Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! is a Merrie Melodies cartoon short (September 5, 1931), and also the title of the song performed in the cartoon. This is one of only three Merrie Melodies cartoons to star Foxy; the other two are Lady, Play Your Mandolin! (August, 1931) and One More Time (October 3, 1931). This short is a remake of Trolley Troubles, a Disney short featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in whose creation Hugh Harman had once been involved.

Synopsis

Foxy is a trolley engineer whose problems include an fat lady hippo who can't fit into the trolley and a set of wheels that detach from the trolley car while it's moving. Foxy picks up his vixen girlfriend and gives her a ride, but along the way, the car is blocked by a cow who won't get off the track. A group of nearby hobos sing the title song while Foxy tries to move the cow; he finally runs the car underneath the cow and goes on his way.

The trolley then goes down a hill and runs out of control; Foxy tries to stop it, but the brakes don't work. Finally, the trolley runs off of a cliff, throwing Foxy right into the camera... and then he falls from bed, waking up from what has turned out to be just a nightmare. The radio by his bed is playing the title song, and the annoyed Foxy smashes the radio with a bedpost upon hearing it.

Smile

A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a "Duchenne smile". Smiles performed without the eye contraction can be perceived as "fake".

Among humans, smiling is an expression denoting pleasure, sociability, happiness, or amusement. It is distinct from a similar but usually involuntary expression of anxiety known as a grimace. Although cross-cultural studies have shown that smiling is a means of communication throughout the world, there are large differences between different cultures, with some using smiles to convey confusion or embarrassment.

Historical background

Primatologist Signe Preuschoft traces the smile back over 30 million years of evolution to a "fear grin" stemming from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless. The smile may have evolved differently among species and especially among humans. Apart from Biology as an academic discipline that interprets the smile, those who study kinesics and psychology such as Freitas-Magalhaes view the smile as an affect display that can communicate feelings such as love, happiness, pride, contempt, and embarrassment.

List of Who Framed Roger Rabbit characters

The following is a list of characters who appeared in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit and its related works.

Eddie Valiant

Eddie Valiant is a Californian private investigator in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

In the original novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, Eddie Valiant is a fictional modern day California private detective hired by comic book star Roger Rabbit to investigate the workings of Roger's corrupt employers, the DeGreasy Brothers. When Roger is found dead, and his final words having been censored out, Valiant is soon sent on the case of tracking Roger's murderers. This original incarnation of Eddie is a heavy smoker and has a beard.

The 1988 film gave more insight into the character of Eddie Valiant, who was played by Bob Hoskins. Eddie Valiant and his brother Theodore "Teddy" Valiant were sons of a circus clown (shown by the pictures on their desk), who joined the police force and eventually started their own private investigation service, Valiant and Valiant, in 1934, working largely on Toon cases, such as the kidnapping of Donald Duck's nephews in 1937 or clearing Goofy of accusations of espionage in 1940, both seen as newspaper clippings in Valiant's office. However, when Teddy was killed by the then-unknown toon form of Judge Doom who dropped a piano on him and Eddie in 1942, Eddie turned to the bottle, disappeared from the public eye, and refuses to take any more Toon cases (although he is slow to find work as a regular private eye). He also doesn't smoke, but is an alcoholic.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American live action/animated fantasy-comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis. The screenplay by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman is based on Gary K. Wolf's 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters interact directly with human beings and animals.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which blends live action with animation, stars Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant, a private detective, and Charles Fleischer as the voice of Roger Rabbit, a second-banana cartoon character. The plot takes place in 1947, when Roger is framed for the murder of a wealthy Hollywood businessman and he teams with Valiant to find the culprit. The film co-stars Christopher Lloyd as Judge Doom, the villain; Kathleen Turner as the uncredited voice of Jessica Rabbit, Roger's cartoon wife; and Joanna Cassidy as Dolores, the detective's girlfriend.

Walt Disney Productions purchased the film rights to the story in 1981. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought in executive producer Steven Spielberg, along with his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Zemeckis was brought on to direct the film. Canadian animator Richard Williams was hired to supervise the animation sequences. Production was moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams and his group of animators. While filming, the production budget began to rapidly expand and the shooting schedule ran longer than expected.