Bob Hoskins as detective Eddie Valiant shares a tense scene with Roger Rabbit in the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (imdb.com)

NEW ULM — Can a cartoon character go bad, or are they just drawn that way?

That’s a question at the center of New Ulm Film Society’s next film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

This is the third film the society’s animated film series. The screening starts at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 10 at the New Ulm Public Library.

While the film is only partially animated it represented a significant change in the media and film in general.

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is set in an alternative reality of Golden-age Hollywood, where cartoon characters are real and live alongside humans. Private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is hired by a film studio to determine if rumors surrounding the private life of popular cartoon Roger Rabbit are true. Valiant finds the evidence needed, but Roger soon becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a human. Valiant does not like ‘toons, but he suspects Roger might be innocent and agrees to help clear the rabbit’s name.

The film is considered a fantasy film, but it does touch on real world issues including racism and corruption. In fact, the main villain’s evil scheme was based on a real-life conspiracy that occurred in Los Angels in the 1940s.

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was a watershed moment for animation and special effects. The movie took years to make because the filmmakers needed to invent a way of placing two-dimensional drawings in the same scene as live-action actors and environments.

To achieve this, animators printed out every frame with a cartoon and live-action actor to create a composite image. Animators had to hand draw and hand-color the cartoon and composite it back into the original frame using an optical printer. The extra steps made the film one of the most expensive movies of the 1980s.

In order to further create the illusion the cartoons are in the real world, the camera was moved much as possible. Changing lights and shadows gave the impression cartoons were moving through three-dimensional space.

The cartoon characters sometimes manipulate live-action objects to further create the illusion. In one scene, an overhead light is bumped, causing light to spin around the room and throw shadows across Roger. It is a subtle effect that the average viewer would miss, but it was also one of the most complicated shots in the film.

The other challenge was for live-action actors. Hoskins was forced to act with co-stars that he could not physically see during filming. He would later credit playing with his children and their imaginary friends as training for this style of acting.

In 1988, these filmmaking practices were ground-breaking, but today they are common. Hand-drawn animation inserted into live-action is rare, but computer-generated images (CGI) appears in nearly every big-budget special-effects film.

The film also rejuvenated interest in animation. In the decade before “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” Disney had seen a decline in its animated films and was no longer the top name in cartoons. This film, which features Disney characters in cameos, was used as inspiration to kickstart a cartoon renaissance for the studio that continued through the 1990s.

Warner Bros. studio also started reviving its animation wing creating new cartoons in the Looney Tunes line leading to other spin-offs.

The technical achievements aside, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was a huge success. The film was critically praised both for the innovations and story, but audiences did not need to be professional critics to realized “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was something special.

It remains the only film to feature both Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny in the same scene. For some, that alone makes it a masterpiece.