“Holy smokes, he’s a Toon”
Fifth in my Childhood Villains series is the sinister, screeching Judge Doom from ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ (1988) as portrayed by the fantastic Christopher Lloyd.
I grew up on steady diet of old Warner and Fleischer Brothers cartoons so I loved seeing all the old cartoon characters in the same film when I was a kid. I still think it’s a funny and wonderfully made film. 20 years later it still makes you wonder “How did they do that?” which is lacking in anything computer generated nowadays.
With the exception of Moominpapa, all the villains in this series are supposed to be scary and I think they only do their job right if they do freak us out a little. Judge Doom is a stern figure throughout most of the film, but it’s only after he’s flattened by a stray steamroller that he’s revealed as a Toon in human disguise. There’s a section of stop motion animation of the flat Judge Doom getting to his feet and wobbling over to an air pump to blow himself back up again. The slightly jerky animation adds to the freakishness of this scene and when followed by the high pitched, red eyed reveal of the real Judge Doom, it creates a wonderfully frightening villain.
I wish Christoper Lloyd was in more films these days.
Next week: The Wheelers!
Tags: childhood villains
Man, this guy TERRIFIED me as a kid…
@adamcadwell ah Roger Rabbit, one of my favourite films. Judge Doom is scary.
@adamcadwell Cor about time with that one. Lovely stuff, you put the rest of us dirtbags to shame.
Wallpaper version , please
Coo beans. Hope the talk of a sequel/remake of the classic don’t prove to be true, but we all know how lacking in original ideas Hollwood are these days.
Looking forward to seeing The dreaded Wheelers. Those mo-fo’s were scary.
Wow. This one was a surprise!
I watched the movie when I was about 12, and I wasn’t really affected by him… now, when watching that Youtube clip, I got a real fright: Those drawn eyes on a real actor are nightmare incarnate!!!
Your illustration catches that wonderfully, with his insane gleeful expression, and the glaringly wrong (in a good way) yellow background!
on nous a toujours dit qu’il ne faut pas laisser traine nos chaussures n’importe ou…
en tous cas belle mise en main.
cette scene m’ a toujours fait trippé.
I adore your Study Sketches. It helped me with my own! After years of trying to make things pretty, it’s really hard for me to capture the “ugly” of a villain, then characterize it in a simple sketch. (I hate noses so much…)
This film was one of my favorites, and still is! All of the adult themes really keep me still interested. I think this just might be my favorite childhood villain. (Since I always cheered on the evil side as a child LOL)