Toontown

**Toontown** is a location from the film *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* (1988).

## Description

Toontown is a cartoon municipality which appears to be made of sketches, ink and paint and which does not obey material laws of physics. Toontown served as home to a large number of cartoon entities, better known as, "Toons". Toontown's geographic location is in Southern California, namely through tunnels in Los Angeles and Anaheim.

Toontown's laws of physics generally do not however extend to non cartoon characters with only cartoon residents being able to fully interact with the domain. These laws of physics seem to predominately be centred on if the actions aimed to be achieved are funny or not (though these rules might also extend to different genres which entities might exist within).

It should be noted that the universal weakness of all cartoon substances was a chemical known as, "The Dip" which was a paint-thinner made from acetone, benzene and turpentine. As it was a paint-thinner, the Dip dissolved toons on contact and was considered by some to be the only way to definitively kill a Toon.

### Features

* **Anaheim Tunnel**:
* **Chip & Dale's Treehouse**:
* **Daisy's Diner**:
* **Elcapitoon Theatre**:
* **Gag Factory**:
* **Goofy's House**:
* **Ink & Paint Club**:
* **Los Angeles Tunnel**:
* **Mickey's House**:
* **Minnie's House**:
* **The Miss Daisy**:
* **Toon Park**:
* **Toontown Cab Company**:
* **Toontown Five and Dime**:
* **Toowntown Hills**:
* **Toontown Train Depot**:
* **Yen Sid Valley**:

## History

### Film-continuity

Toontown was likely constructed at some point between 1919 and the 1930s. The oldest known resident of Toontown was cartoon-character Felix the Cat whose likeness was featured over the LA entrance to Toontown. The municipality was almost definitely established by the 1930s where many of its cartoon residents such as Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Betty Boop were hired as marginalized performers for cartoon studios such as Disney, Warner Brothers and Maroon Cartoons. The, "Toon" residents of Toon Town had a long history of being a minority which was frequently oppressed against by their non-cartoon, human counterparts.

Much of Toontown was owned by one Marvin Acme, the head of the Acme Corporation which designed and manufactured much of Toontown's cartoony resources. Marvin Acme was known to have loved the toons and did his best to support them however by the later 1940s, Toontown came under the jurisdiction of a cruel man known as Judge Doom. Doom came to this status via bribery and due to his ruthless usage of capitol punishment via the Dip which he used to reign in Toontown's chaotic nature. To enforce his will, Doom deputized a group of maniacal weasels known as the, "Toon Patrol" meanwhile he also established the business Cloverleaf Industries.

Judge Doom was secretly a Toon himself who wore a plastic human-suit and he intended to use Dip to demolish Toontown to create a highway that he could profiteer off of via Cloverleaf Industries. For this plan, Doom purchased the Red Car from the Pacific Electric Railroad and demolished it to drive traffic into the automobile industry. Judge Doom proceeded to murder Marvin Acme in his own warehouse by dropping a safe on his head and pinning the crime on the toon Roger Rabbit after using his subordinate R.K. Maroon to blackmail Jessica Rabbit into having an affair with Acme so the Rabbit would become the prime suspect.

Roger Rabbit however teamed up with human P.I. Eddie Valiant who uncovered Judge Doom's trail leading Doom and his weasels assassinating Maroon before kidnapping Roger to kill him. Jessica and Eddie wound up finding Doom's lair where he was preparing a machine that would douse all of Toontown in the Dip but Eddie managed to use performance to cause the cartoon weasel henchmen to literally laugh themselves to death, leaving the machine unmanned. A battle proceeded between Eddie and Judge Doom which ended in Eddie using the machine to flood the judge in the Dip, resulting in him melting away in excruciating agony.

Once it was emptied of Dip, the Dip machine was destroyed by a cartoon train and Eddie managed to use evidence in Doom's lair to prove Roger's innocence. Following this, the toons discovered Marvin Acme's final will and testament which left ownership of Toontown's land to its own cartoon residents as a means of protecting them from other corporations and bigots.

### Disney Parks

Toontown served as the residency of Mickey Mouse and his cartoon friends during the 1930s. In the 1950s, when Walt Disney sought a place to build Disneyland he was encouraged by Mickey to build in an orange-grove along the border of Toontown. In the early 1990s, Mickey was serving as mayor of Toontown and had a tunnel built which connected Toontown to Disneyland Park so that its guests could visit his world.

## Appearances and allusions

### Disney Springs

In the Co-Op Marketplace of Disney Springs, Florida is a board mentioning the town having an airline which connects to Toontown. Additionally, this town featured *Goofy's Candy Co.* which is run by Toontown resident Goofy and the B.B. Wolf Sausage Co. that is themed around *The Three Little Pigs* (1933).

## Connections

### Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

The defunct *Big Thunder Ranch* in Disneyland sometimes had a framed painting of Roger Rabbit in it.

### Disney Explorers Lodge

This resort is themed to being an explorers outpost which among other characters is used by Mickey and Minnie Mouse. In their luggage are passports with stamps showing a history of affiliation with Adventureland, Mystic Manor and the Society of Explorers and Adventurers.

### Fantasyland

Characters and entities affiliated with Toon Town are often affiliated with Fantasyland and Main Street, U.S.A., most prominently in the case of the Storybook Circus which has a roster consisting of several Mickey Mouse universe characters.

#### Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Mr. Toad was shown to inhabit Toon Town in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and has a licence-plate referencing him in the queue for Roger Rabbit's Toontown Spin.

### Great Movie Ride

Judge Doom's costume, Dolores' dress, Marvin Acme's suit, The Dip Machine model, and Eddie Valiant's bullet case all appeared in the queue. During the Spaghetti Western scene, the Black Powder used by the town came from the ACME corporation.

### Pleasure Island

*Jessica's* also known as *Jessica's of Hollywood* was a lingerie store in Pleasure Island which had a giant neon sign depicting Jessica Rabbit that served as a park-weenie for Pleasure Island. It is yet unknown if this shop would have been one of Pleasure Island's original shops from before the hurricane or if it was a feature installed by the Walt Disney Company during their restoration of the land.

### Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a prominent influence in the creation of Disney's MGM Studios and as a result is portrayed as existing in the same fictionalized depiction of Hollywood as the Hollywood Tower Hotel. Examples of this include Eddie Valiant having an apartment in the neighbourhood of Echo Lake, a billboard in Hollywood advertising Maroon Cartoon Studios, and Roger Rabbit's hand-prints being located outside of the Chinese Theatre. The attraction *Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway* within the Chinese Theatre transports guests through a cartoon projection into a cartoon-world inhabited by Mickey Mouse near the, "Yen Sid Valley". As this attraction is also to be featured in Mickey's Toon Town, it can be assumed that the Yen Sid Valley is a geographic feature of Toontown.

### Typhoon Lagoon

Placid Palms resident, "Hammerhead Fred" is shown to rely on the Acme Corporation via, "Acme Taxidermy".

## Trivia

* Toontown has a potential counter-part or sister-city in the form of, "Duckburg", a city predominately inhabited by cartoon ducks and the primary residence of one Scrooge McDuck. There are certain connections between Toontown and Duckburg in the parks continuity such as Scrooge McDuck having previously served as mayor of Toontown, Duckburg being listed as a location connected to Disney Springs' airline, and a statue of DuckBurg founder Cornelius Coot having been present in Toontown.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtfHaJKW1zQ
2. ↑ https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/3114492544\_115b614f5d.jpg
3. ↑ https://www.buzzfeed.com/crystalro/who-framed-roger-rabbit-details
4. ↑ https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2013/11/the-magic-of-disney-parks-storytelling-mickeys-toontown-at-disneyland-park/
5. ↑ http://www.mainstgazette.com/2017/10/gate-change.html
6. ↑ http://findingmickey.squarespace.com/other-hidden-dl/frontierland/767051
7. ↑ https://jungleskipper.com/sea/attractions/disney-explorers-lodge
8. ↑ https://vacationeertravels.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/30-secrets-you-never-new-about-the-disneyland-resort/
9. ↑ https://www.focusedonthemagic.com/2011/07/magical-blogorail-favorite-attraction.html
10. ↑ https://www.imnotbad.com/2011/04/park-photos-pleasure-island.html
11. ↑ https://www.themouseforless.com/blog\_world/roger-rabbit-disney-mgm-studios-history-possibilities-reality/
12. ↑ http://disneyshawn.blogspot.com/2010/06/real-dive.html
13. ↑ http://www.mainstgazette.com/2009/05/dubious-honor-of-citizenship.html
14. ↑ https://www.flickr.com/photos/21652490@N06/2921052619