Ah, long before the days of Pixar and the anthropomorphic puppets in Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” there was “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” a slightly risqué animated outing from Robert Zemeckis that follows detective Eddie Valiant as he finds himself amok in toon caper after toon caper, trying to reunite husband and wife Roger and Jessica Rabbit.
READ MORE: Ranked: The Films Of Robert Zemeckis
Now, if you call yourself a real toon fan, you must’ve already known that Roger Rabbit was based on a 1981 novel by Gary K. Wolf entitled “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?.” Another look at the modernization of animation, the rights were picked up by the Disney very early on, though not much of what took place in between the pages remained for the big screen version.
In their new video essay, the team at Cinefix has broken down the differences between the book and the film, explaining everything from the toonshine that they drank in the book version, to how Eddie Valiant was more of a Humphrey Bogart, and less of a Bob Hoskins. The book is lacking a Judge Doom and his sneaky weasels, and as for Jessica? She’s a gold-digging, adulterous divorcee, and we know movie Jessica would never treat her rabbit that way.
Between the fur, the women, the villains, and the speech bubbles (imagine an entire film full of those?!) the differences in each version are apparent. Alas, all that’s left to do is rewatch, pop open the book version, and polish off the evening with this terrific video essay.
What’s your favorite Toon Town moment? Let us know in the comments below.
