Marvin Acme

Marvin Acme is a minor but at the same time central character in Disney/Touchstone's 1988 hybrid film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
== Background==
Marvin Acme is the head of the Acme Corporation and owner of Toontown. He is a bald, middle-aged gentleman with an eccentrically jovial, lighthearted personality who loves and cares deeply for the welfare of all Toons. He promised the Toons that in the event of his death, they will inherit Toontown, as stated in his will. Acme is also something of a prankster, as he likes to play harmless practical jokes on people sometimes.
Acme Corp. is a renowned, well-known manufacturer of novelty products and technologies and has been famously featured in various films, TV shows, and cartoons, most prominently Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Most of Acme's products are joke props composed of real or Toon material. His most popular props include the Punching Glove Mallet, Singing Sword, Portable Holes and the #1 bestseller, the Hand Buzzer. These have earned Acme the nickname, "The Gag King", and he's also prone to recite the company motto, "If it's Acme, it's a gasser."
==Role in the film==
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Acme is first mentioned in a newspaper article regarding rumors of him engaging in extramarital relations with Jessica Rabbit, wife of Toon star, Roger Rabbit. R.K. Maroon, a cartoon producer and friend of Acme's, hires private investigator Eddie Valiant to follow him as he is concerned that Roger's suspicions of his wife distract him from his work. That evening, Eddie heads to the Ink and Paint Club to confirm the rumors, where he meets Acme in person as a guest of the club during a piano duet between Daffy Duck and Donald Duck, which ends after Donald blows a hole in his own piano from Daffy's with a cannon and both pianos, and ducks, are yanked off stage by hooks. Unknown to Eddie at the time, Acme was busy writing out his will with Disappearing/Reappearing Ink, but takes a moment to have some fun squirting some on Eddie's shirt, staining it, and enraging Eddie when Acme giggles over it afterwards. When Eddie threatens to harm him over it, Acme calms him down by pointing out it was disappearing ink as the stain vanishes, before attempting to properly introduce himself as an apology, but Eddie knows who he is already. After reciting his company motto, Acme then gives Eddie a shock of his still #1 biggest seller, the Hand Buzzer, before returning to his table to finish watching Daffy and Donald. Shortly thereafter, Jessica makes her debut singing "Why Don't You Do Right?" After she's done, Acme takes his leave to go see her in her dressing room while Eddie was still frozen to his seat in shock from seeing Jessica's real appearance as a beautiful Toon woman. Eddie soon recovers and catches up to Acme just after he was admitted into Jessica's room, but when he tries to spy on them through the keyhole, he is caught by the Toon club bouncer, Bongo the Gorilla, and swiftly thrown out by the irate security guard after insulting him. However, Eddie is able to spot a window that is part of Jessica's dressing room and uses it instead to eavesdrop on Jessica and Acme. Eddie proceeds to take photos of Acme and Jessica (literally) "playing pattycake" in her dressing room. He later has the photos developed and shown to Roger and Maroon back in Maroon's office to confirm the rumors that Roger feared Jessica was cheating on him. Nevertheless, Roger becomes extremely agitated when he sees the pictures and scurries off in a heated rage. He later sat outside the Acme Factory to weep, pleading for his wife to tell him it isn't true she's seeing Acme now as he looks over photos of them from their wedding, honeymoon at the beach, and on a dinner date together.
Acme is found murdered the following morning in his factory warehouse, with a large safe having crushed his head (for the suspense of disbelief, his death occurs off-screen). Because of the circumstances surrounding the murder, Roger is made the prime suspect. The will, however, is nowhere to be found, which leaves the Toons unable to legally claim Toontown. Later, Jessica confides to Eddie that they were both pawns in a scheme by R.K. Maroon to blackmail Acme. Jessica did not want to cooperate, but Maroon told her that if she did not, he would blacklist Roger from ever performing for his company or in Hollywood again. Eddie was merely set up to photograph them. When confronted, Maroon confessed to selling his studio to Cloverleaf Industries, but they would only buy if Acme Corp. and Toontown were part of the deal. Acme refused to sell, knowing Judge Doom was Cloverleaf's sole stockholder and had other plans for Toontown.
Eddie then learns it was Doom who murdered Acme in order to decimate Toontown and build a freeway to monopolize L.A. transportation. After an intense, climactic fight, Doom (being a Toon all along) ends up being dissolved in his own Dip. As for Acme's will, it turns out it was the same blank sheet of paper Roger used to write a love letter to Jessica, as it was written in disappearing/reappearing ink. As soon as the ink reemerged, Toontown officially belonged to the Toons.
== Gallery==
1988-roger-04.jpg|Acme's unique way to meet someone: spraying them with ink
who-framed-roger-rabbit-disneyscreencaps.com-1833.jpg|"You won't think it's funny when I stick that pen up your nose!"
1988-roger-09.jpg|Acme enjoying Jessica's playful pinching
WFRR_0120.jpg
who-framed-roger-rabbit-disneyscreencaps.com-2688.jpg|One of the photos of Acme playing "Paddy-Cake".
who-framed-roger-rabbit-disneyscreencaps.com-3407.jpg|The scene of the crime.
who-framed-roger-rabbit-disneyscreencaps.com-3584.jpg|Acme's corpse.
==Trivia==
*His last name, Acme, is likely a reference to the ACME Corporation, a fictional corporation that is prominently featured in various classic Looney Tunes cartoons from Warner Bros. as as a running gag, usually in the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons.
*In the original book, Acme does not appear; instead, Eddie has to investigate Roger's own murder.
*According to Foghorn Leghorn in the deleted funeral scene, Marvin Acme had Toontown painted within his own backyard to give the wandering Toons of the Los Angeles area a safe home.https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-funeral-of-marvin-acme/
==References==
es:Marvin Acme
Category:Deceased characters
Category:Males
Category:Who Framed Roger Rabbit characters
Category:Businesspeople
Category:Live-action characters
Category:Adults
Category:Touchstone characters
Category:Characters
Category:American characters
Category:Heroes