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by jajuuka 210 days ago
Yeah the Roger Rabbit is a miracle where multiple major studios came together and allowed their IP to be in the same work. Disney, Warner Bros, Fleischer Studios, Harvey Comics, King Features Syndicate, Felix the Cat Productions, Turner Entertainment, and Universal Pictures/Walter Lantz Productions all agreed to share their characters. One of Steven Spielbergs great accomplishments was negotiating this. With how protective these studios are about their IP anymore I doubt we'd see anything close to the Roger Rabbit movie sadly.

Not to mention some of the actors have passed like Paul Reuben who really sold the cartoon aspect of Roger Rabbit.

2 comments

Roger Rabbit was voiced by Charles Fleischer. (Paul Reubens was under consideration in an earlier version, and you can find his voice tests out on YouTube, which might be what you're remembering.)
The test can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDKfLZNMtmU

Paul Reubens wasn't great. With the right direction he could easily have been as good as Fleischer, but I'm sure he was (incorrectly in this case) trying to show he could be less over the top than Pee Wee Herman, who was a known quantity in LA at that time.

What fascinated me is how I reacted to the Jessica Rabbit pencil test, where she snuggles up to the live actor. Even in that low resolution, lousy video transfer, I had a visceral reaction to her character. Those animators were all kinds of good even for a minor demo.

Roger Rabbit was voiced by Charles Fleischer (no relation to Max and Dave Fleischer of Fleischer Studios), who is currently still working (and also voiced Roger's cameo in the Chip and Dale movie that was a spiritual sequel).