Who P-p-p-plugged Roger Rabbit?

Roger Rabbit #2

by Gary K. Wolf

Welcome to Toontown where cartoon characters – Toons – live side-by-side with humans. The whole Who Framed Roger Rabbit cast is Roger Rabbit, Eddie Valiant, Baby Herman, and of course Jessica Rabbit, the sultriest woman ever “drawn that way.” They’re up to their old tricks in a whimsical new mystery by Toontown’s original creator, the man who first brought these delightful creatures to life.Who P-p-p-plugged Roger Rabbit? opens with a call from Roger to hard-boiled private eye Eddie Valiant. Roger suspects that Jessica is baking her carrot cakes for movie heartthrob Clark Gable. The scandal threatens to rob Roger of the Rhett Butler role in the soon-to-be-filmed Toon musical comedy Gone with the Wind. Investigating Jessica’s alleged affair, valiant Eddie finds adultery turning to murder. In no time flat, he’s up to his fedora in a nasty web of deceit, intrigue, and Hollywood corruption including reports from all over of a swindling, cheating, blackmailing….Roger!!?!?! Something is really p-p-p-popping in Toontown!Some of the wildest creatures seen in fiction (and real life) Police Sergeant Bulldog Bascomb, a full-blooded hound with razor-sharp teeth sunk into Eddie’s Heddy, Eddie’s sister and possible prime suspect; Kirk Enigman, a very “shadow”-y guy; and Joellyn, Jessica’s twin sister, shockingly different in one small way! As if this isn’t enough, human luminaries run fast and furious. In addition to Gable, David O. Selznick, Carole Lombard (Baby Herman’s latest plaything), and Vivien Leigh (Valiant’s dalliance?) all play a role.Who P-p-p-plugged Roger Rabbit? is a comically brilliant sequel, as unique and original as the first time we saw Roger and Jessica together in Wolf’s Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, the book that kicked off the whole Toon craze. This version includes an author’s sketch of Roger Rabbit PLUS autographs of Gary K. Wolf AND Roger Rabbit himself!

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Audiobook, Fantasy, Humor, Crime, Comedy

290 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Gary Kenneth Wolf

Reviews

[Hidekisohma · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I've pretty much always liked the Roger Rabbit movie. To that end, i read the original book the movie was "based off of" (i use quotes because the book was hardly ANYTHING like the movie) and i found it pretty decent if not RADICALLY different.

Being that the premise of the first book was investigating roger's murder you'd think it would be pretty hard to write a sequel starring him. Well, this is where it got interesting.

It looks like the author basically decanonized the first book and instead wrote this book as if it were a sequel to the movie. and, to be honest, it was probably the better decision to make. The first book, while interesting, didn't quite have that feeling of the movie, and this book i feel captured it way better.

The plot of this book is basically 3 people are up for the gone with the wind rhett butler role (including Roger) and a box goes missing where roger is suspected to have stolen it. you don't learn until MUCH later what's in the box, but that's getting into mega spoiler territory so i won't say it here.

Also, Roger thinks Jessica might be cheating on him and wants Eddie to find that out as well.

Along the way we meet Jessica's sister who basically looks like her except she's a reporter and she's only 6 inches tall (hence the picture of her on Eddie's shoulder on the cover) and Eddie's sister Heddy.

This isn't a spoiler since it happens in the first 5 pages, but basically if you were hoping for an extension of the romance between eddie and the girl from the movie, too bad, they break up right in the beginning of the book.

If i had to give my biggest nitpick of the story it would be the writing. Holy sweet baby jesus does this guy love his hard boiled metaphors. I feel like he over exaggerated it almost as a parody to show the reader how silly they are, but my GOD were there a lot of them. stuff like "he had more beans than jack and twice the length to climb his way out" just to make something up off the top of my head. it was basically an entire book full of that. I read a lot of Noir-esc paranormal detectives so i have a VERY high tolerance for that kind of thing, but even i was like "jesus man. okay, we can calm down a bit."

Other than that, i found myself enjoying the story quite a bit. Roger was way more in character with the movie Roger than the first book (what little you see of him in the first book) and the mystery in itself was quite enrapturing. like i actually CARED what was in the box.

The ending was a bit of a mixed bag for me. about 20 pages before the end you think it's going to end pretty badly, but one of the two things that could have ended badly saves itself at the last second. the other doesn't, but one does, and considering how often i get things i want in endings in books (which is hardly ever) i'll chalk 1 out of 2 as a super win.

All in all, i enjoyed this book, and i will be reading the third and what appears to be final book in the series.

the book is a 3.5 out of 5 and I was flip flopping for a long time on whether to give it a 3 or a 4. However, due to the fact that the ending did me a solid and gave me something i wanted, i'm going to tip it to a 4 since i can't do halves here.

3.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 4.

[cookiemonger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even better than the first book. It's as though Gary K Wolf saw the movie, smiled, and then turned around and took the piss as much as he liked in this book. Many elements of the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit enter into the beginning, only to be summarily assimilated into the richer world and voice of the original world. Roger's speech impediment with the letter p is not only picked on more than once, it's in the title, and even an important plot element at one point.

This appealed to my love of satire and helped ease the annoyance I always feel towards adaptation blindness. But the book is also amazing taken completely on its own.

Roger Rabbit comes to Eddie with another case involving Jessica and their relationship. The Telltale is printing gossip that Jessica Rabbit is romantically involved with Clark Gable. Then Eddie is hired by David Selznick to catch the thief between three suspects: Kirk Enigman, Baby Herman, and Roger Rabbit, all up for the part of Rhett Butler.

The detective noir aspects are played to eleven, and the dialogue is witty and often hilarious. Clark Gable and Roger Rabbit have an axiom fight. It's brilliant. Also, best romantic interest EVER. Apparently Jessica has a sister. Who is six inches tall and awesome.

All of the characters are great really. I still prefer the original Roger Rabbit, and this one has developed since the last book. Wolf saw the movie one brother named Teddy and raised them another brother named Freddy and a sister named Heddy. Not every named character is important to the plot, but they aren't Kleenex "use once then toss 'em" characters. The world has a delightful inhabited feel, and it's usually consistent.

It's also a good mystery, paced pretty well. The ending might drag a little for some people, but I felt as if it was worth the time taken to tie up all the loose ends.

[Amanja · Rating 3 out of 5]

full review at https://amanjareads.com/2022/09/15/wh...

[Jala · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the original novel "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" more than the movie that loosely adapted it (much as the movie is a technical masterpiece). This sequel however is far less creative and straight up panders to Disney. It retcons the first novel into being "just a dream" and directly addresses the movie adaptation in glowing terms.

Where Censored took its time building up its unique world while taking readers on a rollercoaster of plot twists so that one did not know until the final page what *really* happened, P-P-P-Plugged chugs along with assumed knowledge, flatter characters, and a messy plot that is far less compelling. I was rather disappointed.

[Theresa Abney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm assuming that this book was written as a sequel to the movie and not the original book because Roger Rabbit has a completely different personality and is apparently not dead after all.

It seems as if the author is trying entirely too hard to be funny in this book. Every single observation, no matter how minute, is stretched out into some ridiculous simile, metaphor or pun. As Sweet Brown would say in this case, "Ain't no bunny got time for that."

***FINAL IMPRESSION***

The author definitely tried way too hard.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fun mystery with crazy toon twists, the first book was a bad dream cliché but other than that it was a good story.

[Joshua Hair · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this didn’t quite capture the magic of the first book, it was fun to revisit the world built in the movie. 3.5 stars for this one.

[Ethan Nahté · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gary K. Wolf's follow up to Who Censored Roger Rabbit is Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit,another entertaining tale with the same characters as the first book. The cliché hard-boiled detective language is still intact and smartly applied, leaving room for double-entendres and interesting ways of describing scenes and actions.

In this book, which is not a prequel, and it is sort of a sequel (the story was retconned with Jessica explainingthat the previous events of the first book were dreamed by her--sort of a cheat, but it allows the adventures to continue). Roger, Baby Herman and Enigman are up for the role of Rhett Butler in Selznick's Gone With the Wind, but to finance the movie, Selznick needs extra moola because he is beyond broke. A box left on his desk contains a secret formula to turn Toons into humans and vice versa. The box and secret formula disappear and Eddie Valiant, private detective, is hired to find out who stole the box. Then he's hired to find Roger Rabbit, whom he is already working for to discover if Jessica is cheating on him wth Clark Gable. Meanwhile, Gable's gal, Carole Lombard, is cheating on him with Baby Herman. Viven Leigh is a newcomer to Hollywood and ends up on a date with Eddie, as does Jessica's 6" sister (yes, that is inches, not feet) who is identical to her sister in almost every shape and form except for her height. Eddie's brother Freddie is missing and several other villainous types enter the picture trying to stop Eddie from everything he is involved in.

It may sound confusing, but Wolf does a marvelous job of laying it all out. Even though one of the bad guys responsible for most of the murder and mayhem is obvious a third of the way through the novel, Wolf throws in a twist that the reader might foresee, but odds are low that the reader will know it until it hits them.

SPOILER ALERT
The only reason I gave the book a 4-Star rating was the retcon bit, especially since it's not explained until Chapter 12, and it's only a brief sentence. It leaves the reader wondering how Roger came back since he was basically a ghost who disappeared (a.k.a Toon Death) in the first book.

[Matthew Berg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might be inclined to go more like 2.5 on this. I was never tempted to abandon the book. It wasn't a slog, and I was engaged enough at least to want to know what happened in the end.

But it also wasn't the equal of the first one. I think the critical difference is that where before Eddie Valiant was a low rent Philip Marlowe, here his is more like Steve Martin's Rigby Reardon (from the film "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid"). That is to say, the style of the prose was more akin to a serious detective story, but with the absurd and fantastical elements lent by the toons. With our protagonist being over the top the story lacks a straight man, and suffers for it.

I think there is also an element of sequelitis here, complete with a bigger, star-studded cast and higher stakes than the previous installment. It probably doesn't help that this is effectively a follow-up to both the original book and its more famous film adaptation, so was catering to two audiences.

The element of commentary on race relations is still present, but only in passing reference (like a character referencing wage discrimination, and obviously different standards of justice). I honestly think it should have been left out entirely, given that there can be no clear analogue in circumstance between people who differ only in skin tone and those that cannot exist in even the same taxonomy.

In any case, another one I don't regret reading but will not be picking up again.

[Jonathan Herr · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whoa this book is ridiculously tedious to read. The basic mystery is well written - as was the first. But the constant “gags”, dry as sandpaper detective lingo, and horrendous (mis)characterizations (not to mention the poor dialogue) take what should have been Wolf’s attempt at a sequel to the MASSIVELY successful movie and turn it into a boring, unfunny, slog. It’s only mildly better than a root canal.

Mildly.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

All of the fantastical weirdness and delightfully zany humor of the first book fell flat in this bizarrely disconnected second volume. Like an uninspired movie sequel pumped out to cash in on its predecessor's success despite lacking its originality and charm, the magic of "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" is gone in "Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?" Read the first book, don't bother with the rest. 2/5

[Charles H Berlemann Jr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sequel, but not a sequel to Who Censored Roger Rabbit?. Where the ending there is erased with the infamous bad dream and shower gambit.

The setup in this book is that David O. Selznick is going to try and produce a toon version of Gone with the Wind the potential stars are Roger Rabbit, Baby Herman, and some unknown named Kirk Engima. So Eddie Valiant, who has not only a dead brother named Teddy, but also a missing brother named Freddy and a sister named Heddy; is put in charge to hunt down all three stars because they supposedly stole an important box from Selznick. Selznick needs the box back fast because his investors are interested in it.
Some where along the way we are introduced to Clark Gable, who is not only seeing Carol Lombard but also Jessica Rabbit at the same time. We find out that the box has a secret formula that could totally upset the balance of toons and humans. Like before with the first book, there are red herrings, bit players, and more than a few extra MacGuffins that help to give away the story before the final third.
Yet, still this was an interesting book to read if only because Gary K. Wolf did a hilarious job with the Noir like prose through most of the book. Heck there was even a intimate scene between the lead character Valiant and Jessica's sister Joanne; that was filled with double entendres and sexual innuendo; if not out right sexual filled purple prose that it didn't leave much to the imagination. Even though the author doesn't outright talk about it.
Somewhere along the line, Kirk Engima is killed and Eddie is blamed for it; Baby Herman is killed and Roger is blamed for it. Roger and Clark Gable get into a fight over Jessica. Jessica might be expecting and who is the father. Carol Lombard was last seen with Baby Herman. As I said, all sort of miss direction; loose plot threads and potential ideas that are just thrown out there because scenery is needed for the world. The ending is a bit of a let down because the ultimate killer is found but there is still about 6 chapters left in the book. It then closes with Valiant finding out that the MacGuffin is dangerous to both toon and humanity alike; as well as finding out some horrible secrets about his family. As well, it also closes on Eddie suggesting that Gable marry Lombard, Selznick do Gone with the Wind straight and with humans and that Roger is supposed to stay more than 100ft from Valiant forever.

Its not great, but not all together bad. There is enough here to keep you going if only you like horrid crime noir detective novels and shorts. You know which ones that I am talking about, not the classics; but those horrid ones at the newstand in an airport or a supermarket or stacked up on the discount shelf at the used book store. The send up of this style of writing is great. The world building and characters are a bit flat; the timeline (which Eddie admits is kooky and feels like it makes Eddie an unreliable narrator) is goofy with it being post war but before Gable and Lombard were married. The main characters and some of their experiences do tie in better with the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" more. Still it was a decent lunch time read for me over the week at work.

[Noel Thingvall · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting sequel from Wolf, primarily following up the film, but also folding back in many elements and the more acidic tone of his original novel. It's overly long, with the initial plot about the production of Gone with the Wind (initially as a big musical comedy starring toons) not getting enough exploration before the second half of the book takes over with a concoction called Toon Tonic which can turn toons into humans and humans into toons. Which is a blast as a suddenly human Roger is fumbling his way through an entirely different mode of life, but because it took us over half the book to get there, this also doesn't get the development to really play the comedy of that premise to its fullest.

For those coming in from the film who haven't read the first, there's a meanness to the writing that can be offputting at times. The punches of homophobia and misogyny are authentic throwbacks to hardboiled crime novels of the past, but fly pretty fast and free here, with Eddie's gruffness falling to such repugnant levels that he's even whipping out his dick to women at a bar at one point. And did you like his romance with Dolores in the movie? Because she exits the picture quick so the author can get back to his self-insert character (Wolf literally plays Eddie on every book's cover) fantasies involving Jessica Rabbit and the starlets of classic Hollywood. We even get the introduction of Jo, Jessica's twin sister, who's identical except for the fact that she's 6.5 inches tall, just so we can perv on that scenario in multiple instances. Which is a shame, because she is otherwise well utilized in the plot as her small size makes for fun snooping and clue solving, and the best bits of the book are Eddie working through the crime with a mismatched team of Jo, Roger Rabbit, and, yes really, Clark Gable.

The side characters are a lot of fun, like Eddie getting another pair of siblings, Freddy and Heddy. Cartoon cops, an evil stunt man turned studio enforcer, Roger's evil identical cousin, Baby Herman, a jet-black shadow toon who stars in films like The Shadow of Doubt and Shadow of the Thin Man. The prose is bouncy and witty, with a big return of the word balloon shtick from the first book, where entire industries are built around either archiving or recycling these endlessly produced sources of everyday communication (my favorite being an office where the receptionists just chop their bosses words into squares and file them away instead of trying to dictate everything).

There is a lot of fun stuff here, enough that I think you could have restructured elements into a followup film. It's just darker with a more cynical humor than I was ready for, and the story really does have some frustrating pacing and construction issues. Still, I'm excited to carry on with Wolf's remaining entries.

[Nathan May · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I Liked About the Book

1. Gary's sense of humor really shines through in his writings, and he captures the human/toon dynamic really well with it. I can see why they wanted to make a movie from his first Roger Rabbit book. The passages I highlighted in this book are numerous.

2. The story kept me interested enough to find out what happened in the end, and the twist at the end was unexpected.

3. Eddie having a miniature girlfriend was a cute concept.


What I Didn't Like About the Book

1. The amount of alcoholic consumption in this book is unnecessary. I get that everyone likes to drink in this universe, but I don't need to devote half of my reading time to knowing about it.

2. Some books seems to flow through my eyes and my brain like a mountain spring, but this one felt more like a muddy bog. It was a mental slog for some reason, and I really had to discipline myself to stay engaged with it. I think this is mainly because of the speech bubbles that the toons exhibit. It was always difficult to for me to imagine the characters speaking audibly while also having these speech bubbles of endless forms filling the space. Plus, the pacing of the plot didn't provide enough mental continuity for me. In the author's attempt to be creative in his descriptions of scenes and characters, the mental pictures rarely seemed to materialize in full clarity. This may be more of a critique of my own mental prowess over the book's ability to communicate.

3. This book basically throws out the entire first book and does not dovetail with it at all. I'm not sure why they consider this to be book #2 in a series.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a Good Mystery - But Takes Too Long to Get There

I really enjoyed Wolf's first Roger Rabbit novel - and I enjoyed the film, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", quite a bit - so, I expected to like this book a good deal. I did, more or less. The problem is that it overindulges in some of the pulp fiction tropes to the point where the novel became a bit of a slog to read. I dug the characters and the mystery, but it was just exhausting to get through this book at times. I could only recommend it to mega Roger Rabbit fans.

[Glenn Proven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better story than the first one. In the vein of Mike Hammer or Sam Spade the similes were way over-the-top and quite bountiful. The whole storyline was centered around the production of Gone With The Wind. In fact Eddie is hired by David O. Selznick himself. This leads to my biggest objection; That film was released in 1939. This timeline puts it after the WWII. Eddie even mentions his war record a few times. Other than that the returning characters are more likable and we learn a few things about the Valiant family too.

[Sharon Bidwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the start of this book, I felt I would not enjoy it as much as the first, but as soon as a short relative of Jessica’s was introduced, I laughed all the way to the end. Gary has the witty patter down p-p-p-perfectly. I have such fond memories of the film, but feel as though the rabbit written here is worth loving all over again. I’m also left feeling a mite sorry for him, which only adds to the charm of these stories. Another surprise to enjoy was a whole new take of how Gone With the Wind was cast.

[Sky P · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading the 1st book, I was excited to see how the story continued. This book picks up where the movie left off and explains the 1st book away as a dream. Though the timeline is a little off it includes names of real life characters for the Gone With The Wind movie. Though I did enjoy the additional characters and the read was fun it wasn’t quite as fun or unexpected as Who Censored Roger Rabbit. I am going to read the rest of the series because I do enjoy the characters and the stories are a fun escape.

[Zaphied · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel feels like the Framed movie was more closely tied to it than the first novel did. Not that I know which novel was the base for the movie. Possibly both. There are scenes that seem almost cut and pasted from both novels into that movie. It mentions 'dip' as a Toon killer and Toon Town unlike the first novel. Baby Herman is indistinguishably unchanged throughout. Gone with the Wind re-imagined was a twist.

[Lea Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuity of Roger and Jessica’s relationship from the first book to this book: 0 stars… fun plot, great gum shoe similes and compelling characters in this book: 5 stars. So balance of 3 I guess🤷‍♀️ it really makes no sense at all the way Jessica has a complete 180 from her character last book to this book. It’s very confusing. Maybe it shakes out in the third/last of the series, I am hooked enough to find out!

[Brennan Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a bizarre hybrid of the canons of the film and the original novel. But I’m glad it still skews toward the latter in its unremitting nastiness. And it’s still got creative character creation and the consistently clever use of word balloons. I also can’t say I expected Clark Gable to be a straight-up character here. Wild!

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The characters in the book are closer to the movie versions, but the toons still speak in word balloons like the first book. This is a fun romp full of puns. I did have to keep reminding myself that the stories take place in another universe since my mind kept trying to impose real world timelines on the films mentioned.

[uzhuj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. While in the first book the fresh feel of noir taken seriously in a world where toons live among humans was interesting enough to hide the weaknesses, in here the constant boozing and objectification of women took me out of it way too often. The whole investigation felt like a bit of an excuse, and too many storylines just felt convoluted. Not absolute trash, just simply not that good at all.

[Noah Wilder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thought about giving 2 stars. It's somewhere 2.5. Same rone as the first which I liked, but some characters regress, and there is a bit too much going on in this one. Would have been better with less characters and less stories. It's not a waste of time if you like the first, but not worth your time if you didn't.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first--but then sophomore books never are. Weird in that some of the same characters are back again even though they were killed off in the first book. Oh well, cartoons will be cartoons.

[Evan Ames · Rating 5 out of 5]

if I keep this up

If I keep this up, by that reading such wonderful brain candy I will need to go rot a neurosurgeon to get a cavity filled. If you like plain fun, or simply enjoy had boiled detective stories; this story is for you.

[Kirby Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wolfe picking up from the movie instead of the first book, the later written off as a dream. Again another good use of parodying Sam Spade novels with Eddie, Roger, Jessica, etc. some weird turns in this one, even for a Toon.

[Brent Winslow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike the original novel, the characters in this novel match the 1988 film, including a focus on film rather than comic strips. However this novel lacks the pathos of the film or the previous novel and struggles with pacing.

[Ryan Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth the read simple for the non-stop assault of hard boiled similes, metaphors, and double entendres.

[Thomas Barker]

it was ok. However going between the cartoon and normal characters was very different. I think there is one more in the series that would be ok to read.