R.K. Maroon

R.K. Maroon was the owner of Maroon Cartoons in Disney/Touchstone's 1988 hybrid film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
==Role in the film==
Maroon, the owner of Maroon Cartoons, is first seen with an editor watching a piece of the film playing through a moviola as the Toon-hating private cop Eddie Valiant enters his office. When the editor wheels the machine away, Maroon tasks Eddie to get him some pictures of Jessica after suspicions arise of Jessica hanging off with a sugar daddy, noting Roger Rabbit kept blowing his lines, due to his jealousy, thus losing his focus. Eddie demands $100 for the job. Maroon, initially reluctant to pay that much, pays him only $50, promising the rest if Eddie delivers.
That night, Maroon is later seen in his office while a tearful Roger having a whiny temper tantrum and getting very upset over Jessica playing pattycake with Toontown owner Marvin Acme by rattling the blinds and headbutting Maroon's desk asks them if that's true. Maroon hands Roger a handkerchief, advises him to take comfort, and tells him that he's not the first man whose wife played pattycake on him. After Roger blows his nose into it with gusto, he hands it back, dripping with Toon water, but Maroon hands it to Valiant who drops it into the bin with a splash, and then Roger complains that he doesn't believe it. However, Eddie tells him to believe it and took the pictures of both Jessica and Acme playing pattycake himself, and Roger flicks through the pictures faster and faster so it looks like they are moving, then throws them into the air, and then Eddie taunts Roger that he better start drinking it black because Acme's taking the cream now, and Maroon says that it's hard to believe and explains to him that Marvin Acme's been his friend and neighbor for 30 years. Then, he asks him who would have thought he was a sugar daddy, and Roger tells him somebody must have made her do it. Maroon then hands Roger a glass of liquor and tells him to drink it, so it'll make him feel better, but when Roger does so, he turns a variety of different colors and his eyes bulge, then he suddenly shoots into the air and emits a whistling sound so high-pitched that it breaks all the glasses in the room, including the one held by Eddie and the glass awards on the shelves, and as the whistling dies down just before falling his face down on the table, Roger collapses back into the seat and mutters, "Thanks, I needed that." While Eddie is shaking the liquor of his hands, he tells Maroon he thinks his work is finished, then asks, "How about that carrot you owe me, huh?" Maroon hands Eddie the check and declares that a deal is a deal, and Eddie thanks him. Maroon tells Roger he knows it seems pretty painful now, but he advises him to find someone new. Eddie agrees and says that the dames'll be breaking Roger's door down. However, Roger suddenly comes to life again, grabs Eddie by the collar, forces him back onto Maroon's desk, and scolds him that Jessica's the only one to him, and shouts that they'll rise above this pickling peccadillo and be happy again, then crashes through the window leaving a rabbit-shaped hole in the glass and the blinds. As Eddie and Maroon stare dumbfounded out of it, the blinds crash down, and Eddie tells Maroon at least Roger took it well.
Later, as Eddie, Dolores, and Roger are leaving a theater, Maroon is seen in a newsreel clinching a deal at his studio via a handshake with bankers and executives of Cloverleaf Industries. Eddie believes this deal is the connection to all the recent events.
He is last seen waiting in his office and putting his pistol away in his pocket very nervously just before Eddie sneaks up behind him, taps him on the shoulder, and recites the Bugs Bunny catch phrase, "What's up, Doc?" Maroon demands him that he is trying to give him a heart attack, and Eddie goads Maroon that he needs a heart before he can have an attack. He then asks Eddie if he's got the will. Eddie nods, lies to him by briefly showing him a bit of paper which is Jessica's love letter from Roger and asks the grumpy cartoonist if he has the way because he can tell him now it won't come cheap. Maroon says to Eddie he's got a lot of brass coming up to his studio by himself. While Jessica hears them talking outside right after she sticks her husband in the trunk of her car, Maroon, now drawing out his pistol, scolds him that he wants to see Acme's will, but the private detective already told him he has that. However, Maroon angrily grabs it from inside Eddie's jacket and reads Jessica's love letter, then asks whether it is supposed to be a joke and stuffs it in Eddie's belt. Then, throwing his anger right back at him, Eddie grabs a soda seltzer bottle and sprays a jet of soda in the studio keeper's eyes, knocks him in the face sending him falling flat on his back, holding him at gunpoint, and grabs him by the necktie to his feet. Maroon asks Eddie what he'll do to him, and Eddie says he'll listen to Maroon spin the Cloverleaf scenario and his story of greed, sex, and murder, and edit out the parts that he dislikes, but Maroon tells him that he's got it all wrong because he's a cartoon maker, not a murderer. Eddie says everybody's got to have a hobby and toughly puts Maroon's necktie in his editing machine and turns it on pulling his face closer. Maroon is now convinced that he tells Eddie the truth about having a chance to sell his studio, but Cloverleaf wouldn't buy his property unless Acme sold them his and says the Toontown keeper wouldn't sell, so he would blackmail Acme with pictures of both him and Jessica. He also explains that he's been around Toons all his life, so he didn't want to see them destroyed. Eddie asks him why, and Maroon claims if he tells him, he's a dead man. However, Eddie tells Maroon that he's a dead man if he doesn't tell him. On his last words just before his sudden death, Maroon explains, "Unless Acme's will shows by midnight tonight, Toontown's going to be land for the freew...." At that moment, Eddie sees the reflection of a gold gun in a picture of a possum hanging by his tail in the wall. It fires 2 shots, and Maroon screams in pain. Eddie dives for cover behind the sofa, and bullets slam into it. When the gunfire stops, Eddie looks at Maroon, who has been shot to death.
Later, in Toontown, showing him the gun on the ground, Eddie made a serious discovery from Jessica that it was the dastardly Judge Doom who destroyed Maroon.
===Comics===
In the film's comic book adaptation, Maroon's role is mostly the same as in the film, except that it is mentioned that he was brought to the hospital after being shot, suggesting that he survived. However, later comics set after the events of the film stick with him having died. In the post-movie comics, it was shown that Maroon had a twin brother named C.B. Maroon, who was given ownership of Maroon Cartoons after his brother's death, parodying the fact that Walt Disney's brother, Roy, took over the Walt Disney Studios after his brother's death.
R.K. Maroon's only other appearance in comics was in the two-part story "Roger the Barbarian", which appeared in the September and October 1992 issues of Disney Adventures. His appearance there makes it the only Roger Rabbit comic confirmed to take place before the movie's events.
==Trivia==
*Maroon apparently has connections to other studios such as Walt Disney Productions, seeing as he has been able to get several cartoon characters on loan from other studios.
==Gallery==
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