DVDizzy Forum

Mary Poppins is my absolute favorite movie in this category, i also like Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Enchanted a lot.

pap64 wrote:
But we are going way off topic here

What else is new? its the threads going off topic that keep reminding me this is the UD Forums....Expect the Unexpected and Unexpect the Expected....espically for the Disney Movie Release studio who apparenty walking with 2 or 3 left feet in the marketing department

Cool World was a mess, but the brunette was cute and it's still fascinating to watch. I still need to upgrade from the VHS, ha, but I guess I can wait for a blu-ray release...

Roger Rabbit was actually the first VHS I ever bought. Well, second, but it was the first one I intended to buy. I saved up for it and ended up buying Bambi first since I had the extra money and I believe it came out right before (at least, this is how I remember it). I saw the film several times in theaters, used to have that behind the scenes special on tape (perhaps I still do somewhere, but not sure), and remember seeing that test footage with the different character designs when it first aired on the Disney Channel some time earlier. I also am still annoyed that the Diet Coke commercial with Roger and Eddie isn't on the DVD. I still have my Roger Rabbit doll from back when the film came out, in mint condition, and just got the posters from R.K. Maroon's office on Ebay (can't wait to be able to put them up when I finally get my own apartment, hopefully later this year if I can find a job in Austin). I absolutely love that movie for so many reasons: The crossover cartoon characters, the setting (love '40's Hollywood), the concept of a world where toons and humans live together (I totally would be married to a toon, ha), just everything about that film I love, and I'm not even one of these guys who thinks Jessica is the perfect woman (I'm more of a Tink and Ariel guy, and I really don't go for Jessica's speaking voice at all, but it works for the film great), so it's not a case of me loving the film just for that (like the way I love Space Jam pretty much ONLY because of Lola Bunny, ha).

enigmawing wrote:Something else I like is how it's commentary on racism, although it's a subject that most seem to completely miss.

Yeah, fill me in, please.

Anyway, Roger Rabbit is cool:

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Bedknobs tops my list of course with Roger Rabbit and Mary Poppins in second and third place.

Goliath wrote:

enigmawing wrote:Something else I like is how it's commentary on racism, although it's a subject that most seem to completely miss.

Yeah, fill me in, please.

Woah, sorry . . . guess I totally missed your comment here but found it while looking up Roger Rabbit stuff. Anyway . . .

With this film taking place in the US during the time of segregation, perhaps we're given some context as to the way toons are singled out from the humans and how they're obviously being treated as second-class citizens. And it takes the bad guy (Judge Doom) to spell it out for us . . . "A human has been murdered by a toon, don't you realize the magnitude of that?"

The Ink and Paint Club was actually a reference to the real-life Cotton Club in NY, which hired blacks as the entertainment. But like other segregated clubs of the time, only whites were admitted to actually see the shows. I think this further cements the idea that the toons were being depicted as second-class citizens, that the film is a sympathetic parallel to the real-life people that struggled with the unfairness of racism in that era.

One scene that was ultimately deleted from the film spelled this concept out more explicitly than the rest, which probably made Disney nervous and possibly helped contribute its way to the cutting room floor: when Eddie was "toon-a-rooned" by the weasels, having an animated pig's head painted over his own. He boards a trolley on his way back to the office so he can clean it off. Since he now appears to be a toon, he's asked to sit in the back of the car.

My favorite is Enchanted, with Roger Rabbit in second, and Mary Poppins at a close third.

Mary Poppins is my favourite, with Enchanted in second.

enigmawing wrote:Woah, sorry . . . guess I totally missed your comment here but found it while looking up Roger Rabbit stuff. Anyway . . .

Don't sweat it... I forgot about my question too...

Wow, I've seen that deleted scene on the DVD and I never made that connection. Boy, did you just make me feel like a worthless film scholar. I should have seen that. Heck, even without that scene, I should have picked up on the racial theme a loooong time ago. I'd better not tell this to my colleagues...

I think it's because I've watched and loved this movie since I was a kid. I didn't see it then and that's probably why it never occured to me later.

Thank you! Have you ever studied film or are you just incredibly smart?

Pete's Dragon was by far my favorite growing up in the eighties, yet, it strongly ran neck and neck with Mary Poppins. Interesting to note both films had very little animation to enjoy, so other parts that I loved of them was the storytelling, music, songs, and characters. Running third would definitely be Who Framed Roger Rabbit, something not too dear to my heart, but I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. It's one of those films you never get tired of watching, will pause to sit through to the end while channel surfing, that sort of thing.

Goliath wrote:Don't sweat it... I forgot about my question too...

I do think that when we thoroughly enjoy a book or film as a kid, we often continue to see it in the same light as we get older and don't always notice such things.

I've never formally studied film but sometimes things just come together. I actually noticed/realized the racial themes of this film through the non-Disney Cats Don't Dance many years later (I do think it's much more obvious in Cats), since it's also a period piece from the same place and time, dealing with what boils down to racism in disguise; it's just that one uses toons and one uses animals. If I remember correctly, I did hear something about the racial theme of Roger Rabbit from Roger Ebert sometime later. I tried looking this up again yesterday but couldn't find it mentioned in his review or from the Siskel & Ebert At The Movies show, so I'm not sure now where I initially picked it up (maybe some book?). And I'm really surprised I found so little of this information on the internet period.

Anyway, I still think it adds much dimension to a film that way too many pass off as one really long Hollywood inside joke.