Roller Coaster Rabbit: Difference between revisions

'''Roller Coaster Rabbit''' is a 1990 short, starring [[Roger Rabbit]], that was shown before the feature Dick Tracy and the UK theatrical release of ''Toy Story'' in 1996.

This is the second animated Roger Rabbit short, produced after the 1988 film, ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit]]''. It was made by Touchstone Pictures and Amblin Entertainment.

The second of the Roger Rabbit shorts features our hero at the fair with [[Baby Herman]] and Mrs. Herman (Baby Herman's 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 his balloon, he finds that he is gone, and the chase begins. Firstly Baby Herman finds himself following the balloon into a field homed to a grazing bull. Roger soon follows the youngster. Baby Herman walks through directly underneath the bull, he notices a round balloon-like object and grasps it unknown to him that it was in fact the bull's scrotum. The grazing creature snaps, Roger picks up Baby Herman but just happens to be looking the bull in the eyes. The animal hurls Roger and baby into the air sending him flying out of the field and the two land crashing into a roller coaster carriage which is traveling slowly up. The next stage of this short the carriage continues to climb a tall hill in the track. The two reach the top of the drop which is exaggerated to reach beyond the clouds and into space. Roger looks down and sees the world. Moments the carriage drops down thousands of meters. The speed of the drop is maintained throughout the remainder of the chase. 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 carriage which hold Roger and Baby Herman in crushes her. As the cart draws near, it topples over and fortunately bounces over Jessica avoiding her completely. The camera 'moves' along and beside her appears [[Droopy]] for a quick one-liner. The story then continues. Roger grasping onto Baby Herman, tumbles and looses their carriage leaving Roger sliding along the tracks with his feet, gradually gaining friction causing his feet to catch fire. The tracks follows into a dark tunnel and then stumbles across a 'wrong way sign'. Finally Herman and Roger crash through the sign and into a real-life filming studio. A direct reference the the reality/cartoon cross-over from the feature film.

The cartoon characters that make cameo appearances in this short include:

* Ariel from ''The Little Mermaid''

==Trivia==

* The title card at the start of the film states that this film was made in 1947, the year Who Framed Roger Rabbit was set in.

* The version of "Rollercoaster Rabbit" on video is just a tad shorter than the version seen in the theaters. The scene where Roger's coaster car goes out of frame has been scissored a bit. However, this was done in order to make the gag work better.

* Droopy, in his cameo, is dressed as [[wikipedia:Snidely Whiplash|Snidely Whiplash]] from ''[[wikipedia:The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show|The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show]]''. His line, "Curses, foiled again.", is the character's catchphrase.

* Shooting gallery prizes not only include Mickey Mouse but also Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman.

* When Roger is throwing stuff out of Herman's baby carraige, he tosses out a bottle, rattle, teddy, ball, safety pin, rolling pin, pistol (which fires), box of cigars, two fluffy dice, an axe, TNT, Mickey Mouse Club hat, a book with the title "The Disney Look" on it, a bowling ball, bear trap, an anvil, a rubber tire, bottle with a skull motif, a kitchen sink and a copy of Play-Toon magazine.

*The small billboard poster in the opening shot is a reference to the name change of [[The Great Mouse Detective|''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 ridiculously high first lift hill. At the top would have been a crossroads with a traffic light that turned red, pausing the pair's car. At this point, the "Long Car" was have zoomed through the intersection in front of them. Riding in this roller coaster train was supposed to have been every single animated character that has ever appeared in a Disney film. Mickey and [[Minnie Mouse|Minnie]] were to have been seated in the front car, while [[Monstro|Monstro the Whale]] from ''[[Pinocchio (film)|Pinocchio]]'' and [[Chernabog]] would have been towering over everyone from seats at the very back of the train. Disney animators worked for weeks to get this brief flash of a scene just right. Ancient model sheets pulled from the studio's animation research library, to make sure every single character looked perfect. Where 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 this short to proceed ''Dick Tracy''. Steven Spielberg wanted to shown before ''Arachnophobia''. The cartoon ended up shown with Dick Tracy, however.