Roller Coaster Rabbit
Roger Rabbit struggles to keep wandering Baby Herman safe in an amusement park where the usual havoc ensues.
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- Cast:
- Charles Fleischer , Kathleen Turner , April Winchell , Lou Hirsch , Corey Burton , Frank Welker , Damian London
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Reviews
Pretty Good
As Good As It Gets
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
Rollercoasters are an ideal inclusion in animated films because they possess the ability to be devices for high-flying, gravity-defying, unapologetically ridiculous situations for the story's characters. Consider Bébé's Kids and its emphasis on misadventures at a local theme park involving a slew of toddlers. Roller Coaster Rabbit looks to have that same kind of emphasis, but its end result is a messy and fairly uninteresting blend of visual gags and routine silliness that shouldn't be so casually accepted by fans of the once-visceral and original Roger Rabbit character.The film revolves around Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer), Baby Herman, and Mrs. Herman (April Winchell), all of whom are spending their day at a fair. When Baby Herman winds up losing his red balloon, Roger goes to fetch him a new one, but not before Baby Herman attempts to get another one; here is what sets the film's plot into motion. Baby Herman escapes the company of his mother, which sends Roger into a panic and various desperate attempts to recover both Herman and the balloon. At one point, the two end up provoking a bull in a bull-riding arena, in addition to climbing aboard a roller coaster for a frightening ride, all while Roger tries to rescue Baby Herman and Baby Herman continues to escape danger just as easily as he found it, leaving Roger to bear all the battle wounds.There is one truly great scene in Roller Coaster Rabbit and it comes when Roger leaps onto a roller coaster in order to fetch Baby Herman. During this time, for about five seconds, we see a point-of-view shot of the roller coaster's path, which sends us into a dizzying, almost hallucinatory, trance as it shows the cars of the roller coaster essentially eating up the track at the speed of light. It's a phenomenally executed scene in a short that unfortunately finds the need to settle for rather perfunctory sight gags that make this a monotonous and foreseeable Tom & Jerry skit done without any of the flair and less remarkable excitement.Voiced by: Charles Fleischer and April Winchell. Directed by: Rob Minkoff and Frank Marshall.
"Roller Coaster Rabbit" is the second from three Roger Rabbot short films they made roughly 25 years ago. It runs for eight minutes and has Roger take care of Baby Herman again. And of course he needs to rescue Jessica. Sadly, without success, but luckily Droopy is around as well. This film, just like the first, relies on a mix of animation and live action again, but to me it feels like a copy of the first that I also did not enjoy that much. I see the lead actor's name is Fleischer, but I am not sure if he is related to Max or Dave. Anyway, he is far away from their best as Roger's voice in here is one of the main reasons why I did not like this film. And apart from that, they could not come up with a different story this time than saving Baby Herman again? Yes there is a raging bull in here and some trigger-happy amusement park visitors, but still.. It's all a bit repetitive and not really creative. Not recommended.
Roger Rabbit loses Baby Herman at an amusement park when the little tike goes in search of his red balloon. All manner of craziness ensues.I'm not the biggest fan of the Roger Rabbit shorts, finding Roger's voice a little on the irritating side and the relentlessly madcap nature and breakneck speed of the action, something akin to Tex Avery on speed, just a touch too excessive for my taste (I had the same problem with Spielberg's equally insane Animaniacs).Even though Roller Coaster Rabbit doesn't rate as highly with me as it does with other reviewers here on IMDb, I still recommend it if only for the fact that pneumatic Jessica Rabbit fleetingly appears tied to a roller-coaster track (cue wolf-whistles, leg thumping on table, jaw hitting the floor, eyes popping out, and steam erupting from ears!).(Please excuse the fact that all the reviews I have written for the Roger Rabbit shorts are almost identical—since all three cartoons follow exactly the same formula, I thought I would save myself some time!)
After the wonderful film WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, Disney Pictures experimented by making several short cartoons starring Roger Rabbit and they were shown before feature films--much like the original purpose of classic Warner Brothers, MGM and Disney toons. Unfortunately, Disney also chose to pair these amazing shorts with some of the worst films of the era--virtually guaranteeing they would never see the light of day! Today, the only way you can see them is on an out of print videotape entitled "THE BEST OF ROGER RABBIT". It is NOT available on DVD nor does it appear it will be.In this short, Roger is at an amusement park and as usual, he's watching the troublesome Baby Herman. Things really move into high gear when Roger wanders onto the roller-coaster to rescue the wayward youth (who is a lot like Sweet Pea from Popeye cartoons). You just have to see it to believe it.Now as to the quality of this cartoon, it is amazingly violent and insane--even more so than the typical Tex Avery cartoon of the 1950s. Because the characters are so funny, the animation quality so superb and the action so intense, this is one of the greatest cartoon shorts you can find---period. Too bad the powers that be at Disney were idiots who didn't realize they had gold on their hands!UPDATE 2/09--According to IMDb "This animated short can be found on the Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) Vista Series DVD, released in 2003".