Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) - 7 questions

Question: I never understood the "shave and a haircut" trick that Doom uses to lure out Roger. Why does Roger burst through the wall and yell "Two bits!" just to get caught? I never got it and its never explained.

Answer: The musical notes that accompany the lines are a staple in nearly every cartoon ever drawn. Hence Doom's insistance that "no toon can resist" it. It drives Roger nuts that Doom isn't finishing the ditty.

Question: When Eddie is fighting Doom at the end he spots a box with a singing sword in it. He whips it out and sure enough, the sword starts singing. My question is, why would there even be a singing sword? Is this a reference to something else?

Answer: One of the legends of Excalibur says that the sword sang when Arthur pulled it from the stone. Bugs Bunny went on a quest for the singing sword in a cartoon once, so there's historical AND cartoon precedence for singing swords.

Question: Why is Betty Boop a black & white "Toon"? She makes the remark to Eddie that things have been tough since everything went to colour, but it was the development of coloured film that was different. Wouldn't "Toons" always have been coloured, but only filmed with the black & white film of the day? So shouldn't Betty Boop have also been a coloured "Toon", just like Mickey Mouse, who was also a black & white cartoon when he first appeared on film in "Steamboat Willy" in 1928, but is seen as a coloured "Toon" at the end of the film. Also if black & white "Toons" can become colourized, then why didn't Betty have this process done?

Answer: Toons are made of ink. There would have been no reason for them to be made of colored ink before there were colored films. The black and white and colored characters would have been played by different toons. Steamboat Willy doesn't look much like modern Mickey Mouse so it must be a different "actor" playing the role. Modern soap operas do this all the time - a brunette character goes away for a while and comes back as a blonde a foot taller.

Question: This movie wouldn't be anything special at all in these days; now they put everything into the computers and voilà. So, could anybody tell me (with direct examples) how did they make the interaction between Toons and humans without any CGI?

Answer: They used a lot of practical trickery. In the bar scene where Roger is smashing plates on his head, they had a robot arm with a suction cup that would grab a plate and smash it on a metal rod where the head would be. The Weasels' guns were suspended by wires (watch the guns as they carry them. The movement is more characteristic of being hung than held). They had a robot arm that they could place a drink in to make it look like Roger was drinking a shot of whisky. This was used in Maroon's office (while Roger is sitting on the chair), and in the bar (when Eddy pulls the whole "You don't"/"I do" trick). Watch the scene where Roger takes the drink in the bar. Right after taking the drink and before the cut, his arm very conspicuously stays in a somewhat unusually rigid angle. They had to keep the arm there to cover up the robotic arm. They also had a little buggy for Bob Hoskins to ride around in when he was in Benny. The wheel that Hoskins holds was useless on the buggy and the vehicle was controlled by someone else.

Question: In one movie trailer way back when the movie first came out there was a cut scene in which Eddie turns into cartoon pig. Is there any DVD that includes this scene?

Answer: Yes, on the most recent DVD, it shows a sequence when Eddie is in Toontown and he begins turning into a pig. It also shows how the sequence was made. I think it shows it on Disc 2.

Question: in the very end when judge doom is "dipped", the other toons ask who he was, does anyone out in movie land know who he was supposed to be?

Answer: I don't think he was supposed to be any established cartoon character; they just wanted to know who the pile of goo on the floor used to be.

Question: In the scene with Donald Duck and Daffy Duck on the piano, it seems as if Donald calls Daffy a racial slur. I was just wondering if anybody knows what he says and if it's true?

Answer: He allegedly says "Go***mn stupid ni**er!' but the closed captioning claims that Donald calls Daffy a "Goddurn stubborn nitwit." But what he actually says is almost certainly the same thing he shouts in nearly every Donald Duck cartoon: some variant of "Why you doggone little..." Go to http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/donald.htm for more info.