Before Disney decided a young Robert Zemeckis was worthy of tackling Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a completely different cast was lined up to produce test footage for the prospective movie. Peter Renaday, the voice of Splinter on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles television series, was Eddie Valiant. Russi Taylor, the longtime voice of Minnie Mouse, played Jessica Rabbit. And to portray Roger, Disney tapped a young Paul Reubens.
While Reubens had been a smash in Los Angeles with his one-man Pee-wee stage show, he was still a few years away from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and his Saturday morning kiddie series. Here’s young Reubens voicing the animated character, sounding a lot like Pee-wee with a nervous stammer:
“Paul had both an excitability and a naïve quality to his voice that we felt was essential to the character’s personality,” said animation director Darrell Van Citters. “Despite his firmly established role as Pee-wee Herman, Paul is an excellent voice actor, and gave us exceptional readings.”
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Due to its high budget and tricky story (the original novel was much darker), Roger Rabbit stalled for a few years. After Zemeckis hit it big with Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future, Disney reconsidered and hired the director. And that meant shuffling the cast.
Zemeckis wanted Harrison Ford for Eddie Valiant, but his asking price was too high. Chevy Chase said no to a role that would have been career-defining. Bill Murray has expressed regret that he passed — or rather, that he never responded to phone calls about the job. Eddie Murphy says it’s the only blockbuster he ever turned down. Also allegedly considered? Robin Williams, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson and Sylvester Stallone.
As for Reubens? Despite being the original voice of Roger Rabbit, Zemeckis opened the door to other possibilities. He auditioned Eddie Deezen, the preeminent cinema nerd of the 1970s. Both Reubens and Deezen lost the role to comedian and Welcome Back, Kotter star Charles Fleischer, who developed Roger’s distinctive stutter. It was more than voiceover work — Zemeckis made Fletcher dress in a rabbit costume and stand off-camera to give Bob Hoskins, the actor who eventually played Eddie Valiant, someone to work with.
Reubens didn’t make a big deal of missing out on the part, at least not in public. The part that got away wasn’t mentioned in the bio-documentary Pee-wee As Himself, despite its three-and-a-half-hour running time. Since Pee-wee’s Big Adventure broke out three years before Who Framed Roger Rabbit reached theaters, the sting would have been minor.
Besides, Reubens pocketed plenty of mouse money over the years. Disney hired him for voice work for Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Flight of the Navigator, Tron: Uprising, Hercules (the TV series) and Phineas and Ferb, as well as the Star Tours ride at the Disney theme parks.
He didn’t play Roger, but Reubens got p-p-paid p-p-plenty.
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