The Tall Guy
Among Philpott and the puppet crew's duties were using strings to move objects handled by the cartoon characters, such as the various items scuffled around by an octopus bartender or the gun aimed at actor Bob Hoskins by one of the evil weasel characters. Other duties were as simple as wobbling boxes or other surfaces the cartoon characters stood on. During a scene in which Roger Rabbit flushes himself down a toilet, Philpott spent a full afternoon under the fake toilet, where he used an invisible string to pull the toilet flusher and spun around to make water come up from the bowl. Barclay said the experience was enjoyable, but he felt the computer-effects-oriented crew did not take the puppeteers very seriously. He sensed that his animatronic art form was dying and knew he would probably never work in movies again. Philpott did appear, however, as a juggler in the background of the 1989 romantic comedy "The Tall Guy", which starred Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson, and Rowan Atkinson.