TV REVIEW : ‘Secrets of Toon Town’ Is More Ad Than Explanation

“Roger Rabbit and the Secrets of Toon Town,” at 8 tonight on Channels 2 and 8, does a better job of flacking the Touchstone/Amblin hit comedy than it does of explaining how the film makers achieved a dazzling blend of live action and animation.

Director Robert Zemeckis and various production people offer brief insights in mini-interviews, but too much of the script is devoted to ecstatic descriptions of the film instead of technical explanations.

A few intriguing clips of the actors working with mechanical props, and Bob Hoskins’ description of how he learned to act with an imaginary character by watching his three-year-old daughter at play, leave the viewer hungry for more.

Although “Secrets of Toon Town” pays lip service to the “magic of animation,” very little time is devoted to the men and women who created the film’s cartoon characters: Animation director Richard Williams is the only artist to appear on screen. Kathleen Turner discusses doing the voice for the seductive Jessica Rabbit, but no mention is made of animator Russell Hall, who drew the character so skillfully.

Nor does anyone explain that the seemingly magical blend of live action and animation in “Roger Rabbit” was done with the same technique used for earlier movies such as “Anchors Aweigh” (1944): The animators matched their drawings to photostats of each frame of live-action film.

This special contains some sloppy research and misinformation: Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) is described as “the first animated feature-length film ever,” when Quirino Christiani completed “The Apostle” in Argentina 20 years earlier; the original voice of Donald Duck, the late Clarence Nash, is referred to as “Charlie” Nash.

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit” ranks as the most effective combination of live action and animation ever created, and an intelligent discussion of how the film was made would be more interesting to watch than this rather silly paean.