Roger Rabbit Week: Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin

If you were to ask me, what I remember most when it comes to Roger Rabbit,  it would not be the film.   Now  don't get me wrong, the film is a classic but there is a certain little Disneyland ride that can be found in ToonTown, that I'll always think of when I think of Roger Rabbit.  The ride being Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin.  Now it's been years since I went on this ride.  I'll admit that when I first went on it,  there was some trepidation but at the end of the day, I liked it.   Now I've talked about this ride in the past  during Automobile Month but I thought to myself why not revisit this attraction to close out Roger Rabbit Week?   That's why it's getting it's own article.   Where to start, about with the cab that you ride in.

I bet to many of you this looks like Benny from the movie but in fact, this is not Benny.   No this is Lenny The Cab.   Benny's cousin.   Why the new character?   Well there's was a disagreement between Amblin and the Walt Disney company, the name had to be changed from Benny to Lenny.  I'm sure there's more it than that but that is all I could find this matter.   In others,  that's Lenny and this is Benny....

Now admittedly, there are some differences  in  the looks of the two characters such as Lenny has more of a childlike look to him but other than that they look like the same exact character and oh, you'll love this. Lenny is described as being Benny's twin cousin.    I don't know about you but that seems contrived.   I get that Spielberg and Disney have had their disagreements over this film  but c'mon for such a minor detail like that, why did you  feel the need to change the name?   I bet most park goers don't even realize that this is a different character.  I know I'm harping on something rather absurd  but to me, it's sad that there was even a disagreement over what the cab could be called in the first place.

Now this isn't the only difference that one'll notice when on the ride because if you have a sharp ear, you may notice that Baby Herman's voice sounds a bit different.    

Now I didn't even notice this until I re watched some ride footage on YouTube and when it got to the Baby Herman scene as pictured here, Herman's voice sounded different.   There was still that gruff tough guy sound to it but I could tell that it was not his original voice actor and as soon I heard his voice, I knew that it was Jim Cummings doing the voice here.   Cummings just has one of those voices that after hearing it in so many cartoons,  that I've come to recognize his voice whenever it pops up. Now I looked up to see if perhaps they used Cummings because perhaps Herman's original voice actor was dead but all of my research seems to point to the contrary.   I'll admit that I do not know why Cummings was used instead. There could be many reasons such as perhaps, Herman's original VA didn't want to return to do the voice for the attraction.   Now admittedly, this may seem a bit jarring seeing as Roger and Jessica's voice actors, Charles Fleischer and Kathleen Turner do respectively lend their voices to the ride.  Still Cummings does deliver a decent performance as Baby Herman.

Now  as you know with a lot of Disney attractions there is a story that goes along with the ride and this one is no different.  In this ride, the Doom Patrol are after Roger and you'll see them all over the place.  Sometimes trying to sabotage  the ride  and they have one powerful weapon up their sleeves.   I think you know what it is.  Excuse me Jessica, can you tell us what it is?

 

That's right throughout different parts of the ride, you'll come across Dip.  The only thing that can kill a toon.   Here are some scenes that involve Dip from the ride.  

Here in the pic you can see one of the Toon Patrol pouring the Dip all over the place. Which is nice but I have to say that my favorite scene with a Toon Patrol member has to be this one.

There's just something about seeing Jessica take a giant mallet to the head of one of the Doom Patrol that is rather humorous and oh let's not forget the in jokes.  There are a lot of great in jokes. Two Dumbo in jokes as matter of  fact. Here ya go.

The first one I came across again is this Pink Elephant.   The next one, you have to look a little harder to see but here ya go.

It's the Lost sign and it says Lost: One Magic Feather. If found please return to Dumbo.   Now while I like both of these jokes as I love Dumbo, I think the Pink Elephant is better because if your not thinking about it at first glance you may not know what film that's referring to. 

Now  another thing  to bring up is that if you pay attention the queue, you'll get a sense of the story for the ride   from Jessica's dressing room to what the Weasels intend to do and another fun thing to pick up on are the license plates

Now I've spent a lot of time talking about the ride and what you'll see in it.   I'm sure many of you may still be wondering what it is I liked about this ride.  Well, in simplest terms, it spins.  I'm serious, I love spinny rides and this is one of the best spinny rides that I've ever been on and I think that was a great idea for a Roger Rabbit ride to have the car spin because  I feel that it adds to the cartoony nature of Roger Rabbit and what this ride was going for.   It compliments the setting rather well and sure I may have had some minor complaints  but those mostly came after the fact. Okay there is more to it than that but that is one of the biggest things that I loved about this ride. It's also has a great setting and the ride is able to immerse you into the world of ToonTown quite well.  Like I would've liked to see Eddie Valiant appear somewhere along the ride but I understand that they wanted to keep this ride focused on the toons and that's fair.   This ride I would suggest if your a Roger Rabbit fan because there is plenty to enjoy and it fits right comfortably at ToonTown.   Let me know what you think of this, I may do some more ride articles in the future but I want to know the feedback on this one first and oh I know there weren't a lot of Roger pictures in this article. Well, here's two to make up for that.