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Before Disney decided a young\u00a0<\/span>Robert Zemeckis<\/span><\/a> was worthy of tackling\u00a0<\/span>Who Framed Roger Rabbit<\/i><\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/i>a completely different cast was lined up to produce test footage for the prospective movie. Peter Renaday, the voice of Splinter on the\u00a0Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/i> television series, was Eddie Valiant. Russi Taylor, the longtime voice of Minnie Mouse, played\u00a0<\/span>Jessica Rabbit<\/span><\/a>. And to portray Roger, Disney tapped a young\u00a0<\/span>Paul Reubens<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n While Reubens had been a smash in Los Angeles with his one-man Pee-wee stage show, he was still a few years away from\u00a0<\/span>Pee-wee\u2019s Big Adventure<\/i><\/span><\/a> and his Saturday morning kiddie series. Here\u2019s young Reubens voicing the animated character, sounding a lot like Pee-wee with a nervous stammer:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPaul had both an excitability and a na\u00efve quality to his voice that we felt was essential to the character\u2019s personality,\u201d\u00a0<\/span>said animation director Darrell Van Citters<\/span><\/a>. \u201cDespite his firmly established role as Pee-wee Herman, Paul is an excellent voice actor, and gave us exceptional readings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Due to its high budget and tricky story (the original novel was much darker),\u00a0Roger Rabbit\u00a0<\/i>stalled for a few years. After Zemeckis hit it big with\u00a0Romancing the Stone<\/i> and\u00a0Back to the Future,<\/i> Disney reconsidered and hired the director. And that meant shuffling the cast.<\/span><\/p>\n Zemeckis wanted Harrison Ford for Eddie Valiant, but his asking price was too high.\u00a0<\/span>Chevy Chase<\/span><\/a> said no to a role that would have been career-defining.\u00a0<\/span>Bill Murray has expressed regret<\/span><\/a> that he passed \u2014 or rather, that he never responded to phone calls about the job. Eddie Murphy says it\u2019s the only blockbuster he ever turned down. Also allegedly considered? Robin Williams, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson and Sylvester Stallone.<\/span><\/p>\n As for Reubens? Despite being the original voice of\u00a0Roger Rabbit<\/i>, Zemeckis opened the door to other possibilities. He auditioned\u00a0<\/span>Eddie Deezen<\/span><\/a>, the preeminent cinema nerd of the 1970s. Both Reubens and Deezen lost the role to comedian and\u00a0Welcome Back, Kotter<\/i> star Charles Fleischer, who developed Roger\u2019s distinctive stutter. It was more than voiceover work \u2014 Zemeckis made Fletcher dress in a rabbit costume and stand off-camera to give Bob Hoskins, the actor who eventually played Eddie Valiant, someone to work with.<\/span><\/p>\n Reubens didn\u2019t make a big deal of missing out on the part, at least not in public. The part that got away wasn\u2019t mentioned in the bio-documentary Pee-wee As Himself<\/i>, despite its three-and-a-half-hour running time. Since Pee-wee\u2019s Big Adventure\u00a0<\/i>broke out three years before\u00a0Who Framed Roger Rabbit<\/i> reached theaters, the sting would have been minor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Besides, Reubens pocketed plenty of mouse money over the years. Disney hired him for voice work for\u00a0Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas<\/i>,\u00a0The Nightmare Before Christmas, Flight of the Navigator, Tron: Uprising, Hercules\u00a0<\/i>(the TV series) and\u00a0Phineas and Ferb<\/i>, as well as the Star Tours ride at the Disney theme parks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n