For several decades, movie directors have attempted to seamlessly blend live action and animation. In the 1945 film Anchor’s Aweigh, Gene Kelly danced with Jerry Mouse. Dancing penguins served as waiters in Mary Poppins. Michael Jordan played basketball with Bugs Bunny and a multitude of other Looney Tunes. There must be several other examples; however, one of the finest films to combine animated characters and live actors is 1988s Who Framed Roger Rabbit.Bob Hoskins plays Eddie Valient, a middle-aged detective investigating the murder of Marvin Acme (owner of Acme Products and Toontown). The prime suspect: Roger Rabbit, star of Maroon Cartoons. Roger is “framed” for the murder after he discovers that his beloved wife Jessica played pattycake with Acme. Valient (who’s brother was killed by a toon) reluctantly agrees to help Roger clear his good name.But, the plot takes a back seat to the cameo appearances by hundreds of cartoon characters. Black-and-white as well as color toons interact with each other as well as with their human counterparts. Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Betty Boop, and Droopy are just a few of the animated characters seen throughout the movie. Donald and Daffy’s dueling piano scene is priceless. With the cast of characters seen throughout the movie, everyone is sure to find their favorite. Although a majority of the toons were created in the 1940s, most are easily recognizable.
Puh-puh-puh-puleeeeeeze! (Or something like that).
It reminds me that this was the very first game for the old Amiga computer that *required* a hard drive. For the uninitiated, the most popular model at the time was the Amiga 500 which didn’t use a hard drive- it just ran on floppies. For this reason, the games released were always on floppy. One would just stick the disk in the drive and turn on (or reset) the computer- not unlike today’s DVD game systems, or the cartridge-based systems also of the day for that matter. Amiga tended to be seen as a game system rather than a serious computer as a result.
Roger Rabbit was actually not a very fun game. See it in action here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pqp1_yPG5o
Hmm…. Now that I’m looking, I see that game was not actually the movie game, but a sequel based on the movie. The original was not a hard drive game though. Anyway it can be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1To6zj1fMng
Ahhh… one of my favorite movies. We actually just had it on the other night for the kids. It’s one of Taylor’s favorites too. I had the commodore game as a kid. Got it for Christmas one year. I was so excited about it since it was my favorite movie. Then it took FOREVER to load, and since I didn’t know how to play, I’d die right away, and every time I died, it would have to load ALL OVER AGAIN! It took so long, there must have been something wrong with my copy maybe… what a disappointment. GREAT movie though… I used to watch the making of special a lot. Think they said it took 7 years to make that movie. I wish I could find that special now… should check youtube.
There was a Roger Rabbit short on in front of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” that never made it onto the home video versions… wonder why…. “Tummy Trouble.” http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ap6VAu7qNM4