Curve pericolose

After the wonderful film WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, Disney Pictures experimented by making several short cartoons starring Roger Rabbit and they were shown before feature films--much like the original purpose of classic Warner Brothers, MGM and Disney toons. Unfortunately, Disney also chose to pair these amazing shorts with some of the worst films of the era--virtually guaranteeing they would never see the light of day! Today, the only way you can see them is on an out of print videotape entitled "THE BEST OF ROGER RABBIT". It is NOT available on DVD nor does it appear it will be.

In this short, Roger in the great outdoors and as usual, he's watching the troublesome Baby Herman. And, as usual, Baby Herman manages to get into a ton of trouble--leading to an amazing finale! You just have to see it to believe it.

Now as to the quality of this cartoon, it is amazingly violent and insane--even more so than the typical Tex Avery cartoon of the 1950s. Because the characters are so funny, the animation quality so superb and the action so intense, this is one of the greatest cartoon shorts you can find---period. Too bad the powers that be at Disney were idiots who didn't realize they had gold on their hands!

UPDATE 2/09--According to IMDb "This animated short can be found on the Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) Vista Series DVD, released in 2003".

WITH THIS THE third ROGER RABBIT short subject, there is both a familiarity and new ground covered. Whereas the setting had changed from an urban landscape to the great outdoors, the situational storytelling and gags were by now routine.

OUR STORY OPENS with some great sweeping, panoramic shots of what looks like a combination of the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone Park. The depth of the shots is reminiscent of those earlier Disney animated films that made use of the Multi-Plane Camera; which rendered a near 3 Dimensional appearance. The flora and fauna portrayed are colorful, lively and definitely non-anthropomorphic.

WE FIND THAT the unseen (except for lower legs)Mother, Baby Herman and Roger Rabbit are arriving at the "Yellowstain" National Park on a vacation camping trip. As is the usual plot device, Mother has to go somewhere and leaves Herman in Roger's charge. Baby innocently follows various birds, animals and insects; leading him into the old saw mill.

WITH THE GRAND finale, we have our guys shot through the air and colliding with the carved side of the Mount Rushmore memorial. The faces of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt react in typical cartoon style; making them perhaps the first anthropomorphic rocks in cartoon history.

AS HAD BECOME the custom, TRAIL MIX UP boasts of cameo appearances by both Jessica Rabbit (Mrs. Roger) and MGM Cartoon star, Droopy; whose scenes in the ROGER RABBIT Feature were so well received.

ALTHOUGH WE ARE somewhat critical of the repetitive and monotonous application of the same situational gag lead-ins, the overall effect of these new ROGER RABBIT Cartoons was very pleasing. It is a shame that the project didn't continue or be revived; as that could well lead to an all out revival of the theatrical cartoons being produced anew.

By 1993, the cultural footprint and relevance of the smash-hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit? had faded from the mind of the public, which explains why Buena Vista decided to attach Trail Mix-Up, the third and final short film involving the Roger Rabbit character, to a A Far Off Place, a relatively low-key, small-budget studio release that had mediocre returns. In addition, by this point, the sheer magic and originality of blending live action and animation was a novelty that went by the wayside, so the only thing that was left for Roger Rabbit to try and remain relevant was to concoct a short that went back to the basics in terms of what it emphasized; in Trail Mix-Up's case, it's the juvenile qualities of Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit's assets.

The short opens with Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer), Baby Herman, and Mrs. Herman (April Winchell) setting up camp at a local park, with Roger in charge of looking after Baby Herman, because he has a track record of doing so well at such a task. As one expects, Herman winds up wandering into the forest, and scaredy-cat Roger has few skills that aid him in surviving in a woodsy setting. This is where the busty, gorgeous, and unabashedly sexualized Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner) flaunts into the picture. She's the forest's local ranger, as she shakes her bust and wiggles her petite waist and perfect round rump in order to "help" Roger find Herman before more danger faces him. But not before Roger can have his face flattened like a pancake and be shredded by a sawmill.

Trail Mix-Up, while sporadically funny and still admirably full of energy like the two shorts that preceded it, essentially admits defeat and shows why Roger Rabbit faded out of relevance in the public. With new, ground-breaking animation just two years on the horizon and a cry for more story-based shorts and films that didn't settle for cute dinosaurs and rambunctious rabbits, the reckless Roger, the fearless Herman, and the buxom Jessica Rabbit just didn't seem to hold the kind of ground in the 1990's as they previously held in the 1980's. The good news is that this kind of material doesn't find itself dated in terms of content, and is still just as amusing today because of its slapstick and setups as it was when it was released. Whether it directly calls for future projects, I can't say, but it does work to suggest that this serves more as a "see you later" with an unclear meaning or span of time for that last term.

Voiced by: Charles Fleischer, April Winchell, and Kathleen Turner. Directed by: Barry Cook.

Baby Herman causes trouble for Roger Rabbit again when he wanders off into the woods whilst on a picnic. All manner of craziness ensues.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Roger Rabbit shorts, finding Roger's voice a little on the irritating side and the relentlessly madcap nature and breakneck speed of the action, something akin to Tex Avery on speed, just a touch too excessive for my taste (I had the same problem with Spielberg's equally insane Animaniacs).

Even though Trail Mix-Up doesn't rate as highly with me as it does with other reviewers here on IMDb, I still recommend it if only for the fact that pneumatic Jessica Rabbit appears wearing a sexy park ranger's uniform (cue wolf-whistles, leg thumping on table, jaw hitting the floor, eyes popping out, and steam erupting from ears!).

(Please excuse the fact that all the reviews I have written for the Roger Rabbit shorts are almost identical—since all three cartoons follow exactly the same formula, I thought I would save myself some time!)

Robert Zemeckis's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was the first movie that I saw in the theaters (and I was only four years old, so I didn't even understand the plot). I later saw the short "Tummy Trouble", and then "Trail Mix-Up". Watching all these, one would get the idea that Roger was always intended as a whimsical, accident-prone character inhabiting a completely batty world.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I recently bought a copy of Gary Wolf's "Who Censored Roger Rabbit", the book on which Zemeckis's 1988 movie is based. The book is in fact quite dark. I suspect that while preparing the movie, they realized that it would be hard for people to take the idea of cartoon characters (called toons in the book and movie) coexisting with humans seriously, so they made it more slapstick.

So yes, Roger's mishaps while babysitting Baby Herman in the forest are a far cry from the original dark story. Silly, but nothing else. Zemeckis's movie was really good, but how many spin-offs did they want? I'd kinda like to see a movie version of "Who Censored Roger Rabbit" that follows the novel's original tone. I assume that it's possible.