8 Films That Destroyed Your Childhood

4. Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit Five words €“ Christopher Lloyd murders a toon. For certain readers, that just brought back every repressed memory about this film. The problem was that at first the premise for this film seemed like a great idea €“ a parallel universe where cartoons live side-by-side with human beings. It picked the premise up and ran with it, creating inventive sight gags galore and the amusing sight of cartoons dealing with real-world problems, such as marital infidelity. But an audience can€™t live off just observing stuff €“ unless it€™s a documentary €“ so we needed a plot to go with this new and interesting world. What the scriptwriters decided upon was Judge Doom, and he was terrifying. Rightly cottoning on that you couldn€™t kill a toon with physical punishment, he invented Dip, a toon-killing solution which gave us one of the most disturbing children€™s film sequences ever. It€™s probably Toontown€™s equivalent of a gangland murder. It€™s just so disturbingly graphic, from the adorable toon€™s screams to the agonisingly slow death Doom gives it, and it sticks out like a sore thumb in this children€™s movie. It€™s the kind of moment a kid would have nightmares about it, because€ just look at it. It€™s ridiculously disturbing, and the sort of thing that stays with you way after your childhood€™s over. Whatever sense of innocence you had from watching cartoons, Doc Brown just took it out back and slaughtered it, Old Yeller style, and you can never go back.
Contributor
Contributor

Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League. You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.