Roger meets Roger

Roger Bros. Index card drawing by ~spongefox on deviantART

If you ask me, it was about time someone paired both Roger Rabbits: the one from the movie pre-production era, and the Roger we all know and love. It makes me wonder about how the movie would’ve turned if Disney executives used the first incarnation of Roger Rabbit (made in-house) instead of bringing Richard Williams to design him, Jessica, Benny and the gang.

Of course, this lovely drawing was made by SpongeFox; you can check more of her cartoon-related artwork visiting her blog =D

P.D. You’ll get kudos if you know why’s the first Roger wearing that particular outfit ;)

Roger Rabbit back in 1983 –Yes, 1983!!

Yup. They are Eddie Valiant and Roger Rabbit.

As you probably know, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was canned for a while since Disney bought the rights to Gary Wolf’s novel “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?” and the Mouse House’s executives were trying to pull a movie out of that bizarre yet funny novel, until they gave up because they didn’t have the budget for a project like this one.

Well… 2719 Hyperion bring us this pic from the 1983 Disney’s Annual Report, in which a Roger Rabbit movie is mentioned as being near to its theatrical release (little did they know that the movie would be actually premiered in 1988, with a very different look and feel). This photograph shows Mike Gabriel (a Disney animator, storyboard artist and character designer) dressed as Eddie Valiant, along with Roger Rabbit in his first incarnation, mainly inspired in Tex Avery’s cartoons as the design suggests.

You can read more about this in 2719 Hyperion’s entry about Roger Rabbit, 1983-style =3

You NASTY Roger!! (mature audiences only)

In all this time I’ve been running this blog, I’ve found several things related to Roger Rabbit and his fellas…

But nothing.

NOTHING.

LIKE.

THIS.

(if you’re sensitive to parody drawings, or if you want to keep your wholesome image of Roger Rabbit, I suggest you to not click the following link. You’ve been warned.)

 

“Uncle Thumper often let young Roger play in his rabbit hole”

 

What’s the background behind that drawing? Supposedly, it’s one of several in-house drawings that were drawn/shared between the animators of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. Some of them were mostly internal jokes, although it seems that someone took those to the “innuendo” level.In fact, this particular drawing is being auctioned at eBay right now, without any warning about its content:

Roger Rabbit Animators ‘In-House’ Drawing / Photostat 
(the link may not work if you’re reading this after September 2009)

I must say I’ve seen some nasty stuff featuring Roger and Jessica, but this drawing tops them all  >.<

P.S. My purpose is gathering every tidbit of information and history related to Roger Rabbit, and since this is part of the creative process behind the movie (although a little gross), I decided to share it with all of you. If most find this drawing offensive (despite the warnings), I’ll delete this entry.