Roller Coaster Rabbit

Roller Coaster Rabbit is a 1990 short, starring Roger Rabbit, that was shown before the film Dick Tracy, and the UK theatrical release of Toy Story in 1996. It is the second animated Roger Rabbit short, produced after the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It was made by Touchstone Pictures and Amblin Entertainment.

Plot
The second of the Roger Rabbit shorts features our hero at the fair with Baby Herman and his mother. Baby Herman loses his red balloon and Roger goes to get him a new one. Before he returns, however, Baby Herman sees another red balloon at a dart game and goes to try to get it. When Roger comes back to give Baby Herman his balloon, he finds that he is gone, and the chase begins. Firstly Baby Herman finds himself following the balloon into a field homed to a grazing bull. Roger soon follows him. Baby Herman walks through directly underneath the bull, he notices a round balloon-like object and grasps it unknown to him that it was really the bull's scrotum. The bull snaps. Roger picks up Baby Herman but just happens to be looking the bull in the eyes. It hurls Roger and Baby Herman into the air sending him flying out of the field and they land in a roller coaster train which is traveling slowly up the lift hill. The next stage of this short the train continues to climb the lift hill. They reach the top which is exaggerated to reach beyond the clouds and into space. Roger looks down and sees the world. Moments later the train drops down thousands of meters. The speed of the drop is maintained throughout the remainder of the chase. After a few twist and turns (in the track) a shot of Jessica Rabbit appears where she is tied down to the tracks, unable to move. She calls out to be saved before the train crushes her. As it draws near, it topples over and fortunately bounces over her avoiding her completely. The camera "moves" along and Droopy appears beside her for a quick one-liner. The story then continues. Roger, grasping onto Baby Herman, tumbles and loses the train, leaving Roger sliding along the tracks with his feet, gradually gaining friction causing his feet to catch fire. The track follows into a dark tunnel and then stumbles across a "wrong way sign". Finally, Roger and Baby Herman crash through it and into a real-life filming studio, a direct reference to the reality/cartoon cross-over from the feature film.

Cameos
The cartoon characters that make cameos appearances in this short include:
 * Mickey Mouse
 * Clarabelle Cow
 * Pinocchio
 * Ariel from The Little Mermaid
 * Droopy

Trivia

 * The title card at the start of the short states that it was made in 1947, the year Who Framed Roger Rabbit was set in.
 * The version of the short on video is just a tad shorter than the one seen in theaters. The scene where Roger's coaster car goes out of the frame has been scissored a bit. However, this was done in order to make the gag work better.
 * Shooting gallery prizes not only include Mickey Mouse but also Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman.
 * When Roger is throwing stuff out of Baby Herman's baby carriage, he tosses out a bottle, rattle, teddy bear, ball, safety pin, rolling pin, pistol (which fires), box of cigars, two fluffy dice, an axe, TNT, Mickey Mouse Club hat, a book titled "The Disney Look", bowling ball, bear trap, anvil, rubber tire, bottle with a skull motif, kitchen sink, and copy of Play-Toon magazine.
 * The small billboard poster in the opening shot is a reference to the name change of The Great Mouse Detective, which was originally titled "Basil of Baker Street".
 * Originally a special in-joke was planned. It was to have taken place when Roger and Baby Herman reached the top of the roller coaster's lift hill. At the top would have been a intersection with a traffic light that turned red, pausing their train. At this point, the "Long Car" was have zoomed through the intersection in front of them. Riding in this train was supposed to have been every single animated character that has ever appeared in a Disney film. Mickey and Minnie were to have been seated in the front car, while Monstro the Whale from Pinocchio and Chernabog would have been towering over everyone from seats at the very back. Disney animators worked for weeks to get this brief flash of a scene just right. Ancient model sheets were pulled from the studio's animation research library to make sure every single character looked perfect. Whether each character should go on the train was endlessly debated. However, despite all the effort put into the gag, it had to eventually be cut. If the "Long Car" zoomed through the scene as fast as it was originally supposed to, none of the audience would have been able to recognize any of the characters. But if it was slowed down, it threw off the frantic pace of the rest of the short. So the joke was left on the cutting room floor.
 * This short was the center of some disputes. Michael Eisner wanted it to proceed Dick Tracy. Steven Spielberg wanted it to be shown before Arachnophobia. It ended up being preceeding Dick Tracy, however.
 * This was the only one of the three Roger Rabbit shorts to get a PG rating. The given reason takes place in the bull scene where Roger lands head first in manure and Baby Herman grabs the bull by his scrotum, thinking it is a balloon (albeit it was hidden by the balloon). This could be the possible reason why it was released by Touchstone Pictures instead of Walt Disney Pictures. However, it was the only Disney animated short to be rated PG until 2014's Monsters University sequel short Party Central.

Home video releases
VHS
 * The Best of Roger Rabbit

Laserdisc
 * The Best of Roger Rabbit

DVD
 * Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Vista Series

Blu-ray
 * Who Framed Roger Rabbit: 25th Anniversary Edition