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{{trope}}
A special effect intended to show live-action, flesh-and-blood performers interacting with animated characters within the context of a work of fiction. If the story is a [[Comedy Tropes|comedy]], and it usually is, the characters tend to be [[Genre Savvy]] and recognize each other as belonging to either category. This is one of the oldest special effects in Hollywood (the 1914 animated film, ''[[Gertie the Dinosaur]]'', actually had creator [[Winsor McCay]] interacting with animated Gertie in real time ''on a vaudeville stage''), and has been done several times with varying degrees of realism, though it was probably perfected by the 1988 Disney / Amblin film, ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''.
A sub-category of this trope is any story where cartoon characters are real and exist independently from "real" human beings (which may or may not be set in [[Toon Town]]). Since this is such a visual idea, it's not very common in forms of media that lack a visual aspect, [[Who Censored Roger Rabbit?|although the odd duck does exist.]]
Another subtrope is to have human characters be live-acted and other animals be animated.
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Compare [[Animated Actors]], [[Refugee From TV Land]], [[Disneyesque]].
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== [[Advertising]] ==
* While most [[
* Those e-surance commercials in which famed pink-haired superspy and [[Perverse Sexual Lust|nerd heartthrob]] Erin Surance "draws" various customers to their auto insurance.
* Many cereal mascots frequently hang out with live-action kids.
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* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eT0Fk3Edmw That car commercial] featuring [[The Simpsons]].
** That [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX6FXRgcKQc Burger King] one show the opposite.
* It's not so much a commercial, but a 1991 PSA encouraging children to read starring [[An American Tail|Fievel Mousekewitz]] was aired after a showing of ''[[
** Also done (arguably much better) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPvZGp25hWY in a commercial for] ''Fievel Goes West'' on VHS. This time they bothered to use original animation.
* [[Pokémon (
* Many of the commercials for [[Jak and Daxter]] as well as the racing game it later spawned, Jak X: Combat racing, had the titular characters interacting with live action people.
== Anime and Manga ==
* The opening of ''[[Excel Saga (
* ''[[Twilight of the Cockroaches]]'' is a rare Japanese example of the first type of Roger Rabbit Effect. A live action character lives in an apartment with a society of anime roaches.
* The wall calendars for ''[[Yotsubato|Yotsuba&!]]'' feature Yotsuba drawn into color photographs, sometimes interacting with real people.
* {{spoiler|"Mom"}} in ''[[Panty
** Every episode of ''PSG'' has a live-action sequence, but they aren't integrated with the animation.
==
* A storyline from ''[[Astro City]]'' featured an animated lion character, Loony Leo, coming to life and discovering the ups and downs of Hollywood stardom.
* ''[[
** Just to clear things up, he's not ''[[Discworld|that]]'' Captain Carrot.
* ''Dorothy'', a [[Photo Comic]] adaptation of ''[[
* ''[[Howard the Duck]]''
* The ''Warren Strong'' episodes of ''[[
* A section of the second volume of the comic book [[Promethea]] by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III is done with photographs of the action rather than drawings.
* An issue of a ''[[Superman]]'' comic had Mr Mxyzptlk step out of the comic as it was being drawn and discuss the storyline with the staff of DC Comics. The sequence was done with photographs of the actual staff in their actual office, with a still-toony Mxyzptlk composited in.
* Issue #8 of ''Count Duckula'' (Marvel, based on the Cosgrove-Hall TV cartoon) has Duckula conversing with a live Geraldo Rivera on the cover. The Geraldo in the body of the story is drawn.
== Films ==
* The [[Trope Namer]], ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''.
* [[Ralph Bakshi]]'s ''[[Heavy Traffic]]'', ''[[Coonskin]]'' and ''[[Cool World]]''. The latter gave this trope its alternate title, [[Noids and Doodles]].
* ''[[Monkeybone]]'', which was called a ripoff of ''Cool World'' by [[That Guy With
* ''[[Looney Tunes: Back in Action
** Before that, [[Bugs Bunny/Characters|Bugs Bunny]] teamed with Michael Jordan for a series of Nike commercials.
** Even earlier the Looney Tunes appeared in a Doctor Pepper commercial.
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* ''The Adventures of [[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' did this, with the title characters remaining animated and nearly everyone else portrayed by live actors.
** Lampshaded in the trailer, where the announcer brags about the film being "a groundbreaking blend of animation and live action." One of the characters says, "isn't that just like that Roger Rabbit movie?" To which Fearless Leader angrily replies, "NO! This is TOTALLY DIFFERENT!"
* ''[[
* ''[[
** As for why, it was a pretty low budget movie. Animating that sequence saved them the cost of a dog handler and a stuntwoman.
* Disney used this for decades, starting with the [[Alice Comedies|"Alice"]] series, which started in 1923, and kept right on going through ''[[The Reluctant Dragon]]'', ''So Dear To My Heart'', the eternally un-re-released ''[[Song of the South]]'', ''[[Mary Poppins]]'', ''[[Bedknobs and Broomsticks]]'', and ''[[
** There's also ''[[The Three Caballeros]]'', Walt Disney's [[Did Not Do the Research|"celebration"]] of Latin American culture featuring [[Donald Duck]] (American duck) teaming up with José Carioca (Brazilian parrot) and Panchito Pistoles (Mexican rooster). At one point, Donald and José do a little dance number with live-action entertainer Aurora Miranda.
** Although the animated segments in ''[[Fantasia]]'' are kept separate from the live-action intros, there is one scene in which Mickey Mouse runs up to the podium to shake Leopold Stokowski's hand. This is carried over in ''Fantasia 2000'', where Mickey then goes over to talk to James Levine.
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* Fred Willard and an ensemble of live-action extras share the screen with CGI animated robots on ''[[WALL-E]]''. Although in this case, they are only seen in footage of the past and thus never interact with the current-day cast.
** [[Word of God]] says the two styles are indicative of the (d)evolution undergone by humanity in the intervening centuries.
* The climax of ''The [[
* Detective Whiskers in ''The [[Last Action Hero]]'' is a cartoon cat in a detective outfit, but nobody but Danny sees anything weird about him.
{{quote|
'''Danny:''' Listen to what I'm saying: a cartoon cat walked right into the police station! Hello!
'''Slater:''' He'll do it again tomorrow. What's your point? }}
* The Italian [[Affectionate Parody]] ''Allegro Non Troppo'' features more interaction with the cartoon characters, who periodically disrupt the live-action.
* ''[[
** ''[[Family Guy]]'' had a parody of this, with Stewie Griffin replicating the scene short in its entirety, standing in for Jerry with Gene Kelly after an airplane rental service claimed to accept payment in the form of "cash, check, or a jaunty tune."
*** Speaking of ''Family Guy'', there was that moment in ''[[Bones]]'' when Booth ends up [[Justified Trope|hallucinating]] Stewie.
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* Back to Kelly again; his anthology film ''Invitation To The Dance'' features a segment based on Sinbad the Sailor set in an animated [[Qurac|Middle Eastern fantasy world]].
* Gene Kelly would take part in this trope again in the 1967 musical film "Jack and the Beanstalk".
* ''[[The Mask (
* In the film version of ''[[The Phantom Tollbooth]]'', Milo becomes a cartoon after crossing the tollbooth. This leads to an amusing sequence in which he goes back and forth in disbelief until the tollbooth's voice tells him to [[Get On With It Already]].
* The movie of ''[[James and
* ''[[The Pink Panther|Son of the Pink Panther]]'' opens with one of these, and several of the other films in the series end with one.
* Some may agree that ''The Many Adventures of [[Winnie the Pooh]]'' and [[The Tigger Movie]] would apply here. Both of them open in Christopher Robin's bedroom, and tour the young boy's room, looking over all the toys and stuffed animals, before approaching the book, while the narrator...er...[[Shaped Like Itself|Narrates]].
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* The main character of the short film ''[[Badly Drawn Roy]]'' is a cartoon while everyone else is live-action, including his parents. In-universe, this occurrence is a genetic improbability similar to white parents giving birth to a black baby and while remarkable, isn't considered unbelievable.
* The theatrical movie of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' has been planned as this, although as of this posting it's still in the ''very'' early development stages.
* The opening of the [[Disney|"Best of Disney-]][http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4TuB_cNIaY 50 Years of Magic"] documentary shows Michael Eisner interacting with [[Mickey Mouse]]. [[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?|Roger Rabbit]] and [[Fantasia|a few others]] also appear.
* ''[[The Smurfs (
* In ''[[The Flintstones]] In Viva Rock Vegas'', cavemen are live-acted while dinos and other animals are animated.
* In ''[[Nine to Five]]'', cartoon forest animals appear in Violet's [[Imagine Spot|fantasy vision]] of doing in Mr. Hart (where she is dressed like Snow White).
* ''[[Happy Feet]]'' has animated animals and live-action humans.
* ''[[
== Literature ==
* ''[[Who Censored Roger Rabbit?]]'' by [[Gary Wolf|Gary K. Wolf]] and the sequels, not-quite-sequels, [[Spiritual Successor|spiritual successors]], and short stories it spawned, (not to mention [[Adaptation Distillation|a much more famous]] [[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?|film adaptation]]) featuring an [[Alternate History|alternate 1947 Hollywood]] where the animated stars are just as real as the live-action film stars. Sadly out of print, these books are hard to get a hold of, but one of the short stories is available for free [http://garywolf.com/ at Mr. Wolf's website]
** Interestingly, unlike the movie, the book presents the Toons as comic-strip characters (talking via speech balloons, for instance) rather than animated cartoons. If memory serves, one scene has Eddie attempting to reattach Roger's nose first with tape and then glue.
* The [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] novel ''The Crooked World'' implies
* In Simon R. Green's ''Shadows Fall'', cartoon creatures are among the many inhabitants of the titular town of fictional and legendary beings. When the town is invaded by outsiders, some find out just how dangerous it is to fight semi-mutable creatures that ''always'' bounce back when injured...
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Walking
** Also, sometimes live-acted animals interact with animated ones, like animated ''Australopithecus'' watching live-acted vultures.
* Back in 1968, [[Hanna-Barbera]] released a short-lived series called ''The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', which featured live-action actors as Huck, Tom Sawyer, and Becky Thatcher, being pursued through various cartoon ''milieux'' by an animated Injun Joe.
** For the live action intro, Injun Joe was played by Ted Cassidy (a.k.a. Lurch from The Addams Family).
*** The series occasionally attempted some ambitious effects, such as having the human characters dance around their animated partners, first in front then behind.
* ''[[Out of
* ''[[Lizzie
* The [[Cold Open]] for one episode of ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'' had Daffy Duck trying to apply for a job at Winfred Lauder.
** Similarly, a brief gag on ''[[Night Court]]'' features Wile E. Coyote as a defendant.
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* The Dancing Baby in [[Ally McBeal]].
* If we're including ''[[Greg the Bunny]]'' and ''[[Avenue Q]]'', then mention must be made of [[The Muppets]]. Both in [[The Muppet Show|their own show]] and [[Muppet Cameo|everyone else's]].
* On one episode of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'', as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crIJvcWkVcs Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion] question how to put down dead budgies, one of [[
** This was only one of many invocations, as the animations were often required to link together the live action sketches.
* ''[[
* Done in an episode of [[Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide]]. Ned gets occassional help from [[The Fairly
* ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]'' once appeared "live" at the MTV Music Awards via this technique.
* The Argentinian soap ''Mi familia es un dibujo'' tells the misadventures of a family in which a pregnant woman has cartoon cravings in the last months of her pregnancy and then gives birth to a readheaded, freckled and hyperactive cartoon boy (!). It even spawned three ''movies''! More information in [http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi_familia_es_un_dibujo the other wiki] (in Spanish).
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* The video for "Breathless" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds has cartoon foxes, rabbits, and other animals running around.
* The video for [[Peter Gabriel]]'s "Sledgehammer" has Gabriel next to stop-motion characters.
** Blending was actually made more believable by stop-motion animating [
* The video got A-ha's "Take On Me" featured a pencil-sketch character "drawing" a live-action woman into his life.
* [[Gorillaz]] occasionally interact with live-action performers; during a concert, their computerised selves performed alongside Madonna. Within the canon, it varies as to whether they ''know'' they're cartoon characters; 2D once said he's pleased to be a cartoon character because "Paternity suits don't stick 'cos I don't have any DNA." (Apparently they ''do'' stick when the mother is another cartoon character, as shown by the existence of 2D's numerous illegitimate children.) Murdoc also shrugged off a potential murder charge after {{spoiler|the ''El Manana'' [[The Plan]] in which he used the crashing windmill to kill off a stalker of his}}, on the grounds that "I don't even have fingerprints."
** Murdoc claims Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, the actual band creators, are their producer and photographer/video producer, respectively (although, as he further stated, "it's all bull because Damon mostly sits around playing his banjo or looking up 'ethnic instruments' on Google, and Jamie's mainly designing his beard"). Then there's [http://i35.tinypic.com/m9vz7o.jpg this], to prove the point visually. There was also the interview with [[Franz Ferdinand]] that had a "photoshoot" with both band's members.
** The video for [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5yFcdPAGv0 "Humility"] blends live action performers and members of the band in Venice Beach, FL.
* [[Vocaloid|Hatsune Miku]] did this during her during her "live-action" concert in Los Angeles. Each time a member of her band was introduced, she would turn to them, smile, and wave. In fact, the entire concert was an example of this. A virtual diva in the real world? Sweet!
* The French pianist [[Richard Clayderman]] has a clip, "Smiling Joey", where for some reason he's at his piano in a boat floating down a river while various animated woodland critters are playing the parts of the orchestra.
* Disney's Princess [[
== Theater ==
* ''[[Avenue Q]]'', in the tradition of ''[[Sesame Street]],'' combines puppets with live actors on stage. This is brought to its logical conclusion when, for Broadway Cares, the cast of ''Avenue Q'' teamed up with the revival cast of ''Fiddler on the Roof'' to sing a song about the Puppets and the Humans unable to get along on "Avenue Jew."
* As ''[[Gertie the Dinosaur]]'' was originally a ''
** How is that possible since cartoon characters don't actually exist and thus can't enter the real world and get on stage?
*** Let [[The Other Wiki]] [
{{quote|
== Videogames ==
* ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]. Brawl'', insofar as [[Metal Gear Solid|Solid Snake]] can be considered a normal human being. Or, for that matter, [[The Legend of Zelda
** And the coexistence of Link and [[The Legend of Zelda:
** Sort of an odd case. In ''Melee,'' one of the Event Matches pits you against what the game calls the "[[Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness|realistic]]" characters, presumably contrasted with the "cartoony" characters. But the supposedly realistic characters include the anthropomorphic animal [[Star Fox (
*** To be fair, Fox & friends are space aliens who just happen to look like a bunch of [[Funny Animal]] cartoon characters.
** And the Final Destination stage's changing background is meant to show the characters actually traveling from the video game world to the real world.
** In the original ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' the plot was that the characters are toys belonging to the kid whose hand is Master Hand, and after bringing them to life (magically I guess?), the toys are fighting for their independence from their owner. So beyond the videogame crossovers and cartoon animals combined with realistic people, there is also the juxtaposition of the toy world and the real world, as manifested in Master Hand (and in Melee, Crazy Hand).
* ''Go! Go! Hypergrind!''
* ''[[Toonstruck]]'', wherein the real world animator [[Punny Name|Drew Blanc]] (played by Christopher Lloyd) gets sucked into the toon world.
* Similarly, ''Comix Zone'' for the Sega Genesis.
* Consider the mere existence of a ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' world in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]] II''. It is a bit jarring, because it's done in a more realistic, grittier style than the anime/cartoon styles of the rest of the game. it's even [[Lampshaded]]. The protagonists are baffled upon landing on Port Royal and immediately comment that the world looks different. The same game also included a world inspired by ''[[
** And now there's a ''[[Tron
* One TV special with ''[[Backyard Sports]]'' characters had Chuck Downfield (animated) talking with live-action NFL stars.
* [[Cosmic Osmo]] has a framed photo of himself with Jethro from ''[[The Beverly Hillbillies]].''
* [[Nicktoons MLB]] features both Nickelodeon characters and real MLB players.
* Some of the G-mod videos that have realistic characters interacting with cartoonish characters (i.e. ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' characters interacting with ''[[
== Webcomics ==
* Sam Sprinkles, from ''[[Zebra Girl]]'', comes from an alternate dimension inhabited by cartoon animals (literally; they are the cartoons of the main ZG universe). In the process of saving his dimension, he ends up trapped in Sandra's.
* [[Love Me Nice]] takes place in a [[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]-like world where toons are a whole different species with [[Rule of Funny]] bred into the blood (it's apparently regarded as the toon equivalent of [[The Boondocks|nigga behavior]], judging by an argument Mac and Claire have on the subject), and cartoons are live productions made with toon actors. There's even a [[Toon Town|"Toon Quarter"]] (outside which items like bottomless handbags are contraband), but it's implied to be more like a toon ''ghetto''.
* The [[Platypus Comix]] story "True Believers" portrays such comic characters as [[Spider-Man]] as actual people, and such editors as [[Joe Quesada|Joe]] [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Quesadilla]] as both their bosses and their gods (any possible comic-world occurrence they write down instantly happens to the characters).
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== Web Originals ==
* [[The Gaming Pixie]] does this when she travels inside the games she reviews.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20071101073027/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4614551809359272199&q=fear+came&pr=goog-sl El Origen del Miedo] [How Fear Came]'' is a school video based on one of [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[The
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131109024715/http://thatfellowinthecoat.com/animatedanalysis.php Animated Analysis] on ''[[Mr. Coat and Friends]]'' consists of a human reviewer, and a sentient drawing of a face who floats around.
* AniMae from the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' is a "living anime" [[Action Girl]] superhero who possesses all the usual [[Magic Girl]] / [[Action Girl]] abilities, with the added benefit of being really hard to injure permanently because she's a cartoon.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=HjGrHBpfqCo&nomobile=1 Law-Abiding Engineer] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-T2I6sEsrY&feature=channel&list=UL The Demo Knight] are the trailers for ''[[Law Abiding Citizen]]'' and ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', but with the ''Team Fortress 2'' characters superimposed into them.
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* Done in Behind the Scenes segments of the original [[Woody Woodpecker]] Show. [[Special Effects Failure|Due to the low budget animation however, it's botched pretty badly to say the least.]]
* Even earlier than the original [[Woody Woodpecker]] show, [[Walter Lantz]] briefly tried this out with an [[Oswald the Lucky Rabbit]] short, and used this even earlier in his [[The Silent Age of Animation|Silent Age]] ''[[Dinky Doodle]]'' shorts.
* The Disney series ''[[
** The characters seemed to be [[Genre Savvy|aware]] that different physics applied to 'toon characters, and even referred to them like an ethnic minority.
* Disney's ''[[Alice Comedies]]'' a work by Walt Disney from 1923 (not only predating [[Mickey Mouse]], but predating Mickey’s prototype, [[Oswald the Lucky Rabbit]]). These silent movie shorts, made when Walt was still a novice animator, feature Alice, the protagonist (played by [[Virginia Davis]]), watching Walt at work, and later falling asleep and imagining herself in a cartoon world. There were a total of 57 Alice Comedies, but unfortunately, 16 of them are thought to be lost, and 1 of them partially lost.
* [[Max and Dave Fleischer]]'s ''[[Out of the Inkwell]]'' shorts. This and the ''[[Alice Comedies]]'' are especially notable for being one of the first attempts at playing around with animation / live action blending.
* Briefly in the opening of ''[[
* [[Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi]] features an episode in which the live-action J-Pop stars sit on a couch with their animated manager, while the animated versions of the girls wonder who those two women are and [[Who Would Want to Watch Us?|who would want to watch them]].
* One time, [[Fairly Oddparents|the Nega Chin]] ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|beat up]] [[Patton Oswalt]]'', although the interaction between them [[Special Effects Failure|comes off as looking pretty fake]] due to the cartoon's comparatively stiff animation.
** A later episode has the characters appearing at Scott Hamilton's house. It's a wee bit more convincing there.
** In addition, Cosmo and Wanda made a special guest cameo in a fantasy sequence on ''[[Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide]]''.
** The series finale ''Grow Up, Timmy Turner'' is live-action, but the fairies are animated.
* Infrequently done for comic effect on ''[[
* During the first year of [[Kids WB]], the stars of the sitcoms on [[The WB]] appeared in promotional spots and bumpers depicting them hanging out at the animated version of the Warner Bros. studio lot (as seen on ''[[
* Many of [[Tex Avery]]'s cartoons used live action:
** "TV of Tomorrow" has live action for all the televised images.
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** Then there was the [[Disney Channel]]'s music video of "It's On" from ''[[Camp Rock]] 2'', in which the ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' characters are depicted dancing with the network's live-action stars.
** The spin-off ''Take Two with Phineas and Ferb'' has the title characters hosting a talk show where they interview real world celebrities.
* The ill-received and swiftly-cancelled ''[[Out of
* ''Homer³'', one of the [[Three Shorts]] of [[Halloween Episode|Treehouse Of Horror VI]] in ''[[The Simpsons]]'', ends with 3D Homer being transported into the real world (if you can call [[Los Angeles]] real). "Mmm... erotic cakes!"
** If you pay attention to the people around him, they seem very well aware that the strange, yellow man walking down the sidewalk isn't normal. None of them seem to do anything more than stare, however.
* In March
* [[South Park]] had a two-parter featuring giant, real-life guinea pigs "rampaging" through town.
* In a truly bizarre example of this trope, in the late 40's, when [[Columbia Pictures]] was making live action [[Superman]] serials, in order to save money on the flight effect, they actually had Superman ''turn into a cartoon version of himself'' when he flew!
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[[Category:The Renaissance Age of Animation]]
[[Category:The Golden Age of Animation]]
[[Category:
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