Everything Everywhere All At Once's Raccacoonie Was Made Using A Real Raccoon Corpse
The filmmaking duo of Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, known professionally as Daniels, have exploded into mainstream success with the release (and impressive overperformance) of "Everything Everywhere All At Once." Longtime fans of their work, however, are well-aware of that fact that their unparalleled style has always made room for acerbic wit, referential humor, and emotions worn entirely on their sleeve. That sense of humor is now on display for an incredibly large audience to see — no small feat considering that these are the directors responsible for some of the zaniest, most creative, and low-budget music videos to ever go viral.
Where the brilliant "Swiss Army Man" lovingly included an ode to Laura Dern and "Jurassic Park," their smash hit "Everything Everywhere All At Once" found a hilarious and unexpected way to take a beloved Pixar film all the way to its multiversal extreme. Evelyn Wang's (Michelle Yeoh) endearing attempts to remember the title and premise of "Ratatouille" (Raccacoonie!) at one point in the film easily turned into one of its most-discussed highlights, though that only preceded the laugh-out-loud payoff to that moment later on. Evelyn's timeline-hopping adventure eventually takes her to a universe where her mistaken idea of a chef with a raccoon in his hat (voiced by Randy Newman, of course) was actually a reality.
In an interview with The Ringer, makeup and effects supervisor Jason Hamer opened up about how he created the adorable raccoon in the first place while abiding by the challenging, intentionally low-budget approach that Daniels have perfected over the years. According to Hamer:
"The guys were like, 'Think cheap. We don't want it to look good. It should look goofy, like a bad taxidermy.'"
As it turns out, he may have taken that advice somewhat literally.
'That was one of the challenges'
Thankfully, the Pixar animator team never really had to figure out the logistics of how a rat in a chef hat would be able to yank on a poor guy's hair and precisely control his movements. Attempting to fully realize Daniels' own quintessential twist on that concept in live action with a raccoon proved much more difficult for Jason Hamer. He explained the differences between his instinctive approach and the filmmakers' marching orders:
"That was one of the challenges. The guys [were] going, 'Cheap and quick and dirty.' And I'm going, 'No. Cool and beautiful and funny!'"
Though the visual was achieved with an animatronic recreation, the foundation for "Raccacoonie" came from an actual taxidermy of a raccoon who admirably donated its body to, well, our entertainment. Through a mix of prosthetics and gadgetry, Hamer built a fully-functional 15-pound raccoon that quickly captured the hearts of viewers worldwide. As for how he managed to meet the demanding expectations of Daniels? That took a bit of finesse, according to Hamer.
"It's going not as far as you would like to go, is basically what it is. It's taking less time to blend the hair, or painting on the fur."
It's likely that this was the first and only time in his career that he was instructed to make his work less competent and professional, but few could argue with the final product. "Everything Everywhere All At Once" has enjoyed breakout success and that's all thanks to the Daniels' creativity and storytelling prowess, the army of production talent who helped bring their vision to life, and one taxidermied raccoon.