"Trail Mix Up" was my second Roger Rabbit short , and probably the funner of the two. "Roller Coaster Rabbit" was the first project completed by the Florida studio and it gave us our share of growing pains. This short seemed to go through fairly smoothly. It was directed by my buddy Barry Cook, who had come to the Florida studio to head up the special effects dept. Barry had gotten his feet wet on "Off his Rockers" and of course went on to co-direct "Mulan".

I Loved working on these shorts. The production schedules were shorter and the characters were just so much fun to draw. They are a stark contrast to the more subtle characters I've worked on. And the funnest part( and most challenging) was it was my first time drawing Jessica. Oddly enough I had never drawn females at Disney, considering they're what I enjoy drawing most in my spare time. They are far more challenging to draw than any other character in my opinion. I wanted to do it to test myself. Mark Henn, who is know for his amazing animation of women, animated the above scene. It did indeed turn out to be quite an experience. The thing about drawing pretty girls( in animation) is that if they don't look perfect, they look awful. Some friends of mine seem to do it well with relative ease, but it's a challenge I would rather take on less than more.

For those who are into "hidden" images in cartoons, this one shouldn't be missed. There are quite a few goodies in "Trail Mix-Up". Some are easy to spot, while others are a bit tricky. I did one scene where Roger's face was swollen from bee stings. He proceeds to shake his head and spit out bees. I got bored with drawing the bees and started making them other Disney characters. They were painted like the bees so they're hard to notice but take a look.

Unfortunately not a lot of people saw this short. It was released with a live action movie called "A Far off Place" which didn't exactly light up the box office. These shorts were released in a video collection which is kind of hard to find. Hopefully they will surface again at some point.