Roger Rabbit

[Mad Monkey 7]

How many of you miss good old Roger Rabbit? I for one miss him very much. Unfourtanly, Michael Eisner and Steven Spielberg don't like each other right now and that hurting Roger from returning to the big screen. You see Spielberg owns one of half and Disney owns the other. Disney still does some Roger merchandise and Benny The Cab has appeared on "The House Of Mouse" but still Roger has not appeared in any form on TV or Movie. Roger can still be seen walking at Toyko Disneyland and Disneyland Paris but not Walt Disney World or Disneyland. I wish Disney would do a better DVD of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" since the current didn't really have much on it. Man, they could do a plantinum edition DVD like Snow White with a ton of extra like the making of Roger Rabbit, all of the shorts, deleted scences, Interviews with famous animator from that era, and more.
What do you think?

[Calhoun07]

I think you might be happy to know that there is a special edition of Roger Rabbit coming to DVD soon. The news just got posted on the DVD Discussion board.

[Chibi Kageboshi]

I think a new Roger Rabbit movie would be awesome as long as they dont try to make him CGI

[Calhoun07]

A CGI Roger Rabbit would really defeat the purpose of the first movie, tho perhaps in the new Roger Rabbit movie we could see a new section of Toon Town with CGI characters moving in and ruining the neighborhood! :p

[Terminatah]

Originally posted by calhoun07
A CGI Roger Rabbit would really defeat the purpose of the first movie, tho perhaps in the new Roger Rabbit movie we could see a new section of Toon Town with CGI characters moving in and ruining the neighborhood! :p

Ha, that's good. There have been a couple of scripts (supposedly well-written) floating around for Roger Rabbit 2. But, as Mad Monkey 7 noted, Eisner and Spielberg's feud have driven the series into a dead end. It all started when Disney put a Roger Rabbit short in front of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, which turned out to do very well at the box office. Another short was immediately put into production. When it was finished, Disney wanted to put it in front of Dick Tracy, but Spielberg requested that it be put in front of Arachnophobia. Disney got its way, Dick Tracy pulled in a nice box office sum, and Arachnophobia bombed. But Spielberg is not used to being pushed around. So he patiently waited until Disney started producing another short, which it intended to put before The Rocketeer, then he decided he had a problem with the story and halted production. Attempted rewrites didn't satisfy him, so it was shelved. The Rocketeer came out without the Roger Rabbit short and didn't do so well money-wise. Some people think it could've used that extra boost in ticket sales that Roger might have brought it.

Maybe if Disney had been a little less stingy with those silly shorts, Roger Rabbit might still be alive and kicking today.

-Terminatah

[Calhoun07]

I remember the short before Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I wonder if it will be on the DVD? It was on the video release. Or will the shorts be on the new SE of Roger Rabbit on DVD?

[Joe Tully]

I really hope they put all 5(?) Roger shorts on the DVD. There have been a lot of specials on Roger. I know I have something I taped off of TV called "The Secrets of Toontown" and there was lots of similar stuff on The Disney Channel way back when it came out. There's definitely a lot of documentary-type stuff to throw in there that's already been done and would be very easy to tack on to a DVD.

I wonder if the next DVD will contain some of the interesting edits I've heard about? ;)

[Mad Monkey 7]

A new special edition DVD. This is true? If so I am so happy :)

For the record, Roger had three animated shorts:
"Tummy Troubles" featured with "Honey I Shrunk The Kids"
"Rollercoaster Rabbit" featured with "Dick Tracey"
"Trail Mix up" , I forge the movie it was featured with.
Any way, a while back ( I would say about 1996) Disney release all of the shorts on video under "Disney & Spielberg present the Best Of Roger Rabbit."

[Calhoun07]

Ok, who's got a run of the comic book?

[Joe Tully]

I have it! I think I might be missing the last issue or two. I dropped it near the end. I think that was the first comic that I started buying.

[killercroc]

Originally posted by Terminatah


Ha, that's good. There have been a couple of scripts (supposedly well-written) floating around for Roger Rabbit 2. But, as Mad Monkey 7 noted, Eisner and Spielberg's feud have driven the series into a dead end. It all started when Disney put a Roger Rabbit short in front of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, which turned out to do very well at the box office. Another short was immediately put into production. When it was finished, Disney wanted to put it in front of Dick Tracy, but Spielberg requested that it be put in front of Arachnophobia. Disney got its way, Dick Tracy pulled in a nice box office sum, and Arachnophobia bombed. But Spielberg is not used to being pushed around. So he patiently waited until Disney started producing another short, which it intended to put before The Rocketeer, then he decided he had a problem with the story and halted production. Attempted rewrites didn't satisfy him, so it was shelved. The Rocketeer came out without the Roger Rabbit short and didn't do so well money-wise. Some people think it could've used that extra boost in ticket sales that Roger might have brought it.

Maybe if Disney had been a little less stingy with those silly shorts, Roger Rabbit might still be alive and kicking today.

-Terminatah

Jeeze, does anyone care about the fans anymore?

[Calhoun07]

You mean there was a time they did?

[Brandon Pierce]

HMPH! I would like it if the original Roger Rabbit novel was re-released so I could read it and see what it's like. Has anyone here read it?

[Kaner]

I have a copy of the book (originally titled "Who Censored Roger Rabbit") and it is drastically different from the movie. For one thing the Toons are more like comic strip characters than cartoon characters. When they speak, word ballons form in the air and eventually desolve. Instead of being in motion pictures, the toons are photographed for toon strips in the paper. Eddie Valiant is somewhat the same character, but he's not so much the washed up booze hound he is in the movie. And IIRC the only other main character , besides Eddie and Roger, that appears in both the book and movie is Jessica.

The nice thing about the differences between the movie and book are that they make for two seperate and enjoyable Roger stories. One could be considered to be the AU version of the other. Errr I hope that made sense.

Anywho, you should be able to find a copy online somewhere. My copy is from the third printing so I'm sure there are plenty of them floating around.

-JerkBox

[TimTwoFace]

Hey all, as this is an animation-based thread, I'm gonna move this over to the WBC General Animation forum. I hope the mods here don't mind. :)

-Tim

[StrangerAtaru]

I remember both the Rodger Rabbit movie and a couple of shorts that went with it. (partially because I saw both "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and "Dick Tracy" in theaters) I also remember something to do with a cartoon that takes place at a hospital, but I don't know which one that was. (but I do remember "Tummy Troubles" and "Rollercoaster Rabbit")

Believe it or not, I also read (somewhat, I never finished it and it was either in middle or high school) "Who Censored Rodger Rabbit", and that was somewhat interesting as well. All I remember about it, though, was that it took place in a then-contemporary time and this weird thing where Rodger dies, yet a temporary clone appears to help Eddie solve the mystery over who did it.

[Jack]

It's sad that Roger's career ended so early. Had he been allowed to flourish, it could have meant the rebirth of the theatrical short cartoon industry. It might have led to other new characters and series.


Jack :(

[TimTwoFace]

I personally loved WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, and it's among my favourite animated movies of all time. I always wished they'd make the sequel, because there are so many good ways in which this series could lead.

Not only was it creative, innovative, and animated beautifully, but it had a good theme of racism in the movie, as well. Toontown was like their own ghetto, in a way.

I also think that CGI-part-of-town would be kinda cool, too. Of course, the movie would have to be set in the 90's (at least) to make that work. But then again, cartoons never age, so ya never know.

Man, just imagine all the possible cameos that could happen if a sequel were set in the 90's.

-Tim

[Kaner]

If they made a sequal, they could add an international district (Little Tokyo) to Toontown where all the anime characters hang out.

-JerkBox

[Philip Kippel]

Here's an update on the "Save Roger Rabbit" petition that I started this past June:

As of today (10/11/2002), the current number of signatures is 903.

The address for this petition is:

http://www.petitiononline.com/RRABBIT/petition.html

P-P-P-P-P-P-Please sign it and tell others about it.

Remember: you have until December 31st to sign this petition. The petition will then be forwarded to Michael Eisner and Steven Spielberg.

Thank you.