Pulling a Rabbit Out of a Hat

The Making of Roger Rabbit

Ross Anderson

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781496822307
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Animation

Who Framed Roger Rabbit emerged at a nexus of people, technology, and circumstances that is historically, culturally, and aesthetically momentous. By the 1980s, animation seemed a dying art. Not even the Walt Disney Company, which had already won over thirty Academy Awards, could stop what appeared to be the end of an animation era. To revitalize popular interest in animation, Disney needed to reach outside its own studio and create the distinctive film that helped usher in a Disney Renaissance. That film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, though expensive and controversial, debuted in theaters to huge success at the box office in 1988. Unique in its conceit of cartoons living in the real world, Who Framed Roger Rabbit magically blended live action and animation, carrying with it a humor that still resonates with audiences. Upon the film's release, Disney's marketing program led the audience to believe that Who Framed Roger Rabbit was made solely by director Bob Zemeckis, director of animation Dick Williams, and the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, though many Disney animators contributed to the project. Author Ross Anderson interviewed over 140 artists to tell the story of how they created something truly magical. Anderson describes the ways in which the Roger Rabbit characters have been used in film shorts, commercials, and merchandising, and how they have remained a cultural touchstone today.

Chapter One

EARLY DAYS AT DISNEY

Who Censored Roger Rabbit?—The Novel

“Look at this, children. Look at this silly picture. Everybody knows cows are black, brown, or white. Never, ever are cows blue.” These are the words of Gary K. Wolf’s first-grade teacher when she criticized him in front of his classmates after handing in a coloring assignment showing a brightly colored blue cow. Wolf says, “I had heard my mother say that when people were sad, they were blue. The cow looked so lonely out there all alone in the field. I figured she must be blue, too.” His mother went to the school, where the teacher told her to not let little Gary do that anymore. It was advice she ignored. “The gift that my parents gave to me is that they encouraged me to keep coloring cows blue.”¹

Wolf was an avid reader, devouring all the comic books he could lay his hands on before moving on to noir mysteries and science fiction as he got older. He spent a lot of time in the library, getting a library card at age seven. The librarian often reproached him for selecting books with themes that she considered too adult. His parents encouraged him to read, and chose to not limit the scope of his interests or imagination. His mother made sure that the librarian would not restrict his book choices.²

He followed his interest in science fiction and had three novels in the genre published by Doubleday Books in the 1970s: Killerbowl in 1975, A Generation Removed in 1977, and The Resurrectionist in 1979. Who Censored Roger Rabbit? was Wolf’s fourth published novel.

When Wolf started working on Who Censored Roger Rabbit? he was looking for a way to combine his main interests—comics and mysteries. He went back to reading his comics, studying them for subject material rather than reading them just for entertainment. He also started watching Saturday morning children’s cartoon shows. What intrigued him the most were the commercials. In the commercials, the animated brand representatives routinely interacted with the real world and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Cap’n Crunch, Count Chocula and Frankenberry, the Trix Rabbit, Frosted Flakes’ Tony the Tiger, Rice Krispies’ Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and Lucky Charms’ Lucky the Leprechaun are amongst the advertising cartoon characters that interacted with live-action children. Wolf began to think, “Suppose you entered a world where cartoon characters were real, where would that world be?” He spent years developing a set of internally consistent rules for such a world. He researched what made cartoon characters “cartoony” and studied the conventions of comic strips and cartoons in order to define the parameters of a self-consistent toon/human world.³

In Wolf’s world, the cartoon characters were called “toons.” The toons in the entertainment business were comic strip characters, with comic strips being produced by photographing the toons. Toons spoke in word balloons, although some were capable of verbal speech. The word balloons could sometimes be used as tools or for some “effect,” not unlike how Felix the Cat used his tail. Toons were also able to create doppelgängers. A doppelgänger is a paranormal “double,” or a “shadow self,” although the term is often used to describe people who very closely resemble each other physically. In Wolf’s world, a toon could create another incarnation of itself, which usually crumbled to dust within a few minutes. It would allow them to be in two places at once and also have the doppelgänger serve as a stand-in double for dangerous stunts.

Roger Rabbit is a second banana who hires a private detective, Eddie Valiant, to find out why his employers, the DeGreasy brothers, have reneged on a promise to have him star in his own comic strip. Roger Rabbit is soon found murdered in his home and his final word balloon, found at the scene of the crime, indicates that his murder was a way of “censoring” him. Before he is shot, Roger creates a doppelgänger that lasts for a couple of days and works with Eddie Valiant to solve his murder. Roger had made the doppelgänger for the purpose of going out to buy some new red suspenders.

Wolf’s Roger Rabbit is an amalgam of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse. He wanted Roger Rabbit to be a very moral character. He was to have an innocence without being quite as “nice” as a typical Disney character. Roger was named after Wolf’s first cousin.⁴ Jessica Rabbit comes from Tex Avery’s world and is an amalgam of Red Hot Riding Hood with a bit of grown-up Tinkerbell and a dose of Marilyn Monroe. Over the course of the writing of the novel, Baby Herman evolved to be “Danny DeVito in diapers.”⁵ Eddie Valiant is based on author Mickey Spillane’s detective, Mike Hammer, with lots of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe mixed in.⁶ The cartoon star cameos in the book tend to be comic strip stars, such as Dagwood Bumstead (from the Blondie strip) and Beetle Bailey.

Although Wolf started to think about what would become Who Censored Roger Rabbit? as early as 1971, the novel was not completed until 1980. Wolf had a four-book contract with Doubleday and submitted Who Censored Roger Rabbit? as the fourth book in the contract. Doubleday rejected it. They said that it was “not categorizable” and that there was no “place” for it on bookstore shelves. Wolf asked, “What would you do if somebody brought you The Wizard of Oz, Gulliver’s Travels, or Alice in Wonderland?”—and they answered, “Well, we couldn’t sell those either.” Wolf eventually received 110 rejections in his attempt to find a publisher for the novel.⁷

Luckily for Wolf, Rebecca Martin, an editor at St. Martin’s Press, had just handled a bestseller and was given the opportunity for a “vanity project” just as his manuscript for Who Censored Roger Rabbit? came across her desk. Rebecca wanted to publish it but was told that she could not. She held her ground and went to bat for the book until the publisher relented. Who Censored Roger Rabbit? was published by St. Martin’s Press in 1981; the initial hardback cover print run was quite small.⁸ For the cover, Wolf had a stuffed rabbit made by a Los Angeles toy company and a photo was taken of the toy rabbit, cloaked in a trench coat, from the back, with Wolf himself in a trench coat and fedora, facing the camera. The cover was changed when the novel was published as a paperback. Wolf jokes, “As soon as they took me off the cover, the sales immediately went up.” The cover art shows a square-jawed Eddie Valiant, in trench coat and fedora, and Roger Rabbit posed in front of the Los Angeles City Hall. Roger’s word balloon says, “Help! I’m stuck in a mystery of double-crosses, steamy broads, and killer cream pies.” Roger is drawn as an anthropomorphic rabbit, but more realistic than the cartoony version from the film. He wears yellow pants, with green stylized flower patterns, red suspenders, and a blue bow tie. The paperback was reprinted three or four times, in different editions. The Ballantine Books edition, third printing (July 1988), proclaims, “A Cult Classic!” on the cover. A fifty-thousand-copy print run of a hardcover book club edition was later published.⁹

Disney’s technical excellence with animation and its history with live-action/animation techniques made it seem like an obvious fit for producing a film based on the novel. But … many felt that Star Wars was a film Disney should have made. It didn’t! It made The Black Hole as a response to Star Wars. Yet, it also made Tron, which, although it didn’t capture everybody’s imagination, was an adult departure from what it had done in the past and full of technical innovation. Wolf’s novel was edgy and dark. It was a cartoon world, but with adult themes. Walt Disney was unafraid of producing films covering the entire range of human emotions. He was constantly challenging his artists … and each film was different from the last. Walt Disney was long deceased in 1981, yet people were still asking, “What would Walt do?” The daring had stopped, and Disney was stuck in the groove of Walt’s last presence. Progressive elements within the Disney organization saw the potential of the Gary K. Wolf novel and acted on it. Disney acquired the film rights to Who Censored Roger Rabbit? It is important to understand the situation at the Disney Studios in 1981 to understand the difficult path for development of the Roger Rabbit film.

Disney Studios—1981

Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966. He left a legacy, but he did not leave a creative successor. His brother and partner, Roy O. Disney, always had Walt’s back and postponed his retirement to see the first iteration of Walt’s dream of something bigger than a theme park through to completion. Walt Disney World was opened in 1971. The first major expansion, EPCOT, opened in 1981, with Tokyo Disneyland to follow in 1982. The theme parks were big business and were the focus of much of the Disney executive management attention. At the Disney Studios there was no real leader. In 1981, they were still asking, “What would Walt do?” They were not Walt Disney; and with each effort of challenging themselves, they regressed to their comfort zone. As the legacy Animation leadership retired, leadership fell to the legacy “followers.” It had a real impact when truly exciting properties came into their reach. The acquisition of Who Censored Roger Rabbit? is a case study on inadequate succession planning.

Ron Miller was Walt Disney’s son-in-law. He met Walt’s eldest daughter, Diane, on a blind date while at the University of Southern California. They married in 1954. Miller had played a season in the NFL as a tight end with the Los Angeles Rams. Walt eventually convinced Miller to work for him at the Disney Studios. Miller rose through the producer ranks and became president of Walt Disney Productions in 1978.

Ed Hansen started at the studio in 1952 as an effects artist on Peter Pan. He moved into management in 1972 and took on administrative responsibility for the Animation Department in 1975. The Animation Department was largely left to do what it had been doing, without a great deal of oversight. The expectations were not high, and neither was the motivation. The “Nine Old Men,” who with a few others comprised the Animation Board, had all retired by 1981. The filmmaking was left in the hands of a group of lesser artists who had been waiting in the wings for decades. They were insecure about their standing and they had not been trained as leaders. Their response was to circle the wagons.

The Animation Department had hired only twenty-one people in the previous decade. The studio had established a Training Program in 1972, under the tutelage of Eric Larson, one of the “Nine Old Men.” Walt Disney had championed the establishment of California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), which was formed in 1961 in the merger of the Chouinard Art Institute and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. By the late 1970s, the studio started hiring students and graduates from the CalArts Animation Program, among them Brad Bird, Chris Buck, Tim Burton, Mike Cedeno, Mike Giaimo, Mark Henn, Glen Keane, John Lasseter, Brian McEntee, John Musker, Patty Paulick, Mike Peraza, Joe Ranft, Jerry Rees, Henry Selick, and Darrell Van Citters. John Musker started at the Disney Studios in May 1977, in the week that Star Wars opened—a film matching the sensibilities of the younger animators. The early CalArts hires were frustrated with the situation at the studio. Brad Bird described it as “a dark period at Disney—an awful period when these mediocre guys, who had been at the studio for maybe twenty years but had never been good enough to rise to the top when the old guys were there, were kind of put in charge, and they were looking after their own turf. It was the Peter Principle … these guys were really good at their jobs, but they were taken out of their jobs and made directors—and they were not ‘directors.’”¹⁰ There is no doubt that the CalArts guys were cocky. They were continuing as they had at CalArts, anxious to animate and make films … and happy to set their own agenda. They were also a very talented group.

Disney had planned for a science fiction adventure as early at 1974, but had not followed through with it. After the success of Star Wars, the project, now called The Black Hole, was put into production. It would feature major visual effects, but there was a corporate inertia that would be impossible to overcome with the people who were in place in the studio. In spite of the awe-inspiring visual effects, there was a certain clumsiness because Disney did not have motion-control camera capability at the time. The film did not have a star-laden cast, and the characters seemed shallow and a bit corny. The film was released in late 1979. Tom Wilhite had joined Disney in 1976 as the publicity director. He was put in charge of finding a way to market The Black Hole. He was also frustrated by the isolation of Disney within the film community and the lack of resources applied to film marketing. In this case, he was also frustrated by the stark comparison between The Black Hole and Star Wars. He focused the marketing campaign on the film’s visual effects. The film was only a modest success, but it did move Disney away from the staid period films and corny family comedies that had been the staple for decades. Miller promoted Wilhite to be vice president in charge of development and head of live-action production. Wilhite and Hansen would have a strained and uneasy working relationship.

Wilhite brought Tron into Disney after persuading Miller to buy the script and contract Steven Lisberger’s organization to set up at the Disney Studios. Bill Kroyer had started at Disney in 1977 but had been recruited by Lisberger to work on his developing projects. Kroyer was now back on the Disney lot. Future Disney animators Roger Allers, Barry Cook, and Dave Stephan also came on to the Disney lot with the Tron group.

In 1981, Tom Wilhite was twenty-eight years old, whereas Ed Hansen was fifty-five years old. Wilhite had a wonderful ability for recognizing and cultivating young creative talent. He could “spot” people who were a bit left of center and nurtured their strengths.¹¹ He was very aware of the frustration young animators were feeling in the Animation Department due to his empathy and the similarities in their ages. Many animators, such as John Lasseter, confided in him. Jerry Rees was dissatisfied with the limitations being put on him during production of The Fox and the Hound by directors he felt were unimaginative and derivative. He was curious about the new group setting up offices in the third floor of the Animation Building and asked Wilhite if he could look around. Wilhite listened to Rees’s appeal to be part of the Tron production rather than being unproductive on The Fox and the Hound, and Rees was hired into the new group to do storyboards for Tron with Kroyer.¹²

Wilhite advocated to have John Musker made a co-director on The Black Cauldron in order to ensure the production had the input of a youthful perspective, and it was Musker who advocated for Tim Burton’s outside-of-the-box concept drawings for the film. As the dysfunctional leadership of The Black Cauldron became more apparent and frustration mounted, several animators left Disney and many artists were receptive to other projects. Musker joined Burny Mattinson and Ron Clements on Story for Basil of Baker Street (later renamed The Great Mouse Detective).

When the debate about the direction of The Black Cauldron came to a head, the producer, Joe Hale, made a proclamation: “We are going to do a traditional Disney movie! That is what we are making!” The proclamation was disturbing to many of the young animators. They interpreted it as saying, “Don’t get...