose for the photographs so he could blackmail Acme.
Doom and his toon weasel henchmen discover Roger, but he and Eddie escape with Benny, an anthropomorphic taxicab. They flee to a theater, where Eddie tells Roger about the tragic loss of his brother when they were investigating a bank robbery. As they leave with Dolores, Eddie sees a newsreel detailing the sale of Maroon Cartoons to Cloverleaf, a mysterious corporation that bought the city's trolley network shortly before Acme's murder. Eddie goes to the studio to interrogate Maroon, leaving Roger to guard outside, but Jessica knocks Roger out and puts him inside the trunk of her car. Maroon tells Eddie that he blackmailed Acme into selling his company so he could sell the studio, then admits he only did so out of fear for the safety of the toons. Maroon is killed by an unseen assailant before he can explain the consequences of the missing will. Eddie spots Jessica fleeing the scene, and assuming she is the culprit, follows her into Toontown. Once he apprehends her, Jessica reveals that Doom killed Acme and Maroon and that Acme gave her his will for safekeeping, but she discovered that the will was blank. She and Eddie are then captured by Doom and the weasels.
At the Acme factory, Doom reveals his plot to destroy Toontown with a machine loaded with dip to build a freeway, the only way past Toontown since Cloverleaf (which Doom owns) has bought out Los Angeles' Pacific Electric Railway. Roger unsuccessfully attempts to save Jessica, and the couple is tied onto a hook in front of the machine's hose. Eddie performs a comedic vaudeville act full of pratfalls, causing the weasels to die of laughter; Eddie kicks their leader into the machine's dip vat. Eddie fights Doom, who is flattened by a steamroller but survives, exposing himself as the very toon who killed Teddy. Eddie empties the machine's dip supply onto Doom and he dissolves.
The empty machine crashes through the wall into Toontown, where it is destroyed by a train. Toons run in to see Doom's remains, and Eddie reveals him to the arriving police officers as Acme's murderer, thus clearing Roger's name. Eddie discovers that Roger inadvertently wrote a love letter for Jessica on Acme's will, which was written in disappearing/reappearing ink, and Toontown is handed over to the toons. Having regained his sense of humor, Eddie happily enters Toontown with Dolores alongside Roger, Jessica, and the other toons.
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