Baron Von Rotten, better known by his alias Judge Doom, was a male Toon resembling a human.
Description[]
Dating back to 1921 and the silent cartoon era, the Toon known as Baron Von Rotten became famous by perfecting disguises and Toon-based shapeshifting to portray hundreds of very different screen villains — earning him the nickname of the "Toon with a Thousand Faces". The extremely successful Baron became a millionaire and made good with his name by building himself a castle for a villa.
Portraying Adolf Hitler caricatures in wartime propaganda cartoons, the Baron was caught in an explosion while filming a film called Mother Goose Step. After a weeks-long convalescence, Baron Von Rotten, whose eyes now inexplicably glowed red, had gone murderously insane — but retaining enough calculating intelligence to temporarily keep this a secret.
Von Rotten's madness soon found something to latch onto; some time in 1946 or 1947, he heard of plans for the building of freeways, which Toontown blocked the way for. The then-brand-new idea of freeways seemed inexplicably fascinating to the deranged Toon, who hatched a crazy scheme to destroy Toontown (killing all its inhabitants in the process), and also to ruin Hollywood's bus system so everyone would be forced to use the freeways once they were built. This involved creating himself a non-Toon alias, "Judge Doom", developing a way to destroy Toons (the Dip), and murdering human detective Teddy Valiant to cover his tracks. In 1947, after some additional, unscheduled murders, that plan came unfurled thanks to human Eddie Valiant (Teddy’s brother) and Toon Roger Rabbit, with "Doom"'s true identity exposed and Von Rotten burnt away to nothing by his own Dip.
A murderous maniac is not so easily disposed of, however. A group of cartoon weasels (Brothers to the late Toon Patrol, Von Rotten's original minions from his "Judge Doom" days) brought him back to life using mad science and old model sheets. The resurrected Von Rotten, still quite insane, was now bent on revenge against Roger Rabbit, whose career he attempted to ruin, impersonating C. B. Maroon to do so. That scheme didn't fare out any better than the first, and again ended with Von Rotten dipped into oblivion.
List of Roles and Disguises[]
- A mustache-twirling anthropomorphic rat villain in an unidentified 1921 silent cartoon, wherein the heroine is tied to railroad tracks.
- A Pete-like plane-flying villain in an unidentified 1923 cartoon.
- The Phantom of the Opera in what is presumably a parody cartoon, with the character wearing a paper bag to hide his deformities as opposed to the usual opera mask.
- The Evil Sawmill Operator in the cartoon Bump on a Log, a human mustache-twirling type.
- The Minotaur in the cartoon Mary, Mack and the Minotaur, a malicious and antagonistic portrayal of the famous creature.
- The Abominable Snowman in the cartoon Malice in Winterland, where he was a giant animate snowman pursuing an Alice-like character.
- An Adolf Hitler caricature in numerous wartime propaganda films, ending with Mother Goose Step.
- A potion-brewing Wicked Witch in an unidentified cartoon, shortly after his accident. This is one of the disguises Von Rotten started wearing even offset.
- A red-eyed shadow-man, the form he took to rob the Toontown Bank and kill Teddy Valiant, after he went mad.
- Judge Doom, a surprisingly convincing human disguise he used in 1947 to become the judge of Toontown and carry out his evil schemes in peace.
- C. B. Maroon, a similarly foolproof impersonation of the flesh-and-blood C. B. Maroon, which Von Rotten took up after his resurrection in 1947. He permanently died while still wearing the costume.
Behind the scenes[]
Baron Von Rotten was first seen in 1988 in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Portrayed By[]
- Christopher Lloyd (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)