A Disappointing Continuation

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

"Tummy Trouble" is a Roger Rabbit 8-minute short film from over 25 years ago, the first one actually I believe. Unfortunately, this one does not even come close to Bugs Bunny's finest short films. This one here is much more crass and in your face, but it also does forget to be actually funny while being very loud. This is the first directorial effort from Rob Minkoff ("The Lion King", "Stuart Little") and it's safe to say that he stepped up his game a lot as his career progressed. Not even the inclusion of Droopy or the fact that Walt Disney worked on this short film here as well could make it a good watch. It was obviously a very prestigious project, but the outcome is just disappointing. The mix of live action and animation (the big strength of Roger Rabbit) was only included very briefly at the end and was still by far the best thing about this movie. Everything before it pretty much sucked. Not recommended. Also, how do 6 writers work on a film that does not even run for 8 minutes. Classic example of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

PERHAPS IT WAS done to see if we could bear witness to a sort of Renaissance of the Theatrical Cartoon Short, or maybe it was just made in order to ca$h in on the popularity of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?. In either case, we're happy that the short and subsequent cartoons were produced.SOME HAVE EXPRESSED disappointment at the ROGER RABBIT/BABY HERMAN Cartoons by stating that they were not like the ROGER RABBIT feature film. To them we must remind them that the cartoons are not on the same level budgetarily or otherwise. The cartoons are just that, cartoons. They exist in order to give a little variety to the program.BEYOND THE REALM of being a warm-up and laugh getter for the movie audience, we must realize that there is yet another dimension to these latter-day animations. In addition to the usual aspects of a cartoon's having funny characters, snappy hip dialogue, over the top sight gags and a lively soundtrack featuring both appropriately chosen music and befitting sound effects; we have yet another complex element here.WE MUST KEEP in mind that for whatever reason they were made, their genesis was steeped in satire and parody. Whereas the ROGER RABBIT Feature was (among other things) a satire of the Hollywood and indeed the whole American scene, the resulting shorts were driven by their need and purpose of parodying the work of icons of the animation art such as: Walt Disney, Chuck Jones, Ub Iwerks, Tex Avery, Fritz Freleng, Bob Clampett, etc., etc., etc........AS FOR OUR opinion, both Schultz and myself highly approve and wish that the series would continue.

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 to be coming out in the near future.In this short, Roger is, as usual, watching the troublesome Baby Herman. Not surprisingly, Baby Herman is a real handful and nearly kills Roger again and again as Roger tries to save the kid's life. Things really move into high gear when the baby swallows his rattle and Roger rushes him to the most insane hospital ever placed on film! 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".

As "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was the first movie that I ever saw in the theaters - although I was four years old, so I didn't really understand it - "Tummy Trouble" was fairly interesting. I would imagine that some of what happens to Roger here might happen to people going in for operations; I mean, some of the stuff in that hospital did look fairly menacing.One thing about which I'm still curious is whether or not Roger Rabbit existed before "WFRR". When I read Wikipedia's article about him, it sounded as if he got created specifically for that movie; I had always assumed that he had existed at least since the 1940s. Does anyone know for sure? But I digress. This is a pretty funny cartoon.