‘Roger Rabbit’ comes to Coolidge Corner’s ‘Science on Screen’ series

By Taylor Rapalyea
Staff Writer

Who would have thought the real question in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” would be regarding physics? Fortunately for giant nerds everywhere, Coolidge Corner Theatre’s “Science on Screen” series has chosen the classic 1988 film for its next feature.

Chair and Professor of Physics at Harvard University Melissa Franklin will be discussing cartoon physics prior to a screening of the movie at 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 9.

Based on classic LA private eye movies, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” broke new ground with its seamless mix of live action and animation wizardry.

In 1947 Hollywood, gruff gumshoe Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) agrees to take the case of Roger Rabbit, a fast-talking cartoon star framed for the murder of Marvin Acme, gag factory mogul and owner of Toontown.

The plot thickens as Eddie uncovers a series of scandals and realizes the very existence of Toontown is at stake. One of the film’s most delightful aspects is the unprecedented number of cartoon stars making cameo appearances, including Betty Boop, Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker, Sylvester the Cat, and Tweety Bird.

The suspension of disbelief at the deviation from the normal laws of physics have been part of animated cartoons almost from the start. The reason is simple. As Roger explains in the film, cartoons are allowed to bend or break natural laws for the sake of comedy.

In one classic example of cartoon physics, an animated character runs off a cliff and hovers in midair until he looks down. Only when he realizes he is suspended over empty space do the rules of gravity take over, and he plummets to the ground.

Other examples abound. For instance, cartoon physics hold that a character will shoot straight upward when poked in the rump and that as speed increases, objects can be in several places at once.

Melissa Franklin is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Chair of the Department of Physics at Harvard University. She is an experimental particle physicist who studies proton-proton collisions produced by the Large Hadron Collider.

Dr. Franklin has worked on the Collider Detector at Fermilab since 1983. She is also a collaborator on the ATLAS experiment, where she works in association with more than 3,000 physicists. She is currently studying the properties of the Higgs boson.

The Coolidge Corner Theatre’s “Science on Screen” series, launched in 2005, pairs screenings of classic and modern films with lively presentations by notable science and technology experts.  Each film serves as a jumping-off point for the speaker to share scientific research or technological advances in a way that engages popular-culture audiences – from the neurobiology of the zombies in “Night of the Living Dead” to how far artificial intelligence has come since “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“Science on Screen” is co-presented by the Museum of Science, Boston, and supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, with additional support from Gesmer Updegrove LLP and Rubin/Anders Scientific, Inc.

In 2011, with funding from the Sloan Foundation, the Coolidge expanded “Science on Screen” nationally. For more information about this national initiative, visit www.coolidge.org/sloan.