WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT – Midnights This Weekend at The Tivoli

“Roger, darling. I want you to know I love you. I’ve loved you more than any woman’s ever loved a rabbit. “

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT screens midnights this weekend (July 3rd and 4th) at The Tivoli Theater as part of their ‘Reel Late at The Tivoli’ Midnight Series. It will also screen at 10am Saturday July 4th

Only someone with a heart of stone can’t love WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, a classic mix from 1988 of live-action and animation which united Disney’s classic characters with the Looney Toons.

In an alternative version of 1947 humans and cartoon characters (Toons) live together in Hollywood. The Toons have their own home, Toontown, but there star in live-action films and can do almost anything. Hard-boiled, heavy drinking Private Detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), whose brother was murdered by a Toon, is assigned a case by a movie studio to take incriminating photos of Jessica Rabbit (voiced Kathleen Turner) and Acme Corporation owner Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye) to get Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer) to focus on his latest movie. But when Marvin Acme is found dead Roger Rabbit is the prime suspect, with the sadistic Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) is determined to destroy the Toon. But upon further investigation by Valiant he discovers a wider conspiracy over the ownership of Toontown.

With a budget of $70 Million WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT was an expensive film for its time. Director Robert Zemeckis was a pioneering director in terms of state-of-the-art technology and he used it to great effect, blending live-action and animation together. It may seem crude compared to Pixar, but the animation in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT is very much of the style of Looney Toons cartoons that we used to watch when we were younger, especially the Tom and Jerry shorts.

Read my interview with Charles Fleischer, voice of Roger Rabbit HERE

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT was Bob Hoskins’ first major Hollywood film and he does a great job as does Christopher Lloyd as Judge Doom, a most menacing villain. Fans of animation will love that the major cartoon characters from Disney, Warner Bros., and other studios, are in this film. What is truly amazing is how the Toons and the humans actually interact and how well that effect holds up almost 30 years later. There are also very funny and clever sight gags, many of them a tribute to the cartoon shorts of yesteryear. The script pays tribute to the history of animation at times, and has some funny lines as well. If you’re a fan of classic cartoons, or just want laughs and excitement and haven’t seen WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT in a while, you’ll have your chance this weekend when WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT screens at midnights at the Tivoli Friday and Saturday (July 3^rd and 4^th). If you can’t handle staying up that late, there is a morning show Saturday, July 4^th at 10am.

Admission is $8. Hope to see everyone this weekend at The Tivoli!