- “A man!”
- ―Lena's first reaction to Eddie Valiant
Lena Hyena is a minor character in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. She's a crazy and ugly Toon woman who Eddie Valiant encounters in Toontown after mistaking her for Jessica Rabbit.
Appearances[]
Who Framed Roger Rabbit[]
Lena kisses Eddie, much to his disgust.
Eddie pursues Jessica into Toontown believing she just committed murder. He then notices a woman resembling her in an apartment window and proceeds to intercept. Once there, the stunning woman immediately reveals herself to be an ugly toon hag named Lena Hyena. Thinking he came to visit her out of romantic intent, she becomes instantly smitten. She sprints towards him, puckering her lips repeatedly. He slams the door at the last second, causing her lips to impale through the door, which she knocks down with a single kick. She calls out to him, who escapes into the men's room, which is out of order.
Eddie discovers the restroom is non-existent leading to open-air miles high in the sky and plummets countless stories. Just as he's about to hit the street below, Lena catches him and gives him a big kiss on his cheek, very much to his dismay. The recoil from it sends him flying down the street. Still madly passionate for him, she continues after him. He then quickly tears a street line and places it towards a brick wall to which she mindlessly follows, flattening upon impact. She isn't seen again for the rest of the film after this.
Roger Rabbit's Toontown[]
Lena appears in the Roger Rabbit's Toontown issue, "The Kissing Bandit" where it's revealed she's actually been a long-time friend of Jessica's. In the issue, Jessica visits her in Toontown as she's pursued by a Toon Wolf, who's overly smitten by her. He keeps confusing her for Jessica in his multiple attempts to kiss her, much to his horror. He runs away not knowing what to learn from his shenanigans. Unaware she had a cold, he instantly gets sick after kissing her so many times.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
Lena the Hyena was finally revealed in a 1946 drawing contest; rendition by Basil Wolverton.
- Lena has been confused with Lena the Hyena, a character from the 1946 comic strip Li'l Abner by Al Capp as they both have near-identical names and are comically hideous. There's been a long-standing rumor that she was loosely adapted from or was, at least, referencing that character.
- Lena's scene was heavily inspired by a segment from the 1943 Tex Avery short Red Hot Riding Hood where Red's Grandma chases the Wolf after he mistakes her for Red. It also references the moment when he runs through a door and almost falls off a very tall apartment building.
- The scene contains references to Disney's Alice in Wonderland; the doorknobs on Lena's floor resemble the one in the film and the graffiti on the bathroom wall reads, "For a good time, call ALLYSON "WONDERLAND", the best is yet to be."
- The fact that Judge Doom was in a nearby alley (which Eddie entered after he knocked Lena out) and didn't try to kill him (like he did in the alley), implies that if she caught him, she would have kept him till at least after midnight that night (and when Toontown legally belonged to Doom).
- Originally, when Lena kissed Eddie after saving him from the fall, she was to stick her tongue in his ear and it would come out through his other one, but that was cut because they thought it was too much.
- The painting of a sunset in Lena's apartment was used in The Brave Little Toaster as an actual sunset.
- There's a picture of a rabbit that seems to be repulsed by Lena in her apartment. Presumably the only male she was able to catch, it is often mistaken for MGM's cartoon star Screwy Squirrel.
- The end of Lena's bed has a repulsed face on it.
- The leg slit on Lena's dress parts on the left side as opposed to Jessica's whose slit parts on the right side.
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