Friday, September 24, 2010

Movies that haunted my childhood: Part II- Who Framed Roger Rabbit

It seemed like a movie for kids, after all it was a cartoon right?  And I guess in a sense it wound up being a movie for kids'... nightmares.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was an innovative masterpiece that mixed animation and real life in a hilarious and inventive manner that had never been accomplished to that point.  But despite all of the positives, there was one character that left an impossibly damaging blemish on my childhood.  And I think you know exactly who I'm talking about.
Look, I love Christopher Lloyd.  Back to the Future is my favorite movie trilogy of all time.  But for all the good he did as the goofy Doc Brown, it doesn't hold a candle to the havoc he wreaked on my fragile young psyche as the eternally horrifying Judge Doom.
A character hellbent on the genocide of all things cartoon... what was a live action film featuring the brutally graphic execution of Santa Clause already in the works?  Determined to erase Toon Town from the map, Judge Doom goes casually about his murderous business with the help of "the dip," a boiling, green goo that melts cartoons alive.  Wonderful.  Kids will have no problem handling that. If you tell me you didn't cry like a baby when he dips that squeaky little shoe than I will tell you you're a stronger man than I.  Because I did cry... when I watched it... yesterday.
And this is all before the death and subsequent resurrection of Judge Doom.  That's right kids, we get to watch the pale-faced, black garbed, homicidal Judge squirm and scream as he is crushed alive by a steamroller.  I'm sure that will in no way be permanently scarring. But wait, there's more!  Judge Doom isn't dead, he's a toon!  A toon who then informs Eddie Valiant that he murdered his brother.  Well, he doesn't just inform him, he screams it at him in a voice that has been scientifically linked to pissing your pants.  Tremendous.
Oh and just to wrap things up, writing this post made it necessary that I go find and watch all of these video clips.  So if you need me at any point over the next 24 hours, I'll be in the corner weeping like a bitch.

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