The disturbing scene that was cut from ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’
The landscape of animation can get away with a lot more than live-action, just look at such long-running animated shows as Family Guy, American Dad or South Park that constantly push the boundaries of good taste. Given total creative freedom, the animation artform can go to places live-action simply cannot, leading the way for miraculously vibrant scenes, but also moments that filmmakers might regret later down the line.
Indeed, the first X-rated animated movie came all the way back in 1972 with the release of Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat, an outrageous film that was inspired by the insipid sweetness of contemporary Disney titles. Telling the story of a college student cat whose rebellious personality leads to him envisioning himself in several wild and raucous scenarios of life in the 1960s.
The release of Bakshi’s film opened the door for other animators to pursue similar projects, and decades later, Fritz the Cat would lead to the release of the Robert Zemeckis movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a hybrid of live-action and animation that would change the industry forever.
A flawless mixture of both filmmaking elements, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was a technical marvel at the time and remains an exemplary hybrid animation that puts the likes of 2021’s Space Jam: A New Legacy to shame. Starring Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd and Charles Fleischer, the film told the story of a detective who has to reluctantly enter the world of cartoons to investigate a rabbit accused of murder.
Whilst the whole film is an animated masterpiece, there is one disturbing deleted scene that Zemeckis was particularly proud of. The scene comes when Hoskins’ Eddie Valiant is tossed out of the cartoon land with a sack tied over his head, only to remove the covering and discover that his head is now trapped inside that of a giant pig.
In a sudden panic, he heads home, steps in the shower and pours chemicals over himself in hopes of removing the pig mask, reducing it down to a goopy slime. The pig skin then flows towards the plughole and takes one last look at Hoskins’ naked body before disappearing forever.
Speaking about the moment that was removed from the final cut, the director stated: “The pig scene was really a scene that I regretted having to cut out, but it wasn’t because we did such cool stuff in it but the scene leading up to it, actually the weasels grabbed Hoskins and they throw them into Toon Town to torture him and what that toons do in there somehow is they put a toon hat on him of a pig”.
Continuing, he adds: “He’s running around with this pig head on and he washes it off…I loved the scene when he washes off the pig’s head and then Jessica shows up and he’s naked. The problem was that the scenes leading up to it were slowing down the movie and the ironic thing is that animating the pig head being washed down the drain was our very first finished shot and it got cut out”.
