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Alternate poster without Dick Tracy banner and PG rating
Roller Coaster Rabbit is a 1990 short, starring Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman, that was shown before the film Dick Tracy. It is the second animated Roger Rabbit short, produced after Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It was produced by Touchstone Pictures and Amblin Entertainment and was released on June 15, 1990.
Disney Wiki's page can be found here.
Plot[]
The second of the Roger Rabbit shorts features our hero at the fair with Baby Herman and his mother. Baby Herman loses his red balloon and Roger goes to get him a new one. Before he returns, however, Baby Herman sees another red balloon at a dart game and goes to try to get it. When Roger comes back to give Baby Herman his balloon, he finds that he is gone, and the chase begins. Firstly Baby Herman finds himself following the balloon into a field home to a grazing bull. Roger soon follows him. Baby Herman walks through directly underneath the bull, he notices a round balloon-like object and grasps it unknown to him that it was really the bull's scrotum. The bull snaps. Roger picks up Baby Herman but just happens to be looking the bull in the eyes. It hurls Roger and Baby Herman into the air sending him flying out of the field and they land in a roller coaster train which is traveling slowly up the lift hill.
The next stage of this short the train continues to climb the lift hill. They reach the top which is exaggerated to reach beyond the clouds and into space. Roger looks down in horror and sees the world. Moments later the train drops down thousands of meters. The speed of the drop is maintained throughout the remainder of the chase. Only after they encounter the signs "DON'T STAND UP" and "WE MEAN IT" does the train derail at another drop, leaving only one car on the tracks with Roger and Baby Herman on board. After a few twist and turns (in the track) a shot of Jessica Rabbit appears where she is tied down to the tracks, unable to move. She calls out to be saved before the car crushes her. As it draws near, it topples over and fortunately bounces over her avoiding her completely. The camera "moves" along and Droopy appears beside her for a quick one-liner. The story then continues. They encounter another drop which leaves Roger hanging in midair for before he suffers gravity. Roger, grasping onto Baby Herman, tumbles and breaks the car to pieces, leaving Roger sliding along the tracks with his feet, gradually gaining friction causing his feet to catch fire. The track follows into a dark tunnel and then stumbles across a "wrong way sign".
Finally, Roger and Baby Herman crash through it and into a real-life filming studio, a direct reference to the reality/cartoon cross-over from the feature film. Baby Herman, in his natural voice, and is sent flying into the microphone spinning around. After Roger's flaming feet were extinguished by a fireman, the director complains that his latest masterpiece was ruined, and angrily orders Roger to go back to do that entire scene again, but Roger instead runs away from the studio without second thought. Then Baby Herman puts on a robe and is smoking a cigar, grousing to himself that Roger messed up the episode. An attractive young woman in live action is seen holding the balloon and offering it to Baby Herman, who uses his lit cigar to pop it. As the cute girl flinches at the pop, Herman cackles and remarks: "What's the matter, toots? Afraid of a little...bang?"
Cast[]
Voices[]
- Roger Rabbit - Charles Fleischer
- Jessica Rabbit - Kathleen Turner
- Young Baby Herman/Mrs. Herman - April Winchell
- Adult Baby Herman - Lou Hirsch
- Droopy - Corey Burton
- Bull - Frank Welker
Live Action Cast[]
- Fritz - Damian London
- Secretary - Joni Barnes
- Cameraman - Jim Bracken
- Fireman - Ancel Cook
Uncredited[]
- Charlie Adler - Carnival Barker
Cameos[]
The cartoon characters that make cameos appearances in this short include:
- Mickey Mouse
- Clarabelle Cow
- Pinocchio
- Ariel from The Little Mermaid
- Droopy
Trivia[]
- The title card at the start of the short states that it was made in 1947, the year Who Framed Roger Rabbit was set in.
- The version of the short on video is just a tad shorter than the one seen in theaters. The scene where Roger's coaster car goes out of the frame has been scissored a bit. However, this was done in order to make the gag work better.
- Shooting gallery prizes not only include Mickey Mouse, but also Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman.
- When Roger is throwing stuff out of Baby Herman's baby carriage, he tosses out a bottle, a rattle, a teddy bear, a ball, a safety pin, a rolling pin, a pistol (which fires), a box of cigars, two fluffy dice, an axe, TNT, a Mickey Mouse Club hat, a book titled The Disney Look, a bowling ball, a bear trap, an anvil, a rubber tire, a bottle with a skull motif, a kitchen sink, and a copy of Play-Toon magazine.
- The rattle Roger threw out of the baby carriage is the exact same one from the previous Roger Rabbit short, Tummy Trouble.
- The small billboard poster in the opening shot is a reference to the name change of The Great Mouse Detective, which was originally titled "Basil of Baker Street".
- Originally a special in-joke was planned. It was to have taken place when Roger and Baby Herman reached the top of the roller coaster's lift hill. At the top would have been a intersection with a traffic light that turned red, pausing their train. At this point, the "Long Car" was have zoomed through the intersection in front of them. Riding in this train was supposed to have been every single animated character that has ever appeared in a Disney film. Mickey and Minnie were to have been seated in the front car, while Monstro the Whale from Pinocchio and Chernabog would have been towering over everyone from seats at the very back. Disney animators worked for weeks to get this brief flash of a scene just right. Ancient model sheets were pulled from the studio's animation research library to make sure every single character looked perfect. Whether each character should go on the train was endlessly debated. However, despite all the effort put into the gag, it had to eventually be cut. If the "Long Car" zoomed through the scene as fast as it was originally supposed to, none of the audience would have been able to recognize any of the characters. But if it was slowed down, it threw off the frantic pace of the rest of the short. So the joke was left on the cutting room floor.
- This short was the center of some disputes. Michael Eisner wanted it to be shown before Dick Tracy, whereas Steven Spielberg wanted it to be shown before Arachnophobia. It ended up preceding Dick Tracy.
- This is the only Roger Rabbit short to not be included on the home video release of the film it originally accompanied.
- This was the only one of the three Roger Rabbit shorts to get a PG rating. The given reasons take place in two mildly risque gags; firstly the beginning where Roger accidentally grabs Mrs. Herman's panties while begging not to get her palm read and puts them in his pocket, allowing her to go on the rides bottomless (a homage to the gag from the Looney Tunes cartoon "The Big Snooze" where Bugs Bunny begs Elmer Fudd not to drop out of the cartoon, only to accidentally grab Elmer's trousers) and then in the bull scene where Roger lands head first in manure and Baby Herman grabs the bull by his groin, thinking it is a balloon (albeit it was hidden by the balloon). This could be the possible reason why it was released by Touchstone Pictures instead of Walt Disney Pictures. However, it was the only Disney animated short to be rated PG until 2014's Monsters University sequel short Party Central.
- In fact, the theatrical trailer shows that (like Dick Tracy) the short was originally to be released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner[1] until it was eventually decided that it would instead be released under the Touchstone Pictures banner.
- However, when the short was re-released on the Who Framed Roger Rabbit Blu-ray, the 1987 Touchstone Pictures logo was plastered with the 2011 variant of the 2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo. This occurred on Disney+ as an extra on said film.
- Due to this short being released under the Touchstone Pictures banner during its original 1990 theatrical release, this is the only short film ever produced and released by Touchstone Pictures.
- In fact, the theatrical trailer shows that (like Dick Tracy) the short was originally to be released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner[1] until it was eventually decided that it would instead be released under the Touchstone Pictures banner.
- This short was filmed at Disney-MGM Studios in 1989.
- The short was reissued in 1995 in front of Toy Story.
- In the canceled Sunset Boulevard expansion for a Roger Rabbit land in Disney's Hollywood Studios (then-named Disney-MGM Studios), there was a roller coaster that is speculated to be themed after this short.
Home video releases[]
VHS[]
- Dick Tracy
- The Best of Roger Rabbit
Laserdisc[]
- The Best of Roger Rabbit
DVD[]
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Vista Series
Blu-ray[]
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: 25th Anniversary Edition