- “I know who you are: Marvin Acme. The guy who owns Toontown. The Gag King.”
- ―Eddie Valiant
Marvin Acme is a minor character in Disney/Touchstone's 1988 hybrid film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Background[]
Marvin Acme is the head of the Acme Corporation and owner of Toontown. He is a bald, middle-aged gentleman with an eccentrically jovial, lighthearted personality who loves and cares deeply for the welfare of all Toons. He promised the Toons that in the event of his death, they will inherit Toontown, as stated in his will. Acme is also something of a prankster, as he likes to play harmless practical jokes on people sometimes.
Acme Corp. is a renowned, well-known manufacturer of novelty products and technologies and has been famously featured in various films, TV shows, and cartoons, most prominently Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Most of Acme's products are joke props composed of real or Toon material. His most popular props include the Punching Glove Mallet, Singing Sword, Portable Holes and the #1 bestseller, the Handbuzzer. These have earned Acme the nickname, "The Gag King".
Role in the film[]
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Acme is first mentioned in a newspaper article regarding rumors of him engaging in extramarital relations with Jessica Rabbit, wife of Toon star, Roger Rabbit. R.K. Maroon, a cartoon producer and friend of Acme's, hires private investigator Eddie Valiant to follow him as he is concerned that Roger's suspicions of his wife distract him from his work. That evening, Eddie proceeds to take photos of Acme and Jessica (literally) "playing pattycake" in her dressing room. Nevertheless, Roger becomes extremely agitated when he sees the pictures and scurries off in a heated rage.
Acme is found murdered the following morning in his factory warehouse, with a large safe having crushed his head (for the suspense of disbelief, his death occurs off-screen). Because of the circumstances surrounding the murder, Roger is made the prime suspect. The will, however, is nowhere to be found, which leaves the Toons unable to legally claim Toontown. Later, Jessica confides to Eddie that they were both were pawns in a scheme by R.K. Maroon to blackmail Acme. Jessica did not want to cooperate, but Maroon told her that if she did not, he would blacklist Roger. Eddie was merely set up to photograph them. When confronted, Maroon confessed to selling his studio to Cloverleaf Industries, but they would only buy if Acme Corp. and Toontown were part of the deal. Acme refused to sell, knowing Judge Doom was Cloverleaf's sole stockholder and had other plans for Toontown.
Eddie then learns it was Doom who murdered Acme in order to decimate Toontown and build a freeway to monopolize L.A. transportation. After an intense, climactic fight, Doom (being a Toon all along) ends up being dissolved in his own Dip. As for Acme's will, it turns out it was the same blank sheet of paper Roger used to write a love letter to Jessica, as it was written in disappearing/reappearing ink. As soon as the ink reemerged, Toontown officially belonged to the Toons.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In the original book, Acme does not appear; instead, Eddie has to investigate Roger's own murder.
- According to Foghorn Leghorn in the deleted funeral scene, Marvin Acme had Toontown painted within his own backyard to give the wandering Toons of the Los Angeles area a safe home.[1]
References[]
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