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Here's what the Disney and Pee-wee Herman version of 'Roger Rabbit' would have looked like

Here's what the Disney and Pee-wee Herman version of 'Roger Rabbit' would have looked like

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1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a whodunit that blended animation and live action, was a major box office victory for Touchstone Pictures — but it almost didn't happen. Before that, in 1981, Walt Disney Productions bought the rights to Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit and planned to adapt it into a film. Orange Cow admin Garrett Gilchrist has uploaded a video and several photos of the test footage made in the 1981–1983 years before Disney abandoned the project. The original plot, from producer Marc Sturdivant:

"In our story, which takes place in Hollywood in the 1940s, Roger is framed for the murder of a Hollywood producer and he hires a live-action private detective, a sort of seedy, cynical Humphrey Bogart kind of guy to clear his name. In the course of the story, they come across a number of possible suspects. Among them is Jessica Rabbit, Roger's wife.

"Jessica is a rabbit by marriage only. She's actually an ambitious young starlet who married Roger to further her career and now that's she's been given a part in a film that she's wanted, she's cast Roger aside. She doesn't care for him any more. Roger can't see that. He's blindly in love with her. He just doesn't see Jessica for the cunning and seductive person that she really is."

The voice of Roger Rabbit? Paul Reubens — Pee Wee Herman himself. Oh, what might've been.