It's the rabbit at The Cabot!

Beverly, MA--It's THE RABBIT AT THE CABOT! The 30th Anniversary Screening of the 1988 Academy Award winning Who Framed Roger Rabbit comes to The Cabot Sunday, August 19 at 2:00 pm with Who Censored Roger Rabbit? book author Gary K. Wolf hosting. This exclusive area film event will also include a COSTUME CONTEST for attendees to come as their favorite character in the film! Winners will receive Cabot Club Memberships. A Q&A with Gary will take place at the end.

Tickets at $15 each for this cool film event are on sale now at TheCabot.org. The Cabot is located at 286 Cabot Street in the heart of downtown Beverly, Massachusetts.

For further information, email: info@thecabot.org.

The 30th Anniversary showing of Who Framed Roger Rabbit at The Cabot celebrates the now legendary film which first was released June 22,1988, shortly after Disney purchased the rights to the book by author Gary K. Wolf whose book, Who Censored Roger Rabbit?was just on the shelves.

With a budget of $50.6 million, the movie was released by Touchstone Pictures, a division of Walt Disney Pictures. Of interest: Walt Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner and Roy Disney elected to distribute Roger Rabbit through the Touchstone Division versus Walt Disney as they thought the film was a bit too risqué!

The film grossed $156 Million in the United States in 1988, the 2nd highest grossing film of that year. Only Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise surpassed that figure. The film also grossed $173 million overseas and worldwide, $329 million. In 1988, the film was the 20th highest grossing movie of all times. It was released on home video on October 12, 1989. To date, the film has NOW grossed $750 million.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was produced by Executive Producer Steven Spielberg via Amlin Entertainment and also Frank Marshall and Robert Watts. Robert Zemeckis was the Director and the movie starred Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant, Christopher Lloyd as Judge Doom, Charles Fleischer as Roger Rabbit, Stubby Kaye as Marvin Acme and Joanna Cassidy as Dolores while Mel Blanc voiced Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety and Sylvester. Kathleen Turner voiced the famous sultry and sexy Jessica Rabbit character.

Spielberg was given enormous creative breadth in the film and it was he who convinced other studios (Warner Bros., Felix the Cat, Universal Entertainment and others) to lend out their characters for the film.

Robert Zemeckis was hired to direct the film after his huge successes with Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future.

The film brought a renewed interest in the Golden Age of American animation (which had begun with Steamboat Willie in 1928), spearheading modern American animation and the Disney Renaissance.

REVIEWS:

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four, predicting it would carry "the type of word of mouth that money can't buy. This movie is not only great entertainment, but [also] a breakthrough in craftsmanship."

Ebert and his colleague Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune spent a considerable amount of time in the Siskel & Ebert episode in which they reviewed the film analyzing the film's painstaking filmmaking. Siskel also praised the film, and ranked it number two on his top-ten films list for 1988, while Ebert ranked it as number eight on a similar list.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times commented, "although this isn't the first time that cartoon characters have shared the screen with live actors, it's the first time they've done it on their own terms and made it look real."

Desson Thomson of The Washington Post considered Roger Rabbit to be "a definitive collaboration of pure talent. Zemeckis had Walt Disney Pictures' enthusiastic backing, producer Steven Spielberg's pull, Warner Brothers' blessing, Canadian animator Richard Williams' ink and paint, Mel Blanc's voice, Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman's witty, frenetic screenplay, George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic and Bob Hoskins' comical performance as the burliest, shaggiest private eye."

Gene Shalit on The Today Show also praised the film, calling it "one of the most extraordinary movies ever made."

AWARDS:

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? won three Academy Awards and a Special Achievement Award. It became the first live-action/animation hybrid film to win multiple Academy Awards since Mary Poppins in 1964.

It won Academy Awards for Best Sound Effects Editing (Charles L. Campbell and Louis Edemann), Best Visual Effects and Best Film Editing. Other nominations included Best Art Direction (Art Direction: Elliot Scott; Set Decoration: Peter Howitt), Best Cinematography and Best Sound (Robert Knudson, John Boyd, Don Digirolamo and Tony Dawe).

Richard Williams received a Special Achievement Academy Award "for animation direction and creation of the cartoon characters".

Roger Rabbit also won the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film, as well as Best Direction for Zemeckis and Special Visual Effects. Hoskins, Lloyd, and Cassidy were nominated for their performances, while Alan Silvestri and the screenwriters received nominations. The film was nominated for four categories at the 42nd British Academy Film Awards and won for Best Visual Effects. Roger Rabbit was nominated by The Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), while Hoskins was also nominated for his performance. The film also won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie.

CONTROVERSY:

With the film's LaserDisc release, Variety first reported in March 1994 that observers uncovered several scenes of antics from the animators that supposedly featured brief nudity of the Jessica Rabbit character. While undetectable when played at the usual rate of 24 film frames per second, the Laserdisc player allowed the viewer to advance frame-by-frame to uncover these visuals. Whether or not they were actually intended to depict the nudity of the character remains unknown. Many retailers said that within minutes of the Laserdisc debut, their entire inventory was sold out. The run was fueled by media reports about the controversy, including stories on CNN and various newspapers.

Gary K. Wolf is best known for his series of comedic novels featuring the now famous Roger Rabbit, a cartoon character who lives in an alternate universe where humans and cartoon characters co-exist. As the celebrated author of the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, Wolf gained fame in 1988 when his literary vision of humans cohabitating with Toons became a reality in the $750 million blockbuster Disney/Spielberg film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The film won four Academy Awards and launched a multiple-picture screen writing deal for Wolf with Walt Disney Pictures. In addition, his ideas inspired Toontown, the themed land at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland.

He followed up the original Who Censored Roger Rabbit? with two subsequent novels Who P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? and Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? (2015).

After graduating from the University of Illinois with a Bachelors degree in advertising and a Masters degree in communications, Wolf began his career as an advertising executive for a San Francisco advertising agency. He then switched coasts and moved East where he worked as vice president and creative director for several more advertising agencies.

He served as an Air Commando in the Vietnam War winning a Bronze Star and two Air Medals.

He is now a full time writer living in Boston.