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Who Framed Roger Rabbit is structured as gumshoe film noir, but dominated by wit and an animated riot of colors. Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer) is a famous and successful cartoon film star who's a little off his game. His boss, studio head R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) hires Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), a down-on-his-luck private detective who's been drinking too much since a Toon murdered his brother. Maroon wants Valiant to take revealing photographs of gag-product king Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye) and Roger's wife Jessica (an uncredited Kathleen Turner provided the spoken voice; the then Mrs. Spielberg, Amy Irving, performed Jessica's song - Amblin Entertainment was the production company). Maroon explains that a shot of reality should bring Roger back to his senses. But hey, Roger is a Toon.

Soon after Valiant delivers the photos to Maroon and Roger is given the bad news, Acme is murdered. Roger becomes the prime suspect. And there's a MacGuffin, Acme's Will. At stake is the fate of Toontown, the enclave where all Toons reside. As Judge Doom (a great turn by Christopher Lloyd), the criminal court magistrate who presides over Toontown, pursues Roger with the aid of his relentless weasels, Roger flees to Valiant and pleads for help. What follows is a blend of outrageous characters and situations wrapped in a surprisingly sensible (and satirical) plot that may have drawn its inspiration from Chinatown. Very funny and extremely clever, Roger Rabbit is highly entertaining. A special mention must be made of Bob Hoskins' remarkable achievement as he played against absolutely nothing, letting his imagination guide his convincing performance.

Jeffrey Price wrote the wonderful screenplay, which was based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? How ironic. There were scenes in 1999 DVD release that were censored. The first is rather early in the film. Baby Herman storms off the set and leers up a woman's dress as he walks between her legs. In the theatrical version, his arm extends up under her dress, finger extended for a goose, causing her to jump. The '99 DVD was strictly a non-contact version; Herman's hand remains at his side. I'm pleased to report that Buena Vista has tried to satisfy the irate fan base by restoring the extended arm, but has toned down the goose by eliminating the finger. The second scene occurs much later in the film as Benny the Cab crashes into a light pole, tossing Jessica and Valiant into the air. As Jessica spins, her skirt flies above her waste. In the '99 DVD version, Buena Vista put the underwear-free Jessica in some tidy whiteys. In the latest version, Buena Vista has decided that even that may be too risque. Jessica's red gown has been extended to cover her crotch. And during the commentary, it's confirmed that Betty Boop flashed Valiant in the Ink & Paint Club; those frames were excised from the film. Sigh. Don't you just love it when a studio is so damn condescending?

Despite that fact that we're talking about only a few frames of a 104-minute film, I remain appalled at this bastardization of the original work. I wonder... Did Zemeckis approve of the changes? It's beyond my comprehension that a film that contains mild profanities, two scenes in which one could make the case for groping, double-entendres, young children who smoke, and nasty cartoon death by dip, needed any censorship at all. Foolish. Prudish. Sacrilege.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film's theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in splendid anamorphic video on disc two of this 2-DVD set. Edge halos are occasionally visible, but they never intrude. Small object detail and fine textures are outstanding. The riot of toon colors is painted vividly to the screen without any smearing or chroma noise. Shadow detail is excellent during the nighttime scenes. I noticed no instances of blocking or mosquito noise. This is a great looking DVD that nicely creates the illusion of film and is so much better than the '99 release that any comparison is superfluous.

A second transfer in full screen may be found on the first disc. A quick check reveals that like many films shot for soft-matte, more of the image is visible at the top and bottom of the screen and a bit has been cropped from the right and left edges of the widescreen image. But this only applies to the live action shots whether or not animation has been superimposed. For fully animated sequences in Toontown whether or not Valiant was superimposed, the film has been pan & scanned. This is understandable considering the expense of animation.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The second DVD offers the choice of two 5.1 soundtracks, one in Dolby Digital and the other in DTS. As with the previous release, the mix seems to have been derived from the original Dolby Surround elements. No discrete surround effects are audible individually in the left or right rear speakers; in other words, the surround information is monaural and the same amplitude on each of the rear channels. Do not enable EX decoding; the surround information will collapse to the center surround. The extreme upper and lower octaves are somewhat lacking. Sound effects and dialog remain well presented. Individual voices from many characters within overlapping dialog can be discerned easily.

Alan Silvestri's score (a fusion of jazz and action/adventure orchestral, one of his best and much prized by CD motion picture score collectors) is presented with greater fidelity than the other sound elements. In fact, as I performed the inevitable comparison between Dolby Digital and DTS, it was only the score that demonstrated an audible improvement in timbre with the DTS track. Note that only the anamorphic transfer has DTS. Apparently families don't appreciate the alternative 5.1 audio format.

The alternate language tracks are in French and Spanish on both transfers. And on each the audio is supported by subtitles in English, for which Closed Captions are also provided.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Buena Vista Home Entertainment has more than made up for the featureless release of 1999 with a rich array of quality supplements in this Vista Series DVD. The clever packaging includes two autographed photos, one of Roger and one of Jessica. A coupon is included to refund $5 to owners of the previous DVD release, a nice touch. The discs' clever user interface features a blend of live action and animation wrapped around Benny the Cab.

On disc one, at the Ink & Paint Club are found two trailers, one for Schoolhouse Rock, the other, Ultimate X. Valiant's Office actually takes you to the audio and caption setup menus for this disc, as well as the THX Optimizer. You really want to go directly to The Acme Warehouse. It's here that you'll find the real supplements on disc one. This supplement gives away the location of the menu - a shipping box - but there are many other choices that initiate clever gags. Explore and enjoy. On the menu, you'll find a short promotional featurette (10:57), featuring Charles Fleischer, called Who Made Roger Rabbit. Made in 1988 it appears to have been produced to publicize the film on commercial television. It's here that we get a first glimpse of the costume the off-camera Fleischer insisted on receiving and wearing. I guess he's a method actor. “Trouble in Toontown” is a droll but ultimately tedious DVD game that will appeal to the young.

The highlight of this disc is the inclusion of the three Roger Rabbit Shorts produced for the motion picture theater: Tummy Trouble; Rollercoaster Rabbit; and, Trail Mix-Up. These cute shorts are presented in splendid anamorphic video and with real Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. Unlike the feature, amusing surround effects are discrete, and EX decoding will enhance the experience. I'm delighted that BVHE finally issued them.

Disc 2 offers the bulk of the supplements. First and best is a feature-length, screen-specific commentary by Robert Zemeckis, Frank Marshall, Jeffrey Price, Peter Seaman, Steve Starkey, and Ken Ralston. Roger Rabbit was an extremely difficult film to create, and assembling these bright and skillful filmmakers in one room to reminisce about their love-hate relationship with the film is a delight. We learn about the origins of the film and the process of arriving at just the right appearance and voice for each animated character. Spielberg is credited with the first onscreen blend of Disney and Warner Bros. cartoon characters. I really enjoyed the technical nature of the commentary, a discussion of how the interactions between live action and animation were accomplished. And the participants seem to be having such a good time, joking around as they reminisced and laughing at the film, it was easy to join in the fun.

Select Toontown Confidential and you enable an almost continuous barrage of pop-up trivia displayed in yellow lettering against a translucent blue rectangle over the running film. There is much detail to be shared, almost none duplicated elsewhere. The real challenge is reading the trivia while listening to the commentary. A deleted scene entitled The Pig Head Sequence (3:53) and shown in full frame is introduced by director Robert Zemeckis (1:37), Visual Effects Supervisor Ken Ralston, and Supervising Animator Simon Wells. We get to see the raw footage and how it would have looked in the theatrical version; now we know why Valiant walked out of his office bathroom shirtless.

Valiant Files is a combination of game and supplement in which you can snoop around Valiant's office to discover all kinds of interesting stuff. The game might require you to find the combination to Valiant's safe before you can access some of the material. But for the impatient, you can bypass the time-consuming interface and use a simple list to navigate to character development, photos, production artwork, and promotional materials. It's called the Valiant File Cheat Sheet and its icon is just to the left of the light bulb. Choosing the light bulb provides instructions. There are dozens of stills to educate you and consume your afternoon.

Before and After (3:08) is a split screen feature that demonstrates how several of the special effects shots, integrating live action and animation, were accomplished. In the bottom window runs the blue screen shot; shown synchronized in the top window is the finished sequence. The two windows are shown within a full screen format. A revealing little featurette entitled Toon Stand-Ins (3:15) divulges that the actors rehearsed with full sized rubber puppets to establish their eye lines and become comfortable with the inertia of the yet to be animated characters. Director Zemeckis and Associate Producer Steve Starkey offer comments to narrate what we see.

Behind The Ears: The True Story of Rober Rabbit (36:36) is a delightful, newly-produced documentary that takes us through the production of the film. Robert Zemeckis, Don Hahn, Richard Williams, Arthur Schmidt, Steve Starkey, Bob Hoskins, and Charles Fleischer offer comments and anecdotes. I was somewhat surprised to learn that the production of Roger Rabbit was a matter of faith. So groundbreaking were the techniques - so uncertain was the outcome - that the film was essentially shot seat-of-the-pants.

On Set! (4:51) is the next featurette. We're transported to the locations where the Benny the Cab sequence was filmed. We learn that Hoskins was sitting on a souped-up go-cart driven by a driver seated below and behind him. The animation overlaid the physical cart to create Benny. We also get to see how the filmmakers pulled off Benny's bridge sequence. Finally, we have another THX Optimizer to calibrate your system for this DVD. The 104-minute feature is organized into eighteen chapters.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

Nothing special here. After the Touchstone skin loads on top of the InterActual player, you have the choice of visiting the Touchstone Official Web Site, visit the Disney Movie Finder, enter a sweepstakes, and register your DVD.

Parting Thoughts