Who Framed Billy Boston

Touchstone Pictures

**Who Framed Billy Boston** is a 1998 American live-action/animated mystery comedy film directed by Ken Boyer, produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts and written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman. Loosely based on and inspired by Robert Zemeckis' film *Who Framed Roger Rabbit.* Set in a 1987 version of Miami-Dade County where Krazy Kids characters (commonly referred to as "Teens" or cartoon teenagers) and people co-exist, it follows Daniel Johnson, a private detective who must exonerate a Teen named Billy Boston, who is framed for murder.

In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

## Cameos/References

* Ian Deheza-Zapata and Aiden Anderson make cameos in the Teentown scene in which they jeer a falling Daniel Johnson, who is "jumping without a parachute". Aiden appeared in his 1980-1985 design.
* Julian Puig and Danny Dork appear as performers at the school cafeteria, having a piano duel. Danny comments that this "would be the last time [he] worked with someone with a grammer disorder."
* In one scene, Wyoming Willy is blasted out of Teentown with his rear end ablaze. Yelping, he extinguishes himself in a puddle of water. Earlier, a gun is seen with an engraving on its case saying "Thanks for getting me out of the jail" signed by Wyoming Willy.
* Jon-Anthony Tinoco makes a cameo in the Teentown scene, playing "widdle piddies" with Daniel's fingers, which are holding precariously onto a flagpole (a callback to the *Krazy Kids* episode "A Tale of Two Buddies"). In this sequence, Jon-Anthony appeared in his 1982-1985 design. In addition, Daniel briefly says "hi" to Jon-Anthony in an amicable way.
* The film ends with José Martinez saying, "Th- th-- th-- that's all, folks!," a nod to the ending of various late-1930s & early-1940s *Looney Tunes* cartoons and Porky Pig's signature catchphrase.
* Silhouettes of Ronny E. Jonny and Zack Zoomer appear briefly as the elevator (maneuvered by Damien) goes up. They later appear at the end of the film.
* The song "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile", which the Teens sing when Daniel Rodriguez first arrives in Teentown and also at the end of the picture, is featured in an eponymous 1931 *Merrie Melodie*, "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" In the cartoon, the full song is not sung, while in the movie it is. The song in this film uses the same rhythm from the 1988 film *Who Framed Roger Rabbit,* but the lyrics are slightly different.
* At the beginning, when Daniel is walking around the Howard D. McMillan High School lot, Kyle J. Pale, Bruno the Bull, Wacky Yacky, Felix the Fox, and a prototype Aiden appear as extras in the background.
* Dennis, Travis, Aiden, Danny, Ian, Bryan Jasmine, Mengoni, Hailey, Marian, Emma, José, Willy, Jon-Anthony, Madrigal, Eddie, Frankston, Suarez, Ronny, Zack, Nolan, Sofia, Ivan, Jasper and other characters all make cameos at the end of the film. In this sequence, as mentioned before, Jon-Anthony appeared in his modern design and Andy is colored Yellow.
	+ Erik Martinez appears briefly in the background when the Teens react to Billy's hand-buzzing trick. He appears again during the final shot of the film as the crowd exits the scene. In these scenes, only part of his head and his body show and has no dialogue.
	+ Garcia from "G For Get'em" makes a cameo at the end of the film, viewed from the back, just as José Martinez closes the movie. She is colored light brown in this film.
* Daniel startles Joseph by saying "What's up, boy?", a reference to Aiden's famous line.
* The exchange between Daniel and Billy in the barroom is a callback to the "nerd season/smartie season" routine from "Smartie Fire", "Smartie Seasoning, and Nerd! Smartie, Nerd!
* There are a few scenes where *The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down* (the main theme to the *Looney Tunes*) is performed. Billy sings the song while entertaining patrons at the bar and Daniel Johnson also sings to it in a later scene to make the Teen Patrol hyenas laugh themselves to death.
* Fransisco, Gabriel, Spencer and Jordan appear in the final scene as Teentown's police officers just before José Martinez ends the film. Here, they have no speaking lines.
* In the ending scene, Pinkie Pane appears at the ending of the Teentown train when it crashes the Jip Machine. Only a slhouette of him is shown.

### Deleted/Dropped Cameos

* Witch Gabie makes a brief cameo during the deleted "cow head" scene, flying around on Boozlebib before getting struck down by lightning.
* A deleted scene involving Nathan's funeral would've featured Frankston Brandston as the preacher giving the sermon. Despite being cut from the final film, Joe Alaskey is still credited as voicing him in the end credits.
* Robin Le Pen, Vex, Mighty Mike, Beckle and Deckle, and other characters were also planned to appear in the film, but they were dropped for unknown reasons.
* The late 1970s *Krazy Kids* character Felix Frankie was originally intended to appear in the film, but the rights could not be obtained in time. However, he does appear in a photo and in the keystone of the tunnel that leads to Teentown. He also was intended to appear in the deleted scene "Nathan's Funeral" as a coffin carrier with the other teens.
* There are some characters who didn't appear as living teens in the film but are seen in photos and posters. Those characters are Berry, Jerry and Terry, Shaney Saun (who is also mentioned in the film), David Leon, and Walter and Vlad. Some of them are also mentioned in the film such as Billy Willy, Shaney Saun (who is also appears in a poster in Kate the Random Girl's bedroom in the film), and Riddle Diddle.

## Plot

The film is set in 1987 Miami-Dade County (when it used to be named Dade County at the time it was set), where "teens" act in their television show as with live-action films. They regularly interact with real people and reside in an area known as Teentown. Private detective Daniel Johnson and his brother, Harry, once worked closely with them on several famous cases, but after Harry was killed by a teen while the duo was investigating a bank robbery, Daniel lapsed into alcoholism, lost his sense of humor, and vowed never to help teens again.

Joseph Diaz, head of Howard D. McMillan High School, is anxious about the recent poor performances of one of his biggest stars, Billy Boston. He hires Daniel to investigate rumors about Billy's attractive wife, Jessie, being romantically involved with businessman Nathan Trendie, owner of both Trendie Corporation and Teentown. After watching Jessica perform at an underground nightclub, Daniel secretly photographs her and Nathan playing patty-cake in her dressing room, which he shows to Billy. A heartbroken Billy Boston aggressively declares that he and Jessie will be happy again, and flees.

The next morning, Trendie is discovered to have been killed by a falling safe at his factory, and evidence points to Billy being responsible. While investigating, Daniel meets Judge Wreck, Teentown's sinister superior court judge, and his police team, the Teen Patrol, a gang of teen hyenas hired by Wreck to find and arrest Billy. Wreck has formulated a solvent mixture called "Jip" that is capable of killing the otherwise invulnerable teens. Daniel later runs into Billy's toon co-star, Omari Donne, who believes Billy is innocent and that Nathan's missing will, which will give the teens ownership of Teentown, may be the key to his murder. In his office, Daniel finds Billy, who begs him to help exonerate him. Daniel reluctantly hides Billy when the hyenas storm into his office to search for him, and then later in a local bar, where his girlfriend, Kelly, works at. Jessie approaches Daniel and says that Joseph forced her to pose for the photographs so he could blackmail Nathan by threatening to ruin Billy's career.

Wreck and his hyena henchmen discover Billy at the bar, but he and Daniel escape with Conner, an anthropomorphic taxi cab. They hide in a movie theater, where Daniel sees a newsreel detailing the sale of Howard D. McMillan High School to Cloverway, a mysterious corporation that bought the city's Miami streetcar system shortly before Nathan's murder. Daniel rushes to the school to interrogate Joseph, leaving Billy to wait outside, but Jessie knocks him out and stows him in the trunk of her car. Joseph tells Daniel that he blackmailed Nathan into selling his company so he could sell the studio, then admits he only did so out of fear for the safety of the teens. Joseph is killed by an unseen assassin before he can explain the consequences of the missing will. Daniel witnesses Jessie fleeing the scene and, assuming she is the killer, chases her into Teentown. Once he catches her, she reveals that Wreck killed Nathan and Joseph and that the former gave her his will for safekeeping, but she discovered that it was blank. She and Daniel are then kidnapped by Wreck and the Teen Patrol.

At the Trendie factory, Wreck reveals that he has learned of the city's plan to build a freeway and intends to profit from it. As the only stockholder of Cloverway, he bought the streetcar system in order to shut it down and will use a machine loaded with Jip to destroy Teentown, allowing him to sell the land to roadside businesses. Billy unsuccessfully attempts to save Jessie and they are tied onto a hook in front of the machine's hose. Daniel performs a comedic vaudeville act, causing the Teen Patrol to die laughing; he kicks their leader Strayter into the machine's jip vat, killing him. Daniel battles Wreck, who is flattened by a steamroller, but somehow survives, exposing him as the very teen who killed Harry. Daniel uses a teen boxing glove mallet that causes the machine to empty its Jip onto Wreck, melting him.

The empty machine crashes through the wall into Teentown, where it is destroyed by a train. As the police and many dozens of teens gather at the scene, Daniel reveals Wreck's guilt in Nathan's murder to the former, clearing Billy's name. Daniel discovers that Billy inadvertently wrote a love letter for Jessie on Nathan's will, which was written in disappearing/reappearing ink and Teentown's ownership is handed over to the teens. Having regained his sense of humor, Daniel, happily walks into Teentown with Kelly, Billy, Jessie, and the other teens.

## Production

### Development

Charles W. Miller, then president of Paramount, saw it as a perfect opportunity to produce a blockbuster. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman were hired to write the script, penning two drafts. Ken Hanson offered his services as director in 1992, but Paramount declined as his two previous films (*I Wanna Be Your Love* and *Used Auctions*) had been box-office bombs. Between 1991 and 1933 Paramount developed test footage with Darrell Von Citters as animation director, Paul Reubens voicing Billy Boston, Peter Renaday as Daniel Rodriguez, and Russi Taylor as Jessie Boston. The project was revamped in 1995 by Michael Moore, the then-new CEO of Paramount. Amblin Entertainment, which consisted of Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, were approached to produce *Who Framed Billy Boston* alongside Paramount. The original budget was projected at $50 million, which Nickelodeon felt was too expensive.

The film was finally green-lit when the budget decreased to $30 million, which at the time still made it the most expensive animated film ever green-lit. Paramount Pictures chairman Jeffrey Goldberg argued that the hybrid of live-action and animation would "save" Paramount's animation department. Spielberg's contract included an extensive amount of creative control and a large percentage of the box-office profits. Paramount kept all merchandising rights. Spielberg (who was working at Touchstone Pictures at the time) convinced Nickelodeon to "lend" their popular characters to appear in the film with (in some cases) stipulations on how those characters were portrayed; for example, Nickelodeon's Dennis and Travis appear as equally talented dueling pianists, and Maximus Ortiz and Adam Johnson also share a scene. Apart from this agreement, and some of the original Krazy Kids voice artists being hired to reprise their roles, Viacom was not involved in the production of *Billy Boston*. However, executives at Paramount expressed displeasure at the animators using the Dennis design by Josh Wilson and demanded they use the design by Charlie Anderson; in response to this, Hanson had separate artists animate Dennis using Anderson's design to satisfy Nickelodeon in order to use Wilson's design in the final film. The producers of Touchstone Pictures were unable to acquire the rights to use characters such as Mauricio, John and Jaden, Little Luna, Casey, the Teletoons or others for appearances from it's respective owner (Viacom).

### Animation and Post-Production

Post-production lasted for 14 months. Because the film was made after computer animation and digital compositing were widely used, all the animation was done using cels and optical compositing (similar to the production of *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*)*.* First, the animators and layout artists were given black-and-white printouts of the live-action scenes (known as "photo stats"), and they placed their animation paper on top of them. The artists then drew the animated characters in relationship to the live-action footage. Due to Boyer's dynamic camera moves, the animators had to confront the challenge of ensuring the characters were not "slipping and slipping all over the place". After rough animation was complete, it was run through the normal process of traditional animation until the cels were shot on the rostrum camera with no background. The animated footage was then sent to ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) for compositing, where technicians animated three lighting layers (shadows, highlights, and tone mattes) separately, to make the cartoon characters look three-dimensional and give the illusion of the characters being affected by the lighting on set. Finally, the lighting effects were optically composited on to the cartoon characters, who were, in turn, composited into the live-action footage. One of the most difficult effects in the film was Jessie's dress in the nightclub scene, because it had flashing sequins, an effect accomplished by filtering light through a plastic bag scratched with steel wool.

## Proposed Sequel

Spielberg discussed a sequel in 1999 with J. J. Abrams as writer and Hanson as producer. Abrams's outline was eventually abandoned. Nat Mauldin was hired to write a prequel titled *Billy Boston II: The Teen Plateen*, set in 1942 to 1944. Similar to the previous film, *Toon Platoon* featured many cameo appearances by characters from Krazy Kids television series. It began with Billy Boston's early years, living in a house in the midwestern United States. With human Larry Anderson, Billy travels west to seek his mother, in the process meeting Jessie Chastain (his future wife), a struggling Hollywood actress. While Billy and Larry are enlisting in the Army, Jessie is kidnapped and forced to make pro-Nazi German broadcasts. Billy and Larry must save her by going into Nazi-occupied Europe accompanied by several other Toons in their Army platoon. After their triumph, Billy and Ritchie are given a Hollywood Boulevard parade, and Billy is finally reunited with his mother and father, Harry Houston.

Mauldin later retitled his script *Who Discovered Billy Boston*. Spielberg left the project when deciding he could not satirize Nazis after directing *Humble Jumble*. Eisner commissioned a rewrite in 2000 with Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver. Although they kept Billy's search for his mother, Stoner and Oliver replaced the WWII subplot with Billy's inadvertent rise to stardom on Broadway and Hollywood. Paramount was impressed and Alan Menken was hired to write five songs for the film and offered his services as executive producer. One of the songs, "This Only Happens in the Movies", was recorded in 2008 on the debut album of Broadway actress Kerry Butler. Eric Goldberg was set to be the new animation director, and began to redesign Billy's new character appearance.

Spielberg became busy establishing DreamWorks, while Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy decided to remain as producers. Test footage for *Who Discovered Billy Boston* was shot sometime in 2000 at the Paramount animation unit in Hollywood, California; the results were a mix of CGI, traditional animation, and live-action that did not please Paramount. A second test had the teens completely converted to CGI; but this was dropped as the film's projected budget would escalate past $100 million. Eisner felt it was best to cancel the film. In March 2003, producer Don Hank was doubtful about a sequel being made, arguing that public tastes had changed since the 1990s with the rise of computer animation. "There was something very special about that time when animation was not as much in the forefront as it is now."

In December 2007, Marshall stated that he was still "open" to the idea, and in April 2009, Hanson revealed he was still interested. According to a 2009 MTV News story, Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman were writing a new script for the project, and the animated characters would be in traditional two-dimensional, while the rest would be in motion capture. However, in 2010, Hanson said that the sequel would remain hand-drawn animated and live-action sequences will be filmed, just like in the original film, but the lighting effects on the Krazy Kids characters and some of the props that the teens handle will be done digitally. Also in 2010, Hank, who was the film's original associate producer, confirmed the sequel's development in an interview with *Empire*. He stated, "Yeah, I couldn't possibly comment. I deny completely, but yeah... if you're a fan, pretty soon you're going to be very, very, very happy." In 2010, Alex Stone stated he was interested in the project, reprising his role as Daniel Johnson. However, he retired from acting in 2012 after being diagnosed with Paul's disease a year earlier, and died from pneumonia in 2014. Marshall has confirmed that the film is a prequel, similar to earlier drafts, and that the writing was almost complete. During an interview at the premiere of *Flight*, Hanson stated that the sequel was still possible, despite Stone's absence, and the script for the sequel was sent to Paramount for approval from studio executives.

In February 2014, Gary D. Wayne, writer of the original novel, said Erik Von Wodtke and he were working on a development proposal for an animated Paramount buddy comedy starring Maximus Ortiz and Billy Boston called *The Stooge*, based on the 1952 film of the same name. The proposed film is set to a prequel, taking place five years before *Who Framed Billy Boston* and part of the story is about how Billy met Jessie. Wayne has stated the film is currently wending its way through Paramount.

In November 2016, while promoting his film *Allied* in England, Hanson stated that the sequel "moves the story of Billy and Jessie Boston into the next few years of period film, moving on from film noir to the world of the 1990s". He also stated that the sequel would feature a "digital Alex Stone", as Daniel Rodriguez would return in "ghost form". While the director went on to state that the script is "terrific" and the film would still use hand-drawn animation, Hanson thinks that the chances of Paramount green-lighting the sequel are "slim". As he explained more in detail, "The current corporate Paramount culture has no interest in Billy, and they certainly don't like Jessie at all". In December 2018, while promoting *Road To Paradise*, his latest film, and given the 20th anniversary of *Who Framed Billy Boston*, Hanson reiterated in an interview with Yahoo! Movies that though the sequel's script is "wonderful", Paramount is still unlikely to ever produce it, and he does not see the possibility of producing it as an original film for the streaming service Paramount+, as he feels that it does not make any sense as there is no "Princess" in it.

## Notes/Trivia

• The early stars of the show Dennis and Travis, were originally intended to appear in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (the film which this film is inspired by). However, the rights could not be obtained in time. They did appear in the deleted scene of "Marvin Acme's Funeral". Though the film takes place in 1947, they would've been two of the several anachronisms that appeared in the film, much like Disney's Tinkerbell and Looney Tunes' Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner.

• In the Acme Teens episode "Fair Enough", Dennis and Travis are waiting at the line for tickets to the fair. Travis comments "Okay, I can see why the sequel never came out. You guys are just wanting to have some fun at the fair!". This is intentionally a reference to the sequel being either cancelled or delayed.

• Originally, there were supposed to be seven hyenas of the Teen Patrol (Itchy, Bicky, Kicky, Picky, Sticky, Ticky, and Licky) to parody the seven dwarfs, but this was changed with Licky and Kicky being written out while the five hyenas remained in the final film.

• In the early drafts of the script, there was supposed to be dialogue where it was revealed that Judge Wreck was the one who killed Dandelion's mother, but it was removed for unknown reasons.