Written by Mr. Mouseburger 21st May 2006
Kindly submitted by Pyro
Judge Doom has just arrived at the Acme Warehouse, the site of Marvin Acme's death, where a toon has dropped a safe on his head. Tall, dressed in black, and with an overly imposing look and with a name like "Judge Doom", it's pretty clear this man is not someone to mess around with. Introducing himself and his weasel thugs to Eddie Valiant and the police lieutenant, he promises to find Roger Rabbit, who has been labelled as the perpetrator of the crime.
Judge Doom is interrupted in his statement by a cute, squeaking toon shoe that had gone astray earlier, when a cop accidentally knocked over a box of live toon props. It nuzzles the Judge’s his leg affectionately like a kitten.
However, rather then simply put it back in its box, Doom decides to make a rather sadistic and utterly unsettling demonstration of his brutality. He puts on a rubber glove, grabs the toon shoe and slowly lowers it into a barrel filled with what we learn is a concoction made from various paint thinners (turpentine, acetone, and benzene) called "Dip".
The toon shoe squeaks out in terror as it is lowered into the deadly acid, with its mouth being lowered in first. The shoe, no longer able to cry out anymore, can only whimper helplessly as Doom mercilessly lowers it in further and its body dissolves in the chemicals, until there is nothing left but gooey red paint around Doom's glove. Eddie Valiant is both horrified and speechless at Doom's actions.
This death seemed little more then senseless cruelty (and possibly to traumatize young children watching the film) as the shoe had done nothing wrong, let alone anything to deserve such a cruel fate.
This death scene always scared me as a kid, and although I loved the character of Roger Rabbit and Eddie Valiant, I would at times refuse to watch the film for fear of the scene with the poor toon shoe. At the very least, it made me glad to see Doom get what was coming to him at the end.
Nancy Cartwright provided the pitiful-sounding squeaking.
I suppose since he was a judge, this would count as execution, but usually the deceased had to be under the killer's authority or do something to trigger the killer's vengeance, the shoe just annoyed him.
As for pointless;
We therefore don't include people who are killed just to show that the killer is good at killing. In other words, these will be *really* pointless deaths.
This demonstrated the effectiveness of the dip, just what would happen to roger had Doom caught him.
Yeah, and as I said, it makes the viewer really, really hate Doom and want to see him die the worst possible death.
Chalk me in for the "Not Pointless" camp too. :-)
If Judge Doom was such a big bastard that a toon shoe merely rubbing against him would court such a terrible demise at Doom's hands, well, we can be assured that Roger Rabbit would suffer a no less unpleasant fate....
Ugh, my sister refuses to watch this movie for this death alone. It sometimes used to give her nightmares.
As well as the demonstration of what this does to toons, it does provide a hint (glove) toward the twist in the ending. Not pointless.
OMG THAT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SAD! MY SISTER LENA NEARLY CRIED ALL THE WATER OUT OF HERSELF! SHE THEN HAD A DREAM ABOUT MYRA, ANOTHER OF MY SISTERS, TRANSFORMING INTO ALERELRA KENEL AND TRYING TO KILL HER! POOR LENA!
heh, it's cool to see I'm not the only one who had sympathy for the poor squeaky. I replayed that scene in my head for months after seeing the movie, and I was subconsciously reminded of it whenever my dog would play with a sqeak toy.
It's sorta like throwing some kitten into a lake. I once rescued a kitten from drowning.
i dunno...i think pretty pointless...
It's not pointless, at all. Not only does it firmly establish Doom as a flat-out bastard and make us hate him, it also establishes Dip as being highly deadly to toons, making Roger's plight in later scenes more harrowing.
Man, I hated seeing this as a kid and I still hate seeing this scene as an adult. But I'm guessing it was needed to show that Judge Doom was indeed a heartless bastard who Eddie and Roger would have to tangle with later as he demonstrates his ruthlessness on an innocent toon shoe. The worst part was hearing the shoe whimper in pain.
Needless to say, Doom gets his just desserts at the hands of Eddie later on.
What about melting?