![]() As the story progresses, the Judge reveals himself to be disguised: his true form is that of a cartoon. Most baddies wouldn’t be able to survive a steamroller pressing, but Judge Doom is no ordinary baddie. In a kids’ movie, this should be the end of it. A scuffle ensues, and a steamroller makes a pancake out of Judge Doom. After a madcap chase through the city armed with evidence of a sinister conspiracy, Valiant is knocked out and wakes up in front of the Judge, who cops to a whole Toon genocidal plot. So the big-screen existence of an authority like the Judge who blatantly advances a destructive agenda is, as it was for 9-year-old Anya, nothing short of ghastly.īut someone stands up to this monster. Authority figures like school principals and cops are already intimidating and slightly scary when you’re a kid navigating life. When Marvin Acme is murdered, the Judge is ruthless in his hunt for the killer and makes no efforts to sugarcoat his hatred for the Toons of Toontown. Without a hint of empathy, he places quivering, frightened Toons in a vat of pigment-erasing chemicals that he dubs “The Dip.” From his first moments onscreen he is a cold, calculating enforcer of the rules, a monstrification of everything children regard with dread and fear. That element was a pale-faced authority figure clad in black, depicted by Christopher Lloyd: Judge Doom.ĭoom is the feared magistrate of Toontown with a Final Solution for any and all law-breaking Toons in his jurisdiction. I would fast-forward the VHS tape to avoid it, staring at the floor and counting Mississippis until the requisite amount of time had passed and I could safely press play again. One portion of the film gave me nightmares as a child. There are plenty of memorable elements to the story: Alan Silvestri’s Bogart-in-a-funhouse musical soundtrack, the shared universe allowing Droopy, Porky Pig, Betty Boop, and Mickey Mouse to share a scene together, and the groundbreaking car chase sequence combining live-action with animation all make for a fun pulp smashup.īut it was not all fun. A washed-up gumshoe (Eddie Valiant, played with pure sportsmanship by Bob Hoskins) with a boozy habit takes on a simple private investigation case and ends up in over his head in a vast, industry-wide plot. Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit is re-calibrated noir that lurks in the same playground as The Long Goodbye. Today marks the 30th anniversary of the only family film to draw a direct line from the death of cartoons to the origin of the modern highway system.
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