YMMV / Who Framed Roger Rabbit

• Adaptation Displacement: Considerably more well-known than the source novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?. So much so that the movie displaced the book's continuity, with author Gary K. Wolf completely disregarding the continuity of his first book and writing the sequels so that they were set in the film's setting instead.
• Adorkable: Roger's speech impediments and clumsiness make him so surprisingly endearing.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • With The Reveal of Judge Doom being a toon, Eddie is initially shocked, then immediately backpedals and claims he's not surprised. Did he simply piece things together in the few seconds between those statements, or was he too embarrassed to have not made the connection before and is just trying to save face? It's also possible he's engaged in an in-universe case of Fridge Brilliance where he's referring to the fact it all makes sense in hindsight.
  • It's somewhat subtler, but Marvin Acme. He sprays Eddie's jacket with his Disappearing/Reappearing Ink at the club which promptly disappears...and reappears at the end of the movie. Given that Roger's love letter to Jessica that he wrote just before he's suspected of murdering Acme is in all actuality the will leaving Toontown to the toons that doesn't reveal itself until the end of the movie too, it's possible that just like the ink spray on Eddie's jacket, the will was drafted a day or two ago, just before Marvin's murder. Is it a coincidence? Or was Acme more than just a kooky old dude and aware of the danger to his life, so he drafted a will that would be hidden until the right time so he could secure the toons' future?
• Alternative Joke Interpretation:
  • The "Say hello, Harvey" line is a reference to the play Harvey, about a man who hallucinates a rabbit, but viewers who don't know that assume the joke is that he's drunk and has no idea what he's saying.
  • Is "Don't bust a button, Dolores. You've only got one left." a bawdy remark about Dolores' low-V-cut blouse, or an implication that her and Eddie's lives of poverty are so stressful that she's "busted a button" several times before?
  • When Eddie asks Roger if anyone knows the rabbit's come to his office, Roger responds that no one does. However, he does explain he asked a number of people for directions, including the news boy, the fireman, the green grocer, the butcher, and the baker, but none of them knew. Only one person could tell him: the liquor store guy. Eddie gets very angry upon hearing this. The joke could be that either Roger asking willy-nilly around town means everyone knows where he's going, or everyone knows because Eddie is a frequent customer of the liquor store, and the guy in charge is a notorious gossip.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The villain's scheme to buy up the trolley company for the sole purpose of dissolving it. General Motors was accused of doing the same thing to kill public transit, only on a nationwide scale and about 10 years before the film is set.
• Ass Pull: The villain's Evil Plan can come off this way to viewers who don't know the historical context behind it, because as Eddie lampshades, no one in the film knows what a "freeway" is, or even heard of the word or said it. Thus, until the villain directly explains it to Eddie (and the audience), the hints and foreshadowing of their plan don't line up on their own and are only apparent in hindsight.
• Award Snub:
  • Bob Hoskins spends much of the movie talking to cartoons while pulling off a comedic while troubled character with a flawless New York accent. Keep in mind acting with cartoons is significant because he had to act against air and voice actors NOT in his eye line to film scenes with cartoons. He was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Saturn Award, but he did not garner an Academy Award nomination.
  • The film itself was omitted from Best Picture and Best Director nominations (even though Robert Zemeckis was able to earn recognition from the Directors' Guild of America), likely stemming from a bias against its cartoon elements. The film ended up tying Best Picture winner Rain Man for most wins at the 1989 Academy Awards, with four^note Three were competitive, one was a special award given to Richard Williams for his animation direction, which can either be seen as a way of lessening the Award Snub or exacerbating it.
• Awesome Art: Richard Williams's team did an incredible job on this film.
• Awesome Music: No surprise, as we have Alan Silvestri to thank, but this is possibly one of his best scores ever. There are numerous near dialogue-free sequences that the music carries virtually on its own, the scene where Eddie publishes the photographs and finds that the roll contained some of the last images of his brother alive is a genuine Tear Jerker almost entirely due to Silvestri's skill. His version of "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!", to name just one, makes you do just what the song instructs you to do.
• Base-Breaking Character: Roger Rabbit. Some find him to be funny and adorable, while others seem to find him annoying like Jar Jar Binks. Of course fans will note that he's supposed to be annoying and the film would greatly suffer if it weren't for him constantly bothering Eddie.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Even people who've never seen the film will know Jessica Rabbit, possibly the sexiest character in all of western animation. Special mention goes to the infamous scene where there are a couple of up-skirt shots of her.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Judge Doom is so Obviously Evil that the second you see him and hear his name is Judge Doom, you know he's either involved in the titular frame-up or is the culprit outright. This actually makes the second twist much more of a surprise, since you aren't expecting him to be not just a toon, but the toon who killed Eddie's brother.
• Catharsis Factor: After seeing Judge Doom kill an innocent toon shoe, threaten to do the same to Roger Rabbit, threaten to destroy all of Toontown, and The Reveal that he was the same toon that murdered Eddie's brother, it's very satisfying to see him get killed by his own concoction. Doubly so as the scene cleverly mimics the demise of the Wicked Witch of the West.
• Complete Monster: Judge Doom is the sadistic and merciless high judge of Toontown, and a staunch anti-toon bigot. Since toons can't be killed in any way, Doom invented a solution called the Dip and is introduced demonstrating its effects by melting an innocent toon shoe. When Roger Rabbit is accused of murder, Doom starts a ruthless hunt, reveling in the thought of melting him in the Dip—regardless if he's guilty or not—and fully willing to harm or kill anyone who stands in his way, either by himself or by letting his brutal weasel henchmen do it. Doom himself was the mind behind the murder, along with RK Maroon's who tried to report him. His ultimate goal is to commit a massive toon genocide by spraying Dip over Toontown to build a freeway and owning all the profits. The worst part, however, is that Doom is a toon himself and the one responsible for the hate of private investigator Eddie Valiant towards the toons since he's the one who killed his brother long ago by smashing him with a piano. During the final battle, Doom attempts to kill Eddie, along with Roger and his wife Jessica, by cutting him in half with a buzzsaw, grinning evilly all the time. Despite the lighthearted nature of the movie, Doom is a shockingly dark and frightening villain.
• Covered Up: Jessica's rendition of "Why Don't You Do Right" was actually much slower and sultrier than the song was traditionally performed before as a standard, per her character, but, probably because she's Jessica Rabbit, this is the take on the song that people recognize and consistently make covers of today (e.g. the China Moses cover on the album Jazz Loves Disney).
• Creepy Awesome: Judge Doom is surely sinister, scary and a totally evil monster but even after his toon reveal you can't deny the fact that he's terrifyingly awesome. Christopher Lloyd's performance probably helps a lot.
• Cry for the Devil:
  • He's just as evil as the rest of the Toon Patrol, but Wheezy trying to pull his soul back into his body is a rather pitiful sight. That weasel really didn't want to die.
  • He's probably the worst of them all, but Smart Ass' death can evoke a bit of sympathy, as unlike the others he doesn't get a ghost after being killed by Dip. Though hardly undeserved, it's still a terrifying fate to be Deader than Dead in a world where this is not the norm.
• Dancing Bear: The movie was sold on the spectacle of animated and live action characters seamlessly integrated across a cameo-laden full-length feature film. As it turns out, this worked great, the writing and acting were strong enough to carry it off, and the movie was and is considered to be excellent.
• Ending Fatigue: While impressive with cool visuals, the fight with Doom after the humorous defeat of the Weasels to save Jessica, Roger, and Toon Town, drags on for a long time with both halves of the fight combined- the one prior Toon reveal and the shorter post Toon reveal being structurally identical to each other with little variation- Doom dominating Eddie with his abilities and tactic, but does something needlessly sadistic when he already has the edge that Eddie exploits by using a Chekhov's Gun from the initial Acme Factory meeting to turn the tide, leading to Doom screaming undignified as he dies as Eddie looks on from afar, with the only real difference is that the first relies on using props to defeat the other that gets somewhat tedious after a little bit while the second half is a one-sided beating with nightmarish visuals that ends a little too quickly.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Despite appearing briefly in Maroon's office twice, notably in the scene where Maroon is killed, Pistol Packin' Possum is popular with fans, especially with those who believe him to be the real identity of Judge Doom.
  • Baby Herman is incredibly popular for the inherently hilarious concept of a cute cartoon baby who's actually a Dirty Old Man in reality. He's also notably the only character who's the same as in the original novel.
  • The Toon Patrol are fan favorites for their excellently individualized looks and attitudes and their role as comedic but still dangerous henchmen, plus their very memorable (and delightfully telegraphed) deaths.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: It's not hard to see the film as an allegory for racism, with the toons standing in for African-Americans. The setting is 1940s Los Angeles, where the toons live in a segregated part of town and earn their living by being entertainers for the (white) humans, who pay the toons low wages, see them as second-class citizens, and don't permit them to patron the very nightclubs they perform in. Eddie Valiant is a Tragic Bigot who hates toons and wants nothing to do with them, and is conflicted over his attraction to Jessica, who is "normal" enough to be found attractive by humans but is something of an outsider in both worlds. As for the villain, Judge Doom is a Boomerang Bigot and a diabolical take on the "Uncle Tom" caricature — a toon who tries to fit in with human society and sells out his own kind for his own self-advancement, and his plan is a gentrification scheme to get rid of the toons and redevelop Toontown's land into a commercial district.
• Evil Is Cool: Judge Doom is horrific and reprehensible, but the sheer scope of his villainy, his unforgettably demonic style and demeanor, impressive scheming and fighting, and Christopher Lloyd's nightmarishly engaging performance have made him a very popular villain.
• Fanon:
  • On Tumblr at least, many view Jessica Rabbit as asexual. This likely stems from the fact that, despite her good looks and the attention she gets from men, Jessica herself never really does anything sexual in the film, with most of the sexuality of her character being from how men in the film (sans Roger) project their sexual attraction onto her, and their impression of her being a woman who's only with Roger for money is proven wrong when it's revealed her entire goal was fueled by her romantic love of him, rather than merely sexual or monetary gain. "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way" could refer to how her Femme Fatale appearance is something she can't help having, and that despite her appearance, she's not very promiscuous and merely has a sexual reputation.
  • Many believe Judge Doom's true identity as a toon is the Pistol Packin' Possum. Hints of this is that Doom used an identical gun to the poster of Pistol Packin' Possum as shown with their poster case matching the selection of the gun. Additionally, the Possum has red iris eyes similarly to Judge Doom's nightmarish red eyes. The reason that Doom was targeting specifically for Roger is heavily implied to be Revenge for taking away the spotlight away from him, reasons being The Hays Code given his prominent gun usage and implied violent content of his cartoons; being cast out for the much more family friendly Roger. This does contradict official material, which names Doom's true identity as Baron Von Rotten — a Toon actor who specialized in playing villains and got Lost in Character. Though there are those who further theorize that since Baron von Rotten was a Master of Disguise, Pistol Packin' Possum could easily have been one of his roles.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The Dip is made of chemicals (turpentine, acetone and benzene) which are widely used as cleaners to dissolve dried oil paints and India inks of the type used on animation cels of the period. They were what were used to clean animation cels for later reuse.
  • Benny's jab at the Brooklyn Dodgers becomes this when you realize that just over a decade after the events of the film, the real Brooklyn Dodgers did eventually move to Los Angeles where the film takes place.
  • Those familiar with Arthurian mythology will spot the connection behind Eddie grabbing the Singing Sword: That particular blade was the weapon of choice of Sir Valiant.
  • Most of the random toon cameos (especially in Toontown) become that much more rewarding if you've seen obscure 1930's and 1940's cartoons (like Disney's Silly Symphonies or Warner Bros' Merrie Melodies.)
  • Jessica is often assumed to be original to the film, when in fact her design was heavily inspired by a character from the Donald Duck cartoon Duck Pimples, a surreal film noir spoof released a couple years before the film is set, and was presumably her one hit.
  • The penguins from Mary Poppins are seen in a menial job at the Ink and Paint Club. As the film is set long before that film was released, they presumably haven't gotten their big break yet.
  • Having Jessica perform at a place called the "Ink and Paint Club" likely references the fact that, in the era when the movie takes place, the ink-and-paint department of every major animation studio was staffed exclusively by women.
  • The plaque featuring the two happy and sad Felix the Cat heads above the Toontown tunnel entrance refers to Thalia and Melpomene, the respective Greek muses of comedy and tragedy, commonly known as the "comedy/tragedy" faces of theatre.
• He Really Can Act:
  • It's easy to forget that Bob Hoskins spends 95% of the movie talking to invisible characters. All of the special effects in the movie wouldn't have worked if not for his dedicated performance - to the point that almost anyone playing against an animated character is inevitably compared to Hoskins. Poorly.
  • Christopher Lloyd as the purely evil Judge Doom. It's quite shocking and amazing at the same time seeing him pass from a goofy and good hearted character like Doc Emmett Brown to a sadistic and heartless monster with no comedic moments at all.
  • Charles Fleischer's performance as Roger Rabbit also deserves mention here, particularly during the character's more sincere moments, such has his emotional breakdown over Jessica's alleged affair with Marvin Acme, and later his surprisingly profound statement on Comedy as a Weapon.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Twice, there are lines that can be construed as referring to films released later in The Renaissance Age of Animation; one is the weasels' hyena cousins, and the other is a throwaway line about Quasimodo. These films would not be released for six to eight years, and naturally were not actually being referenced^note The laughing hyena was a stock animation character back in the day, and in the case of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Roger was referencing either the original Victor Hugo novel, or the 1939 film version, which had been the most recent movie adaptation of the story to date at the time the events of this movie take place., but it adds a level of depth to the film to work in movies that hadn't been released yet. Special mention to the mention of Quasimodo. Several years later, Disney would adapt Quasimodo’s story into one of their darkest and least cartoony films ever. The villain was even a gray-haired judge in dark clothing, and featured a man having an attraction to a far prettier woman as a major plot point.
  • Early on, Eddie Valiant asks for a "scotch on the rocks" from a toon bartender, adding "...and I mean ice!" when he belatedly remembers how Literal-Minded they are, discovering later that he was too late and picks stones out of his drink. You can now buy rocks that are specifically for freezing and keeping an alcoholic drink cold without worrying about melting ice watering the beverage down.
  • Roger does a Dick Tracy impression to handcuff Eddie with him. Touchstone Pictures would go on to release a film adaptation on it with a Roger Rabbit short two years later.
  • Kathleen Turner is working to stop Christopher Lloyd's Evil Plan in this movie. A few years later, Lloyd would be a willing accomplice in an Evil Plan of Turner's.
  • Jessica saying that she loved Roger more than any woman's ever loved a rabbit is a lot funnier and more risqué since Sex and the City popularized Vibratex' "Rabbit Pearl" vibrator.
  • For a given value of "Hilarious," Judge Doom's rhapsodic monologue on this new thing called a "Freeway," which will make traffic jams a thing of the past. Yeah, Los Angeles traffic is so much better now, Judge...
  • This won't be the last time Christopher Lloyd plays a villain who has a beautiful red-headed woman as an enemy.
• Humor Dissonance: Even if Roger had the best intentions, some people can't help siding with Eddie over Roger trying to make people laugh, especially since he was supposed to be keeping a low profile and causing inconvenience for himself and Eddie.
• Hype Backlash:
  • The general opinion is that it's a great film that kickstarted a new era of animation being recognized as art as well as entertainment, but there are professionals and fans who blame Spielberg for changing a cottage industry into a corporate giant (albeit still one with a small reference pool) that doesn't allow for new talent and only cares about making money and selling tickets.
  • There are also some who believe the film's recurring theme of toons existing primarily to make people laugh promotes the idea that animation can only be funny, and that more serious and dramatic animation is somehow less valid than comedic animation.
• It Was His Sled:
  • Judge Doom is the toon that killed Eddie's brother.
  • The fact that Roger's wife isn't another cartoon rabbit but a sexy cartoon woman is supposed to be a surprise, but virtually nobody sees Jessica's first appearance unspoiled.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Eddie Valiant. Yeah, he's alcoholic, grumpy, rude, and bigoted against toons. But seeing his tragic backstory where his brother has been killed by a toon — a fact who turned him into a depressive lonely man in contrast to the great Toontown detective he used to be — that shouldn't be a surprise.
  • R.K. Maroon. An overly ambitious businessman who tried to make a fortune through blackmail, he's also horrified to discover he unwittingly helped a plan which will eradicate the toons and gets murdered before he can stop it.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Jessica is extremely popular with Crossover Ships.
• LGBT Fanbase: Jessica Rabbit has one. Surprisingly, a large portion of it isn't due to women who are attracted to her. It's actually asexuals who headcanon her as ace. It started with a Tumblr post theorizing that, despite her sexualized image, she was an asexual Celibate Hero.
• Love to Hate: Judge Doom, as monstrous and despicable as he is, gets a ton of praise for being such an effective and intimidating villain who really drives the plot forward.
• Memetic Mutation: The scene in the speakeasy where Eddie and Roger keep bumping into the hanging lamp led to the expression "bump the lamp", used to describe going the extra mile for something (usually animation or special effects).
• Misaimed Merchandising: This board game where you throw toons into dip.
• Moe: Roger himself is such a lovable sweetheart.
• Moral Event Horizon: Combined with Establishing Character Moment; The death of the cartoon shoe that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time clearly shows how far over the horizon Judge Doom and his minions already are.
• Narm Charm:
  • Jessica's Oh, Crap! line, "Oh. My. God! It's DIIIIIIIIIP!" can come across as Narm to some. However, seeing someone as unflappable as Jessica panic over the mere sight of Dip just shows how dangerous the stuff is to toon-kind.
  • Bob Hoskins' American accent. On one hand, a man in California shouldn't sound like a New Yorker, but the British Hoskins does sound like a convincing American, the voice fits Eddie's character well, and his performance is so good it's hard to actually care if his dialect is accurate.
  • It's hilarious how Obviously Evil Judge Doom is, but the humor is intentional, and doesn't detract from his creepiness, with his portrayal being so horrifying because he's just so absurdly vile.
  • Doom's real high pitched voice may not sound scary on paper, but the context of the reveal and his ferocious delivery make it absolutely petrifying.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Although the song "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" is often associated with this movie, it predates the movie by several decades, as it debuted in the eponymous 1931 Merrie Melodies short.
  • "Why Don't You Do Right?" isn't a retraux song. It's an actual jazz song from the 1930s. It has been sung by many contemporary singers, such as Julia London and Peggy Lee, but it's since been Covered Up by the film.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Ignoring the big finale where all the Toons appear in a crowd, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny only appear in a single scene where they parachute together, but the encounter of two of the most famous cartoon characters ever naturally led to the scene being well-remembered by viewers. The piano duel between Donald and Daffy is just as famous, for the same reason.
  • While Betty Boop is one of the more substantial cameos, she only appears in the Ink and Paint Club, essentially vanishing from the scene after she's helped set up the introcuction of Jessica. She's still very memorable as the only Toon Eddie is friendly to even pre-Character Development, And there's the Tear Jerker quality to her comment that work's been slow since cartoons went to color.
  • Droopy only appears in one scene, but is one of the most fondly remembered cameos in the film. It even led to him making cameos in all three Roger Rabbit shorts.
  • The toon octopus bartender proves both because it's such a fitting profession for an animal with all those limbs, and because they just look so happy doing the job. If you are a die-hard animation buff, you may recognize him from the obscure (and politically incorrect) Tex Avery MGM Cartoons short "Half-Pint Pygmy".
• Popular with Furries: Roger and the Toon Patrol are popular amongst furries.
• The Problem with Licensed Games:
  • The Game Boy version (developed by Shinji Mikami!) is decent enough. It's a simple affair: Roger wanders around linear studio lots and forests, bashing weasels with his ever-present boxing glove hammer (which amusingly looks like a magnifying glass). Then there is the legendarily-bad NES game published by LJN (though they didn't make it). It was developed by Rare, which is pretty funny considering they would become one of Nintendo's heavy-hitters. The game starts out promising enough. Much like the Dick Tracy NES game, you control Eddie and drive around downtown L.A., searching buildings for clues and items. It's only when you leave the city that the whole thing falls apart. Combing through caves and forests is pretty boring, and Toontown is an uninspired copy of L.A. but with worse music.
  • There are two versions of Judge Doom. There is the bravura performance by Chris Lloyd which stands up as one of the best villains in cinema. Then there is the NES Judge Doom, one of the worst video game bosses in history. A poorly-animated sprite with annoying music who takes a ludicrous number of punches to defeat. You're supposed to use exploding cigars and other gag weapons to wear him out, but even then, you need to solve an obtuse puzzle and cobble together a "Dip" gun to finish him off.
  • The "phone number" Eddie uncovers to call Jessica Rabbit which, when dialed, is supposed to provide players with a clue, is currently a 1-900 number for a sex hotline. LJN Toys was and still is notorious for publishing games that enforced this trope; The Angry Video Game Nerd looked at the game twice and discovered the phone number and a bonus with it detailed below on his second try.
    Soltenga: The original intent of the number has long since been discontinued in lieu of a sex chat hotline, but that's arguably a more preferable idea to playing this game.
  • The home computer version for the Amiga and Atari ST. Half of the game is made up of driving stages that somehow manage to make their notoriously bad NES counterparts seem decent by comparison, with the remainder consisting of a table-setting mini-game that moves too fast to be any fun, and a fight with the weasels and Judge Doom that is again less fun than the already annoying NES fight. On top of all that, the ST port suffers from washed-out graphics and a horrendous frame rate.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Apparently, the cartoon shoe that gets destroyed by the Dip was voiced by Nancy Cartwright, AKA Bart Simpson.
  • Jim Cummings is a voice acting legend today, so it's a little jarring to see that in a love letter to classic cartoons, he only has a bit part as one of the dum-dum rounds in Eddie's toon revolver. Back then, he was a bit of a nobody, and it was only that same year when he was really starting to take off.
  • Baby Herman's baby sounds are provided by April Winchell in one of her first voice acting roles, later going on to become the current voice of Clarabelle Cow.
• Signature Scene:
  • Jessica Rabbit's intro and song sequence not only led to the film being Best Known for the Fanservice, but also catapulted the character's popularity and transformed her into a well-known sex symbol.
  • The scene where Judge Doom reveals himself to be the Toon that killed Eddie's brother is known for being incredibly bone-chilling.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first half of the film is Eddie, who initially seems to have only a few redeeming qualities, helping Maroon to blackmail Acme and make Roger focus more on his work. Outside of Jessica's debut and Donald/Daffy Duck's piano duel, the initial third of the movie feels grueling and downright mean-spirited at times with a very cynical look at toons. Once Judge Doom and the Toon Patrol appear, the film pacing starts to pick up with a clear villain to root against, with the tone gradually gaining a more optimistic view on toons with Eddie himself showing more Hidden Depths and relatability after he reveals his backstory.
• Special Effect Failure: Given the reliance on effects, a few slip-ups were inevitable:
  • If you look carefully in some shots, it becomes apparent that Eddie's toon revolver is really a plastic prop that's rotoscoped to look animated (in some long shots, it isn't animated at all).
  • When Eddie finds Roger in his bed, the edge stays pressed down like Roger is leaning on it when he isn't, then suddenly pops back up several seconds later.
  • When Roger sobs over the photos of his wife with Acme in Maroon's office, you can clearly see the wires pulling the phones on the desk when Roger sits down to cry.
  • When Roger chases after Raul, begging to do the "refrigerator-on-the-head" scene one more time, Raul's coat sleeve floats to Roger's hand a tiny bit too early, leading to some viewers joking that Roger has The Force.
  • In some scenes where Eddie's in Toontown, the blue-screen effects make him slightly transparent, causing the background to be visible behind him.
  • Right before Eddie exits the tunnel into Toontown and toon curtains pull up to reveal the animated world, the curtains' reflection on the road remain closed and don't match with them as they open.
  • The street marking Eddie tears up to get rid of Lena accidentally goes with the camera movement instead of staying in its place, meaning that it moves onto the wall and creates a weird perspective failure.
  • The Weasels' use of real firearms (anachronistic Colt Trooper .357 revolvers and a Thompson M1928 .45 SMG) was achieved by having puppeteers manipulate the prop weapons with wires from overhead, then animating the Weasels in later. When the Weasels force their way into Eddie's apartment, one of the puppeteer's swivels is momentarily visible on the backstrap of Smart Ass's Colt Trooper (which would make it extremely uncomfortable to fire).
  • There are several shots where the opacity of the toons' shadows don't match with the actors or props they're interacting with. The scene where the weasels break into Eddie's office, in particular, has an instance where Smart Ass's shadow is barely visible, while his gun's is almost completely black. Also when Eddie and Jessica are riding with Benny out of Toontown, the shadow under Jessica's bosom lags while the rest of her moves forward.
  • When Eddie is thrown out of the Ink and Paint Club, it's clearly an image of Bob Hoskins being enlarged rather than him actually moving toward the camera.
  • Roger briefly has a lower frame rate after his first time drinking whiskey. This may have been deliberate to show just how much it took out of him.
  • When Roger consumes the shot in the bar, you can clearly see the alcohol pass right though him and splatter on the floor.
  • When Doom gets blasted by the Dip cannon in the climax, his ungloved hand is clearly shown as a human hand instead of a Toon one.
• Squick: Eddie being kissed by Lena Hyena. With saliva no less. Originally she was supposed to stick her tongue into Eddie's ear and then it would come out the other ear. Luckily this was cut.
• That One Boss: Judge Doom. You'd be hard-pressed to find a bigger Damage-Sponge Boss on the NES. Eddie's bombs and exploding cigars do decent chunks of damage to him, but you can only carry nine each of those, and then you're stuck slugging away at him with a notoriously unreliable punch mechanic; even when they're fully powered, Doom can soak up several more of your punches than Eddie can of his. Once he's finally down in his first phase, it becomes a matter of getting to the Dip gun and then remembering to hold down the B button to fire it, instead of tapping like you would any other item.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • After spending the first two acts of the movie as an important and interesting supporting character, Dolores just disappeared in the final two arcs and completely lost plot relevance until the very end. It's also particularly odd that the film pulls an Almost Kiss with her and Eddie multiple times, yet by the end of the film, they never manage to have a successful one.
  • Lt. Santino is introduced as Eddie's Friend on the Force who brings him to the Acme warehouse to view the crime scene of Marvin Acme's murder, and then never appears again until the very last scene of the film. Little backstory is given on his friendship with Eddie and there are many ways he could have contributed to the story at numerous points.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • To every single film following its release that tried to blend real people and settings with cartoon characters and worlds. No matter how well it's done, the narrative and filmmaking will be negatively compared to its execution here.
  • This also extends to actors, as Bob Hoskins set the gold standard of believably acting opposite animated characters, and the performances of everyone who's done it since are inevitably compared to his work here. And just like the previous example, without exception they'll be called worse than him.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • As great as the animation is, it being almost entirely on ones can make it appear a little too fluid and a little hard on the eyes after a while. Justified in that it has to match up to the live footage, which is also 24 fps.
  • Some viewers might find Jessica Rabbit's proportions a bit too inhuman for her to quite fully realize her intended sex appeal, such as her inhumanly narrow waist, or how in some shots even the flesh behind her boobs seems to jut out like someone had inflated her sternum.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • All the animation was done the old-fashioned way: hand-drawn on paper, 98% on ones, then painted on real cels, and then sent off to ILM to be optically composited, along with separately-animated shadows and highlights, into the live-action footage!
  • All of the effects are practical: every single prop or piece of scenery being manipulated by a toon, from Roger running through a window to make a Roger-shaped hole to the piano playing to something as innocuous as a toon lifting a drink to their mouth, required either highly-skilled puppeteers or a machine invented solely for that movement to be placed on-set as a stand-in for the non-existent toon! And with the exception of the blue-screened Toontown, not one computer was used!^note The music for the player pianos was fed through a computer, but the visuals were still 100% practical.
  • The effect of adding Judge Doom's true toon eyes and hand with only one exception near the end having to be in sync the eyes/hand with the live actor's movements to make it believable, still have the time to have the same polished animation as the rest of the Toon characters.
• Values Resonance: Jessica Rabbit is introduced seemingly as a Femme Fatale Ms. Fanservice, but is soon revealed to be a layered and proactive character. She plays Ms. Fanservice as part of her job, but draws clear boundaries and refutes claims that she's a Gold Digger or Really Gets Around - even pointing out that she's often stereotyped entirely because of how she looks. She proves to be a heroic character that does whatever she can to rescue her husband, whom she clearly loves.
• The Woobie:
  • Poor Roger; he just wants to spread laughter, but the guy's struggling at work, falsely told that his wife's cheating on him, gets framed for murder, and is yanked around by everybody for the whole movie. Even if he's a bit wacky, after the movie actually takes us to Toontown, he comes off as rather mild-mannered and sweet by comparison.
  • That poor little toon shoe. Didn't do anything even vaguely wrong, but gets murdered just so Judge Doom can make a point. It's especially pitiful given the Toon Patrol's deaths show all of them turning into angels except for Smart Ass who gets dipped, with Judge Doom also having no spirit when he gets dipped either. While fitting for both of those despicable figures, the idea that this shoe has quite possibly ceased any and all kinds of existence is truly horrifying.

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