Who framed Roger rabbit (which I will refer to as WFRR) is a film released in 1988 using a mixture of live action and 2D hand-drawn animation, impressively using no VFX at all. The film follows Roger Rabbit, who after suspecting his wife is cheating on him with a guy named Marvin, hires a detective, only for Marvin to be found dead, making Roger the prime suspect.
At the start of the 1980s, the Disney company was struggling, 1979 had seen a walkout of all the major animators led by Don Bluth, the company was then saved by the Bass Brothers in return for choosing who runs the company, the company was back from the edge and now had to clear their name.
1989-1999 is referred to as the second golden age of animation or the renaissance of animation especially for the Disney company, and WFRR being released in 1988 really woke up audiences to animated features films as well as waking up other animation companies.
Disney felt the pressure to make this film the best it could be, they had to save not only their company but bring back the love and trust people had in animated films. At this point animation was a dying film genre, saved for Saturday cartoons or commercials, animated films were seen as risks. which is why Disney looked to Warner Bros, who were successful their TV shorts with their iconic characters to help them and Warner Bros agreed.
The agreement in having the two companie’s characters interact is that they were treated equally, in on-screen time, in skill, in humour; no character from one side was to be seen as ‘better’ in any way because whilst working on this film, they were not competitors, they were working together.
The response the film was immense, bringing in 11 million dollars in it’s first weekend at the box office and raked in 330 million worldwide, as well as getting three academy awards; Best film editing, Best visual effects and best sound editing.
Warner Bros and Disney characters interacting was a groundbreaking thing when the film was made and almost an even bigger deal today, Disney in it current age is extremely uptight on it’s characters and how they’re used, armed with lawyers who take down merchandise and dispute references to characters, let alone them featuring in an entire film.
Something very controversial at the time was seeing cartoon characters using adult humour, swearing and interacting with themes of sex and violence, WFRR shone a light on how effective and enjoyable animation can be from adults without being too edgy, the film doesn’t try to be edgy but simply shows that animation is for everyone, these iconic characters, though often marketed toward a younger audience, are iconic because older generations know them too.
https://thatoldpictureshow.com/2017/07/08/the-importance-of-who-framed-roger-rabbit/