“Since I've had Toontown under my jurisdiction my goal has been to reign in the insanity, and the only way to do that is to make Toons respect the law.” ―Judge Doom



Judge Doom (formerly known as Baron Von Rotten) is the main antagonist of Disney/Touchstone's 1988 hybrid film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

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Background

Doom is the much-feared Judge of Toontown. Despite presiding over a city of Toons, he is total without mirth and passes capital punishment on Toons who break the law, placing them in a chemical vat of turpentine, acetone, and benzene (essentially oil, paint thinner and film dissolver) which he calls "The Dip".

This concoction melts Toons, permanently killing them. He wears gloves supposedly to avoid the mess (but as it is soon revealed, it is actually to prevent himself from melting). He employs Toon henchmen (the Toon Patrol) to assist him in hunting down Roger Rabbit for the murder of Marvin Acme, whom he framed for the act that he did himself.

A few years earlier, he had robbed the First National Bank of Toontown and killed Teddy Valiant, one of the two detectives that were investigating the theft. He then used the cash (Simoleons) to buy the judicial election and win against his unseen opponent, but then he "disappeared" into the city.

Personality

Doom displayed two very different personalities in the film, both of which were equally menacing to his enemies.

Human

Doom is a calm and reserved man without mercy and brutally executes those who he perceives as guilty or stand in his way. He is also cruel to the Toon Patrol and mainly abuses them with his cane, though he only hits two members. First, he hits Smarty around the head with his cane after he continued laughing and then he hits Greasy around the head after his hand was caught in a hunting trip. He has the ambition to erase Toontown in order to create a freeway due to its profit and potential benefits; buying and then dismantling the "Red Car Trolly" to avoid competition and taking money from his theft at the bank to launch the project.

He is also the CEO and sole stockholder of Cloverleaf Industries.

He also proves to exhibit a cunning personality, as he lures Roger out of hiding with the "shave and a haircut" trick. He has a Hitler complex which he tries to deny to the extent of disguising himself as a human to try to rid the world of Toons, despite being one himself. However, when he is being run over, he acts like a Toon (screaming incomprehensible noises in fear) and does not deny it once the jig is up, but when called a Toon, he replies "not just any Toon..."

Toon

After Doom re-inflates himself with a helium tank, he reveals himself as the killer of Eddie's brother Teddy, telling him why he should not remember his eyes, but his voice (which grows higher until it reaches a horrifyingly high pitch) and his eyes turn to daggers to show Doom's intent to kill Eddie. Though he doesn't talk again until his demise, he pursues Eddie when he tries to run away and reactivates the cannon to melt Roger and Jessica once he was pushed to the ground. He then punches Eddie with an anvil, turns it into a buzz saw, and slices through some hanging chains to demonstrate how lethal it was. Doom slowly strides towards Eddie with swirling eyes and a wide, maniacal, psychotic grin.

All these traits show that he was a deranged and sadistic psychopath who enjoys making his victims watch as their friends die and love to kill them slowly in the most agonizing way. He does have a fear of death, as he instantly panicked as soon as the Dip hit him and screamed as he melted.

Powers and Abilities

In his flesh-and-blood guise, Doom uses his skull-headed swordstick and Acme products to fight Eddie and overpower him with surprising strength. While in his Toon form, he has evil red eyes and a squeaky voice and is able to produce an arsenal of tools from his body which he can employ as weapons, including an anvil and buzz saw. He uses springs in his feet to jump far distances, and (like most Toons) can survive almost anything but his own Dip, which melts him to his death.

Appearances

When the film first introduces Doom, L.A.P.D. Lt. Santino confides to Eddie that Doom bought the judicial election by spreading a bunch of cash around Toontown, neither aware then that Doom got the money after robbing the First Bank of Toontown, murdering Teddy Valiant when he and Eddie tried to pursue and arrest him. Later, at the Terminal Bar, Doom uses the "shave and a haircut" trick to lure Roger out, then prepares to execute him with the Dip, with the barflies bearing witness, some even taking off their hats in mourning as they prepared to watch Roger die after having given them a good laugh only moments earlier. After a brief scuffle inside the bar, he orders the weasels to capture Roger and Eddie. Roger realizes he's in trouble with Doom after him and begs Eddie to hide him. When Eddie learns that studio head R.K. Maroon is connected to the plot to frame Roger after witnessing a news report of Maroon selling Maroon Cartoons to Cloverleaf Industries, Eddie interrogates him, but Maroon pleads that he is "a dead man" if he confesses. Just as Maroon is about to spill everything, he is killed by an unseen gunman who nearly shoots Eddie as well, but retreats after emptying his revolver's cylinder.

Upon chasing the killer to Toontown, Eddie catches Jessica, thinking she is the murderer, but Jessica reveals that Doom was the one who killed Acme and Maroon. At the film's climax, he traps Eddie, Roger, and Jessica in the Acme Factory to explain his scheme: Erase Toontown from the map using a giant, mobile vat of Dip linked to a high-pressure water cannon and then build a freeway over it. He then plans to retire from being a judge and control all the profits from the new road system. Jessica asks him if he really thinks anyone won't notice Toontown's disappearance, but Doom retorts that no one will miss some ridiculous talking mice (possibly referencing Hubie and Bertie, or Mickey and Minnie) when she and Eddie are driving past, revealing himself as the sole stockholder of Cloverleaf Industries. Eddie tries to say that no one will drive the freeway when they can ride the "Red Car Trolley" (the Pacific Electric Railway), but Doom also reveals he bought it for the sole purpose of putting it out of commission. He then orders Roger and Jessica to be tied up and raised into the air via a skyhook to be sprayed by the Dip cannon.

Eddie distracts the Toon Patrol using hilarious antics (partly while singing The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down to the accompaniment of a music machine playing the tune) to make them literally laugh themselves to death, then attempts to rescue Roger and Jessica when he is interrupted by Doom. The two men then square off, dueling with various ACME props. During the fight, Doom is run over by a steamroller, but he does not die as expected.

As the steamroller crushes him, Doom's body is flattened into a flimsy paper-thin shape, revealing himself to be a Toon wearing an assortment of fake, but live props, such as fake eyeballs, false teeth, and a rubber mask in order to disguise his Toon body. After Doom re-inflates himself with an oxygen tank, he reveals himself, much to Eddie's horror, as the same Toon who murdered Eddie's brother Teddy, thus triggering his hatred towards Toons and explaining how Doom managed to buy the judicial election and the trolley car company. His voice grew higher until it reaches a horrifyingly high pitch, and his eyes turn to daggers, showing Doom's intent that he is now out to kill him as well to ensure no one can stop his terrible scheme to destroy Toontown forever.

Being a Toon, Doom turns out to be capable of sprouting an anvil and an extendable buzzsaw from his hand, with which he attempts to kill Eddie. In the end, Eddie proves to be too clever, giving the mad soon-to-be-former judge a taste of his own medicine by using the Toon-deadly concoction against him. He melts away, screaming "I'm melting! Melting!" just before he dies, leaving his human disguise behind. A crowd of various Toons then surround his burned empty suit and melted face and wonder what kind of Toon he really was. It hasn't been revealed what type of Toon he was or if he was one specific type of Toon at all, but the Toons seem to agree that they don't need to know, especially considering how close Doom came to wiping them and Toontown off the face of the Earth. With Doom dead and the Tooniverse at peace for now, the Toons return home.

Printed media

The Resurrection of Doom

In the non-canon graphic novel Roger Rabbit: The Resurrection of Doom, it is explained that Doom was originally a Toon named Baron von Rotten, who took up the role of playing antagonists in movies, until an accident in which Von Rotten suffered a concussion and awakened believing that he was a real villain. Von Rotten thus begins his crime career, robbing the First National Bank of Toontown, then killing Teddy Valiant by dropping a large piano on his head and spreading the stolen money all over the town in order to buy the election for Judge of Toontown, assuming the new name of Judge Doom.

After the events of the film, Doom was later revived by another gang of weasels (brothers of the Toon Patrol) who used an old cell and a multiplane camera to bring him back to life, proving that it is possible to revive a Toon. He disguises himself as a director, forcing Roger to purposely tone down his acting in hopes of ruining his career and has other designs in mind for his revenge, but his plans are exposed, and he is once again killed with dip, this time killing him for good.

Doom appears in the seventh book, The Insider, in which the Keepers go to Disneyland. Doom's appearance is due to the Toontown area of the park, which is not present anymore in Walt Disney World. He is thought to have originated from Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, though it is also pointed out that he was originally to be part of the nearby Mickey and the Magical Map with other villains before being cut in favor of another plot. During the battle between the Keepers and the Overtakers in Toontown, Doom took Willa hostage and threatened to kill her to keep the Keepers at bay. However, Jess and Wayne worked to free her, at the cost of Wayne's own life. Amanda released a powerful telekinetic blast, which threw the Overtakers out of Toontown.

Doom returned after Tia Dalma created an earthquake. However, Amanda's attack left him with a dislocated jaw and a leg mangled so badly it was compared to the shape of the number 3. His job was to operate a crane to put the Partners statue on top of the Matterhorn to attract lightning to ignite the natural gas released by the earthquake. Fortunately, Maybeck and Charlene's teamwork resulting in lightning striking the crane. All that could be said about his fate was "Inside that sludge is the Judge - Doomed."

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