Charles Fleischer makes cartoon panic funny by letting it become exhausting. We rate his Roger Rabbit highly, especially against Bob Hoskins's steadiness; his smaller live-action roles suggest that a familiar comic performer can also be an unsettling presence.
Fi1m perspective
Roger Rabbit stutters and flutters his way through a sentence as though speaking were hard physical work. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Fleischer makes that effort funny, though Roger is an exhausting companion. We laughed at the cheek-fluttering delivery because he sounds unable to contain his own distress. The danger is that such a voice can wear out its welcome before the joke has finished. Fleischer needs the contrast with Bob Hoskins's Eddie Valiant, whose steady attention makes the animated character seem worth listening to.
Robert Zemeckis gets that relationship right, and Kathleen Turner's controlled Jessica Rabbit provides another useful contrast. Fleischer does not have to soften Roger to keep the comedy working. Animation director Richard Williams helped develop the delivery, and the result makes the voice feel as physically expressive as the character. Fleischer also voices Benny the Cab, Greasy and Psycho. Those extra parts matter less to our enjoyment than the sustained effort of making Roger's agitation funny without making it comfortable.
His earlier work in stand-up and television helps explain how confidently he puts an outlandish voice to comic use. There were live-action parts too, including Dr. King in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), before Roger made him widely recognisable. Afterwards, Terry in Back to the Future Part II (1989) was another supporting appearance, and supporting parts and voice work continued to dominate. The frustration is that there are so few leading live-action roles in which to test what he can sustain.
Zodiac (2007) gives him a different use. As Bob Vaughn in David Fincher's patient crime thriller, he makes a small live-action part unsettling. For us, knowing him from comedy adds to the discomfort. Fincher makes that limited screen time count, though it is not enough to tell us what a larger dramatic role might yield. Watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit first, and do not expect Zodiac to offer the same sort of company.
Biography
Charles Fleischer is an American actor, stand-up comedian and voice artist. Born in Washington, D.C. on 27 August 1950, he began performing stand-up comedy as a child and later studied acting at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s and appeared on television programmes including Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and as Carvelli in Welcome Back, Kotter.
Fleischer is best known for voicing Roger Rabbit, Benny the Cab, Greasy and Psycho in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). His other film roles include Dr. King in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Terry in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Bob Vaughn in Zodiac (2007). He has provided voices for The Polar Express (2004), Rango (2011) and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), and has continued occasional stand-up and television work.
