- “If you should ever need a ride, just stick out your thumb!”
- ―Benny the Cab
Benny the Cab is a supporting character in Disney/Touchstone's 1988 hybrid film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Background[]
Physical Description[]
Benny is a slender, anthropomorphic yellow taxi cab with white tires.
Personality[]
Benny is portrayed as a gruff, outspoken, middle-aged character who doesn't take kindly to slow drivers.
Appearances[]
Who Framed Roger Rabbit[]
Benny first appears when Eddie Valiant and Roger Rabbit escape from Judge Doom and the Toon Patrol in the bar and then encounter him locked up in their paddy wagon for driving on a sidewalk, despite going for a few miles as claimed by him. They free him and he helps them get away, taking them to a movie theater to hide.
He later appears when Eddie and Jessica Rabbit are trying to flee from the Toon Patrol and again tries to help them out, but this time, the dark and cruel Judge Doom spills Dip across the road he drives along, injuring him and making him skid off the road and crash into a pole. After Eddie and Jessica are taken hostage, he lies still, recovering, and joins up with Roger when he happens to pass by in Eddie's car, taking over the job of driving and explaining to Roger what's just happened. He drops him off at the Acme factory and drives off to find help.
He is last shown at the end of the film in the Acme factory, listening with Dolores, Lt. Santino, and some human policemen about what Eddie found out about Judge Doom and rejoicing over the discovery of Marvin Acme's will.
Comics[]
Benny also made frequent appearances in the Roger Rabbit comics.
House of Mouse[]
Benny is notably the only character from the film to have made any appearances on House of Mouse. In "Max's New Car", Goofy offers him oil.
In "Mickey vs. Shelby" he comments back at Bambi while flashing his carlights in front of him after commenting on how Baby Shelby looked like a "deer in the headlights" before apologizing.
Disney Parks[]
Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin[]
The ride vehicle cab is not Benny, bur rather his cousin Lenny, who was specifically created for this attraction. That said, him and Roger can be seen in the attraction's first show scene where they spiral out of control due to a puddle of Dip dumped onto the road by the Toon Patrol.
Disney's Hollywood Studios[]
For a short while, one of two vehicles that were used to film the Benny the Cab sequences of Who Framed Roger Rabbit were displayed in the Echo Lake restaurant Backlot Express along with the Toon Patrol's Dodge Humpback paddy wagon that he was briefly locked up in. How it was filmed was that Bob Hoskins would sit in the front of a custom buggy vehicle pretending to drive the vehicle. holding a prop wheel, while the real driver (stuntman Charles Cromwell) did all the maneuvering in the back end. The same Benny vehicle was used for filming another Robert Zemeckis production, Back to the Future Part III, during the scene where Marty's character is dragged by a horse. In 2019, both the paddy wagon and Benny buggy were removed from the restaurant to make room for more "table space". A similar Benny vehicle was showcased in Episode 7 of the Disney+ series Prop Culture.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- According to the movie, Benny has been a cab for 37 years. Since the movie takes place in 1947, one can assume that he has done so since 1910.
- Benny is the only toon to be exposed to Dip and survive. This could be because while other toons, like Judge Doom and Smarty, were fully exposed from head to toe, Benny was only hit at the bottom of his tires. This exposure did, however, leave him weak and limping.
- In the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit, Benny (spelled Bennie) was a beetle (the insect, not the car).
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