From the We're All getting Older And There's Nothing We Can Do About It Department:
Roger Rabbit just turned 25. I was surprised at the news, but checking back I see the crazy 'toon is indeed a quarter of a decade old. My drawing represents my age more than the rabbit's. Roger deserves better and indeed he still looks great in his movie, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988).
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" seems groundbreaking for combining live action footage with hand-drawn animation, but this technology had been used for decades before. in the case of Roger Rabbit, nobody had attempted it on such a large scale. Post-production for the film took months of painstaking hand-drawn labour.
The true genius of the film lies with its animation director, Richard Williams. Williams, who lived mostly outside of the big studio system, was able to convince Disney, Warner Brothers, and other producers to release their characters to him for the Roger Rabbit film. This was likely the only way that characters from the major animation houses could all be seen at once. No salaried studio director would ever be allowed to have Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny on-screen at the same time, let alone the dozens of recognizable cartoon characters from Disney, Warner's, MGM, Fliescher, and other studios.
In addition, Williams created Roger, his va-va-voom wife Jessica, Benny The Cab, and several other characters custom-made for the film. A towering animation talent, Richard Williams also wrote what I consider the best practical guide to animation, the revered "Animator's Survival Kit" (2001, 2012).
Roger Rabbit is the intellectual property of The Walt Disney Company.
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