Ralph Bakshi

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Ralph Bakshi

Bakshi in January 2009
Born October 29, 1938 (1938-10-29) (age 70)
Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel)
Occupation Animator, film director, screenwriter
Years active 1957–present
Spouse(s) Elizabeth Bakshi
Official website

Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938(1938-10-29)) is an American director of animated and live-action films. As the American animation industry declined throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bakshi tried to establish an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. From 1972 to 1994, he directed nine theatrically released feature films—five of which he wrote—and oversaw ten television projects as director, producer and animator.

Beginning his career at the Terrytoons studio as a cel polisher, he eventually became Director of Animation for the studio. Bakshi moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967, and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat, released in 1972. It was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and the most successful independent animated feature of all time.

Over the next eleven years, Bakshi directed seven animated features. He is well known for his fantasy films, which include Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978) and Fire and Ice (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which ran for two years before being canceled due to complaints from television watchdog groups over perceived drug references. As of 2009, Bakshi's most recent feature film is Cool World (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received negative reviews. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy (1994) and the anthology series Spicy City (1997).

He founded the Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning in 2003 and released a hardback book of his art in 2008. He has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for The Lord of the Rings at the Giffoni Film Festival, the 1988 Annie Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life (1938–1956)

Ralph Bakshi grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel). In 1939, his family emigrated to New York to escape World War II, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.[1] The Bakshi family lived in a low-rent apartment, where the city noise initially kept Ralph awake at night, but soon began to soothe him to sleep.[1] Bakshi became fascinated with the city's structure and atmosphere.[1] As a child, Bakshi enjoyed comic books, and would often dig through trash cans to get ahold of them, sometimes cutting his hands on broken glass.[1] At the age of eight, Bakshi overheard a loud noise while sleeping at a friend's house, and later learned that a neighbor had committed suicide after murdering his unfaithful wife.[1]

In the spring of 1947, Ralph's father and uncle traveled to Washington D.C. in search of new business opportunities, moving the family into a building in the entirely black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom.[2] Ralph recalls that "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!"[2]

Because Bakshi felt that it was not fair for him to walk several miles every day to attend Greenleaf Elementary School while all of his friends attended segregated schools, he asked his mother if he could attend school with his friends in the fall, and she agreed. Bakshi was the only white student in the classroom.[2] While most of the students had no problem with Bakshi attending the school, the teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Suspecting that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white student was attending a black school, the police dragged Bakshi out of the classroom.[2] Meanwhile, Ralph's father had been experiencing anxiety attacks and stress. Within a few months, Ralph's mother sold their store, and the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events.[2]

At the age of 15, Bakshi took up cartooning as a means of detailing his experiences after discovering a copy of Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide to Cartooning at his public library.[1] After stealing a copy of the book, Bakshi learned every lesson within the book.[1] During his teenage years, he took up boxing.[3] While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, Bakshi took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling".[1] After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking a Camel cigarette, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office, where a transfer to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art was initiated.[1] In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning.[1]

[edit] Early career (1956–1968)

When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons, who recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde.[4][5] Bakshi commuted for four hours a day to arrive at the offices, where he had begun work as a cel polisher. He carefully removed dirt and dust from animation cels as a base level position. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still arriving at work, and promoted him to cel painter.[5] While employed as a cel painter, Bakshi began to practice animating, sneaking ten of the cels that he was given into the "to-do" pile of a neighboring cel painter, Leo Giuliani, in order to give himself additional time to practice animating. No one noticed until two days later, when Bakshi was called into Schudde's office because Giuliani had painted Bakshi's cels on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had painted the cels and not him, an argument ensued between the three, with Schudde eventually taking Bakshi's side. Giuliani later corrected the mistakes.[5] By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman and Johnnie Gentilella.[5]

Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, at the age of 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his work hours, which often left Mark in the care of Ralph's mother. Bakshi parodied his failing marriage by drawing Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl".[5] As Bakshi perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for Gene Deitch. However, Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had modern design sensibilities.[5] As a result of the period's political climate, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda" and Junktown, which focused on misfit technology and discarded ideals, as a form of therapy.[5] Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, Bakshi picked up his desk and sat downstairs with the rest of the animators, and asked Rasinski for scenes to animate, receiving layouts of two scenes involving a hat floating on water and Deputy Dawg running.[5] In spite of threats of repercussion from the union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure, and because Rasinski was childless, he was more than happy to serve as a mentor to Bakshi.[5] One night, Bakshi placed the scenes he had animated on top of a wastepaper basket before going home. When he returned the next day, he found that they had been thrown out by the cleaning crew, resulting in Bakshi taking a train to Philadelphia in an attempt to find the scenes before they had reached the city's landfill. When he arrived, he found the trash was already being unloaded on the conveyor belt. According to Bakshi, "They let me wait underneath it and catch any of the drawings that floated down. I got maybe three."[5]

At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was to direct the series Sad Cat.[5] By this time, Bakshi and Elaine had separated, giving Bakshi the freedom to animate each short entirely by himself.[5] While Bakshi continued to direct shorts, he was not satisfied with the traditional definition of what a Terrytoons director did. According to Bakshi, "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own."[5] While independant studios such as Hanna-Barbera were able to successfully sell programs, networks like CBS (which owned Terrytoons) were unwilling to purchase new programming from the studio. This was due to the declining popularity of Terrytoons' current programs, such as Deputy Dawg.[5] In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss' proposals as being "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey".[5] As Fred Silverman began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero cartoon parody called The Mighty Heroes. Bakshi described each of the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man and Diaper Man. "They fought evil wherever they could and the villains were stupider than they were."[5] The network executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing to the series, Weiss considered the meeting to be a success, and immediately put Bakshi to work on the development of the series.[5] Once Silverman saw the character designs, he called to confirm that CBS was greenlighting the series, on the condition that Bakshi served as creative director on the series.[5]

Although Bakshi had received praise from his peers and a higher pay raise, he was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he thought he would be. Bakshi's mentor Rasinski died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy over the quality of the animation, writing, timing and voice acting.[5] Although the series was successful into its second season, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons in order to form his own organization. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago and Bill Foucht. To avoid conflict with his day job, he scheduled his pitch with Silverman on a Saturday, but got into a car accident on the way to the CBS offices. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who would later become his second wife. While CBS passed on Tee-Witt, the series' designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards.[5] While leaving CBS offices, Bakshi learned that the animation division of Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane. After a meeting with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, Bakshi was hired to replace Culhane as the head of the animation department.[5][6] Bakshi soon hired comic book and pulp fiction artists Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood and Jim Steranko to work at the studio.[5] After finishing the shorts that Culhane had not completed, Bakshi directed, produced, wrote and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs and Mouse Trek.[5] Bakshi described Marvin Digs as "a flower-child picture".[3] Michael Barrier described the film as "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust".[3] According to Bakshi, the film was not completed the way he had intended. He said, "Marvin Digs was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." Bakshi disliked the completed film, which he described as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical".[3]

In 1967, Bakshi traveled to Toronto to work for Steve Krantz.

Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. Bakshi learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that the studio never intended to pick up any of his pitches.[5] Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance, Bakshi immediately ripped up the papers.[5] Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science fiction series Rocket Robin Hood.[5][7] Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon took flight to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States.[5] Unbeknownst to Bakshi, Krantz and Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. When they were unable to reach a negotiation with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the model sheets and return to the United States. Once the studio learned of these plans, a warrant was called in for Bakshi's arrest by the Toronto police.[5] Bakshi narrowly avoided being arrested before being stopped by a guard at the American side of the border who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport to be interrogated and searched for six hours.[5]

Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, which was set up in the garment district where his mother used to work, which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world".[5] The studio paid employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators.[8] Bakshi Productions began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man television series.[9] Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. Bakshi's second child, Preston, was born in June 1970.[5]

[edit] Fritz the Cat (1969–1972)

In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica.[10][11] However, Bakshi was disinterested in the kind of animation he was producing, and wanted to produce something personal. Bakshi soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. However, Krantz told Bakshi that studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience.[11] While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film.[11] Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi showed Crumb drawings that had been created as the result of Bakshi attempting to learn Crumb's distinctive style in order to prove that he could translate the look of Crumb's artwork to animation.[11] Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks as a reference.[11]

As Krantz began to prepare the paperwork, preparation began on a pitch presentation for potential studios, including a poster-sized painted cel setup featuring the strip's cast against a traced photo background, as Bakshi intended the film to appear.[11] However, in spite of Crumb's enthusiasm, he was unsure about the film's production, and refused to sign the contract.[11] Artist Vaughn Bodé warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick".[11] Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life".[11] Krantz sent Bakshi to San Fransisco, where Bakshi stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain.[11] Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights because Dana had power of attorney and signed the contract.[11] Crumb received US$50,000, which was delivered throughout different phases of the production, in addition to ten percent of Krantz's take.[11]

After pitching the film to every studio in town, Warner Bros. bought the film and promised an $850,000 budget.[11] Bakshi hired animators he had worked with in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Nick Tafuri, and Anzilotti to work on the film, drawing the layouts and animation. The first scene completed was the junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex with Big Bertha, and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a fifteen-minute short in case the film's funding was pulled; however, Bakshi was determined to complete the film as a feature.[11] When Bakshi and Krantz screened the sequence to Warner Bros. executives, they wanted the sexual content to be toned down, and for Bakshi and Krantz to cast celebrities as the voices. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled their funding from the film, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere, eventually leading to a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate.[11]

In spite of receiving further financing from various sources, including Saul Zaentz, who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label, the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, and Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted.[11] When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency to the audience, Bakshi painted a cactus in order to cover the mistake.[11] Very few storyboards were used, and the screenplay largely consisted of dialogue and staging.[11] However, the production limitations also led to major breakthroughs: It was cheaper for Ira Turek to trace photographs to create the backgrounds, leading Bakshi and Vita to walk around the streets of the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown and Harlem to take moody snapshots. Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds stylized realism that had never been portrayed in animation before.[11] The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the "Ash Can style" of painters, which includes George Luks and John French Sloan.[11] The film also used gravitational and fisheye camera perspectives in order to replicate the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city.[11] Another directorial trademark was also introduced by Fritz the Cat: Many scenes featured documentary recordings of actual conversations in place of scripted dialogue.[11]

In May 1971, Bakshi relocated to Los Angeles to hire additional animators to complete Fritz the Cat.

In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators there. Some animators, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi's presence, and felt that Fritz the Cat would bring diversity to the animation industry.[11] Other animators disliked Bakshi's presence, and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, stating that Bakshi's "filth" was unwelcome in California.[11] By the time the film wrapped production, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to considerable success, and the distributor hoped that Fritz the Cat would be even more profitable. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Fritz the Cat an X rating, Cinemation exploited the film's content in its promotion of the film, advertising the film as containing "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX...he's X-rated and animated!"[11] Preceding the film's release, it was perceived as a pornographic film, but praise from Rolling Stone and The New York Times, and the film's acceptance into the 1972 Cannes Film Festival cleared up previous misconceptions.[11] Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C.,[3] and went on to become a worldwide hit, grossing over $100 million worldwide, and was the most successful independent animated feature of all time.[11] In April 1972, Bakshi's daughter Victoria was born.[11]

[edit] Heavy Traffic (1972–73)

By the time Fritz the Cat was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon directing the first "dirty" animated film.[12] Bakshi turned to poetry to express the emotions he felt as the result of encountering criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications. This became a tradition, and Bakshi would write poems before beginning production on each of his films, starting with Street Arabs, which preceded the production of Heavy Traffic in 1972.[12] Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi would often spend his time playing pinball, sometimes bringing his 12-year-old son Mark. Bakshi wanted to use pinball as a metaphor to examine the ways of the world.[12] Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who took an interest in Bakshi's take on the "tortured underground cartoonist", and agreed to fund the film, which incorporated use of live-action footage and photographs.[12] However, Krantz had not yet paid Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat. Halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked Krantz outright when he would be paid, and Krantz responded that "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise."[12] Bakshi found Krantz's claims to be dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Because Bakshi did not have a lawyer, he sought advice from directors he had become friends with, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg, asking them how much they made on their films. Bakshi soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied.[12]

Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy during a screening of The Godfather.[2][13] While working on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi told Krantz: "I can't talk about that" and hung up. The next day, Krantz locked Bakshi out of the studio, reportably tapping Bakshi's phone because he was wary of his loyalty as an employee.[12] After Krantz fired Bakshi, he began to seek a replacement director for Heavy Traffic, calling several directors, including Chuck Jones.[12] Arkoff threatened to pull the film's budget unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later.[12]

Because Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages.[12] Although Krantz prepared several variations of scenes depicting sex and violence in an attempt to receive an R rating, Heavy Traffic was rated X.[14] However, due to the success of Fritz the Cat, theaters were more willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film became a box office success.[12] Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful films released consecutively.[15] Vincent Canby ranked it among his "Ten Best Films of 1973".[12] The film was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada, upon release.[14]

[edit] Coonskin (1974-75)

In 1974, Bakshi and Ruddy began production on Harlem Nights, with Paramount Pictures originally contracted as the film's distributor.[2][16] While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's films were considered to be merely "dirty Disney flicks" which were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity.[2] Harlem Nights was developed from Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, and it was an attack on racism and racist stereotypes.[2][17] Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White and Charles Gordone in both live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two mediums could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology".[2] Bakshi also wrote a song for Crothers to sing in the film's opening title sequence, "Ah'm a Niggerman". The song's structure was rooted in the history of plantations, when slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat, and its fast guitar licks and rhymes feature what Bakshi described as "an early version of rap".[2]

Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled designs from The Wind in the Willows storybook were rejected for this reason.[2] Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism of all is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi states that "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather."[2] During the film's production, the title was changed to Coonskin No More...,[18] and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on Coonskin and his next feature, Hey Good Lookin',[16] including Brenda Banks, the first African-American female animator.[19] The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist.[16][17] After the film's distribution was contracted to Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, called The American Chronicles.[20]

Coonskin was given limited distribution, advertised as an exploitation film, and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative: Playboy commented, "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together."[16] Eventually, positive reviews appeared in the The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, the The New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper), and elsewhere. The film was unsuccessful at the box office.[16] The New York Times' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence".[16] Variety called the film a "brutal satire from the streets. Not for all tastes [...] not avant-garde. [...] The target audience is youth who read comics in the undergrounds."[16] A reviewer for The Los Angeles Herald Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. I liked it. The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy."[16] Bakshi himself described Coonskin as his best film.[2]

[edit] Hey Good Lookin' (1974-1982)

Production of Hey Good Lookin' began in 1974. It was originally conceived as a combination of live-action and animation.[16] Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy."[21] The main voice actors were Richard Romanus, David Proval and Jesse Welles. The film takes place in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based upon Bakshi's high school friends, Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman.[1][22]

An initial version of Hey Good Lookin' was completed in 1975. However, distributor Warner Bros. told Bakshi that the film was "unreleasable" because of it's combination of live-action and animation, but would not spend further money on the project, leading Bakshi to finance the film's completion himself out of the director's fees for other projects he headed from 1976 until 1982, such as: Wizards, The Lord of the Rings and American Pop.[22] The live action sequences of Hey Good Lookin' were gradually replaced by animated sequences, and a live-action sequence featuring the glam punk band New York Dolls was deleted from the film.[22] Singer Dan Hicks worked on the initial music score, but the final version was scored by John Madara.[23]

Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983.[21] The film's release was limited, and it was largely unnoticed by the public.[22] Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and Fritz the Cat."[21]

[edit] Shift to fantasy film (1976–78)

In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films.[24] British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable to Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests.[24] As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. was unsympathetic to Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give Bakshi $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas' Star Wars. Because Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, Ladd suggested that Bakshi and Lucas fund the completion of their films themselves.[24]

Patent drawing for the rotoscoping technique, which is used extensively in Wizards and The Lord of the Rings

Bakshi chose to use rotoscoping as a cost-effective measure of completing the battle scenes with his own finances. Because Bakshi could not afford to hire a film crew, actors, or to develop 35mm stock, he requested prints of films which contained the kind of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, and spliced together the footage he needed.[24] However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame of footage would have cost $3 million. When Bakshi learned that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine, and produce blown up copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi was able to get the pages he needed for a penny per copy.[24]

As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards in order to avoid conflict with Star Wars, and Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from Star Wars in order to record a voice for Wizards.[24] Although Wizards received a limited release, it was very successful in the theaters that showed it, and developed a worldwide audience.[24] Jerry Beck wrote of it:

"The central figure, Avatar, is a crusty old wizard who sounds a great deal like Peter Falk, and clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character. The conflict between Avatar and his evil brother Blackwolf is both clichéd and mostly dealt with at a distance, as the opposing sides gradually grow nearer. [...] The film has a few interesting moments, particularly in a series of still illustrations by Marvel comic artist Mike Ploog, but is perhaps most notable as a turning point, not necessarily a positive one, in Bakshi's film career."[25]

In late 1976, Bakshi learned that director John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, and that Boorman had attempted to condense Tolkien's story into a single film.[26] Bakshi arranged a meeting with United Artists head of production Mike Medavoy, who agreed to let Bakshi direct The Lord of the Rings in exchange for the $3 million which had been spent on Boorman's screenplay.[26] Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to The Lord of the Rings.[26] Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired, and the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt, and agreed to fund the film's $8 million budget.[26] Before the film's production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film. Bakshi received the blessing of Tolkien's daughter, Priscilla Anne Reuel, who told him that her father would be proud of Bakshi's approach toward the story.[26]

Because Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the story, he planned to shoot the entire film in live-action and animate the footage with rotoscoping.[26] Voice actors included Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes and John Hurt. The film incorporated rotoscoping, brief cel animation, and live-action footage mixed with animation. Jerry Beck questioned the incorporation of live-action footage, writing that while the rotoscoped animation is "beautiful",[27] he felt that it was not clear whether the use of live-action footage was an artistic choice, or whether it was done due to budgetary constraints.[27] Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film.[26]

After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars could be seen in the footage Bakshi had shot, they tried to incinerate the footage, telling Bakshi's first assistant director that "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again."[26] When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen, and he did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which would be unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings. Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger, and were able to process the footage inexpensively.[26] Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation effects in order to keep the visual effects budget low, and to give the film a more realistic look.[26] The high-profile nature of the project resulted in strong coverage from trade journals, and fans like Mick Jagger would tour the studio for the chance to play a role in the film.[26] Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action costume, which he wore while animating.[26]

United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete the film on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978 release, as the distributor viewed The Lord of the Rings only as a holiday film.[26] Once the film was completed, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete film, and despite Bakshi's objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow.[26] Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally considered to be a "flawed but inspired interpretation".[27] In The Hollywood Reporter, Frank Barrow wrote that the film was "daring and unusual in concept".[27] Joseph Gelmis of Newsday wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment".[27] Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story".[28] Vincent Canby called the film "both numbing and impressive".[29] David Denby of New York magazine felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not previously read the book. Denby wrote that the film was too dark and lacked humor, concluding that "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end".[30] The film cost $4 million to produce and grossed $30.5 million at the box office.[27] The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the book.[26] The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival.[31]

[edit] American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983)

Following the production struggles of The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided that it was time to work on something more personal.[26] He pitched American Pop to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film with an extensive soundtrack of songs which would be given an entirely new context in juxtaposition to the visuals in a film.[32] American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers paralleled the history of American pop. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by individuals he had encountered in Brownsville.[32] The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams, each of whom brought their own personal touch to the film.[32] Bakshi once again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones."[32] As the result of his reputation as an innovator of adult animation, Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack, including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed and Louis Prima, for under US$1 million in permissions fees.[32] The film was a success upon its release on February 12, 1981.[32] Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films".[33] Due to music clearance issues, the film was not released on home video until 1998.[33]

By 1982, fantasy films had proven to be considerably successful at the box office, including The Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian, and Bakshi had a desire to work with long-time friend and fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta.[34] Bakshi received $1.2 million to finance Fire and Ice from some of the same investors as American Pop, and 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute the film based upon the financial longevity of Wizards.[34] Because Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed up until that point, rotoscoping was again used, and the realism of the animation and design replicated Frazetta's artwork.[34] Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot.[34] The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks.[34] Chung strongly admired Bakshi and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences on the film while simultaneously working for The Walt Disney Company.[34] Jerry Beck wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's He-Man series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan."[35]

[edit] Unproduced projects and retirement (1983–86)

After production of Fire and Ice completed, Bakshi unsuccessfully attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man, Eric Rücker Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels, and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes. Bakshi also turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which he passed on to Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner.[36]

During this period, Bakshi re-read J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, a book that he had first read in high school, and found that his current condition paralleled that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. This inspired him to seek out the rights to adapt the novel as a film, intending to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live-action and animating the core of the novel, told in flashbacks.[36] However, Salinger had numerously rejected offers to adapt the novel, had not made a public appearance since 1965, or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he would be the perfect director to adapt the novel, and the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form.[36]

Inspired by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting, and completed the screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, a live-action feature he had been developing since the late 1960s. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios Bakshi pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense."[36] In the fall of 1985, Bakshi received a phone call from The Rolling Stones' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle", and had wanted Bakshi to direct the music video. Bakshi was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within a single day (January 28, 1986), in order for it to be shown at the Grammy Awards. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation in a matter of weeks. The band's arrival to the set was delayed by a snowstorm, several takes were ruined when the cameras crossed paths, Bakshi was forced to pay the union wages out of his own fees, and the continuity between Kricfalusi's animation and footage of the band became out of balance; however, the video was completed on time.[36]

Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project which would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi cowrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures, took an interest in the film, and paid $150,000 to develop the film, leading Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. After Sagansky left the studio, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal, and cut Bakshi's funding.[36] Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood during the classic film era, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on cartoon takes concerning pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential primetime series called Suzy's in Love, but received no serious interest.[36]

[edit] Return to television (1987-89)

In April 1987, Bakshi was able to set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS' Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon met to come up with ideas. Bakshi remembers "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family."[36] After Price heard all of Bakshi's prepared pitches, she passed on all of them, but because she liked Bakshi, she asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to Mighty Mouse, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights to Mighty Mouse, and did not know who did. While researching the rights, Bakshi learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!"[36]

Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for all thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By he next week, Kricfalusi had hired various animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures went into production the month it was greenlighted, and scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987, resulting in the crew being divided into four teams, lead by supervising director Kricfalusi, Steve Gordon, Bruce Woodside, and Fitzgerald. Each director was given a handful of episodes, operating almost entirely independent of the other teams. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Artists who worked on the series included Bruce Timm, Andrew Stanton, Dave Marshall, and Jeff Pidgeon. Despite time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way in which Bakshi Productions addressed their notes, and eventually, enough trust was established between the network and the studio to allow Bakshi to return to New York for one week every other month to spend time with his family.[36]

During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence depicting Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine use.[36] Bakshi did not initially view the footage, and figured that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let Klein cut the scene. However, Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the scene being cut, insisting that the action was harmless, and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the Standards & Practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy.[36]

In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation".[31] The same year, he began production on Christmas in Tattertown. Loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips, the series was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon.[36] According to Bakshi, "Tattertown was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington and Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack. We were trying something different—discarded ideals, misfit technology—but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work."[36]

On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, alleged that "The Littlest Tramp" depicted cocaine use, instigating a media frenzy. The AFA, during its incarnation as the National Federation for Decency, had previously targeted CBS as an "accessory to murder" after a mother killed her daughter following an airing of Exorcist II: The Heretic. In response to Bakshi's production on Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the AFA claimed that CBS "intentionally hired a known pornographer to do a cartoon for children, and then allowed him to insert a scene in which the cartoon hero is shown sniffing cocaine."[36] Bakshi responded by stating "You could pick a still out of Lady and the Tramp and get the same impression. Fritz the Cat wasn't pornography. It was social commentary. This all smacks of burning books and the Third Reich. It smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!"[36] On CBS's order, Klein removed the sequence from the master broadcast footage. Wildmon claimed that the edits were "a de facto admission that, indeed, Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine."[36]

Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television and favorable reviews, and being ranked in Time magazine's "Best of '87" feature, CBS promptly canceled Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures following the controversy.[36] Although Nickelodeon had initially been willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown, the Wildmon controversy led the project to be renamed and eventually abandoned.[36] Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a short film for PBS' Imagining America miniseries. Mark Bakshi produced the film, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem entitled This Ain't Bebop, influenced by Jack Kerouac, jazz, the Beat Generation, and Brooklyn. Rather than writing a screenplay, the poem served as the entirety of the film's dialogue, spoken by Harvey Keitel. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi states of the film: "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity."[36]

As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss' The Butter Battle Book for TNT.[37] While his work had previously been adapted, Ted Geisel was never satisfied with the results, and Bakshi wanted to produce an adaptation that would be entirely faithful to his work, even asking Geisel to storyboard the special himself. Geisel was pleased with the final product.[36] After Bakshi completed The Butter Battle Book, he directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC, but was unsatisfied with the results, describing the episode as "an embarrassing piece of shit".[36]

[edit] Return to film, continued television projects and retirement (1990–present)

In 1990, Bakshi pitched Cool World to Paramount Pictures as an animated horror film. The concept of the film involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him.[36] The visual design of the live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based upon enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons.[36] As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso, Sr. had the screenplay rewritten in secret, and gave Bakshi a new screenplay by screenwriters Michael Grais and Mark Victor that "was barely the same".[36] Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film.[38] While Bakshi and Mancusco fought over creative differences, Bakshi and the studio began to fight over the film's casting. In order to keep actor Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger, who was a bigger box office draw at the time.[36] The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi to "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"[36]

Bakshi speaks at Comic-Con International on July 26, 2008

Designer Milton Knight recalled that "Audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did."[36] The critical reaction to the film was generally negative. Roger Ebert wrote, "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him—he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead."[39] The film grossed $14 million in the United States.[40] While other projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more prominently on painting than he had in the past.[36]

In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, and retitled the film Cool and the Crazy.[36] The film aired on September 16, 1994, and starred Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Blanc and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that the film had the same "hyperdrive visual sense" of Bakshi's animated films. He said, "Everything in "Cool" [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong [performances] from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors".[41]

In 1995, Hanna-Barbera producer Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon! Show: Malcom and Melvin and Babe, He Calls Me, focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited and Bakshi disowned them.[37] While Bakshi finished production for Seibert, he received a phone call from HBO, who were interested in launching the first animated series targeted specifically toward adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker and Matt Stone's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa.[36] Bakshi enlisted a team of writers, including his son, Preston, to develop Spicy Detective, later renamed Spicy City, an anthology series set in a noir-ish, technology-driven future.[37] Each episode featuring a different story narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips. The series premiered in July 1997, beating South Park to television by over a month and becoming the first "adults only" cartoon series.[36] Although critical reaction was mixed and largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings.[37] A second season was approved, but the network wanted to fire Bakshi's writing team and hire professional Los Angeles screenwriters. When Bakshi refused to cooperate with the network, the series was canceled.[36]

Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In the fall of 2000, Bakshi began teaching an undergrad animation class at the School of Visual Arts. Further deals followed, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel, but no projects were successful.[36] Bakshi soon attempted to independently finance a low-budget animated feature titled Last Days of Coney Island, his most personal film.[36] In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico, where Bakshi found himself more productive than ever in his painting.[36]

In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival.[31] The same year, he appeared as a guest on John Kricfalusi's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" and opened the Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning. As of 2009, it is run by artist and educator Jess Gorell with Bakshi's son, Eddie.[42] The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet encouraged a resurgence of interest in his work, resulting in a three-day retrospective at American Cinematheque, at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California in April 2005.[43]

In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards.[44][45] Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi, a hardcover book of Bakshi's art, was released on April 1, 2008. The foreword was written by Quentin Tarantino and the afterword by Bakshi.[46] In March 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked four of Bakshi's films on their list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time": Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice.[47] Fritz the Cat was ranked at number 56 on the British Channel 4's list of the 100 Greatest Cartoons.[48] The Museum of Modern Art has added his films to their collection for preservation.[49]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Films

Year Film Credited as
Director Writer Producer
1972 Fritz the Cat Yes Yes —
1973 Heavy Traffic Yes Yes —
1975 Coonskin Yes Yes —
1977 Wizards Yes Yes Yes
1978 The Lord of the Rings Yes — —
1981 American Pop Yes — Yes
1982 Hey Good Lookin' Yes Yes Yes
1983 Fire and Ice Yes — Yes
1992 Cool World Yes — —

[edit] Television

Year Show Credited as
Director Writer Producer Animator Voice
1957 James Hound[I] Yes — — Yes —
Heckle and Jeckle[I] Yes — — Yes —
1959 Deputy Dawg Yes — — — —
Foofle[I] Yes — — Yes —
1962 Lariat Sam[I] Yes — — Yes —
1965 Sad Cat[I] Yes — — — —
1966 The Mighty Heroes Yes — — — —
1967 Spider-Man[I] Yes — — — —
1987 Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures[I] Yes Yes Yes — —
1988 Christmas in Tattertown Yes Yes Yes — —
1989 This Ain't Bebop Yes Yes Yes — —
Hound Town Yes — — — —
Dr. Seuss' The Butter Battle Book Yes — Yes — —
1994 Cool and the Crazy Yes Yes Yes — —
1997 Malcom and Melvin Yes Yes Yes — —
Babe, He Calls Me Yes Yes Yes — —
Spicy City[I][II] Yes — Yes — Yes
2003 Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"[I][III] — — — — Yes

^  I Selected episodes
^  II Provided the voices of Connelly and Goldblum in the episode "Sex Drive", and Stevie in the episode "Mano's Hands"
^  III Provided the voice of Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2"[50]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "Brownsville". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 22-25; 28-29. ISBN 0789316846. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "Coonskin". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 106; 108-109; 114;. ISBN 0789316846. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Barrier, Michael (Spring 1972). "The Filming of Fritz the Cat: Up from Brownsville". Funnyworld, No. 14. http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Funnyworld/FritzPartOne/FritzTwo.htm. Retrieved on 2006-12-29. 
  4. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (2006). "Bakshi, Ralph". Who's who in Animated Cartoons. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 14–16. ISBN 155783671X. 
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "First Gigs". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 32-33; 38-39; 43; 47-49; 52-54. ISBN 0789316846. 
  6. ^ Griffith, Gary (2004). "1972". in D. K., Holm. R. Crumb: Conversations. University Press of Mississippi. p. 12. ISBN 1578066379. 
  7. ^ Beck, Jerry (2005). "Fritz the Cat". The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago Review Press. p. 88. ISBN 9781556525919. 
  8. ^ Sito, Tom (2006). "Suits". Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson. University Press of Kentucky. p. 50. ISBN 0813124077. 
  9. ^ Rossen, Jake (2008). "Purgatory". Superman Vs. Hollywood: How Fiendish Producers, Devious Directors, and Warring Writers Grounded an American Icon. Chicago Review Press. p. 50. ISBN 1556527314. 
  10. ^ Television/radio Age. Television Editorial Corp. 1969. p. 13. 
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "Fritz the Cat". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 58; 62-63; 66; 72; 77; 80-81. ISBN 0789316846. 
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "Heavy Traffic". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 84-85; 89; 91; 96; 100. ISBN 0789316846. 
  13. ^ Kanfer, Stefan (2001). Serious Business: The Art and Commerce of Animation in America from Betty Boop to Toy Story. Da Capo. p. 205. ISBN 9780306809187. 
  14. ^ a b Cohen, Karl F (1997). "Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic". Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 81–84. ISBN 0-7864-0395-0. 
  15. ^ Solomon, Charles (1989). Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation. New York City: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 275. ISBN 0-394-54684-9. 
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cohen, Karl F (1997). "Coonskin". Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 84–88. ISBN 0-7864-0395-0. 
  17. ^ a b James, Darius (1995). "Rappin' with the rib-ticklin' Ralph Bakshi". That's Blaxploitation!: Roots of the Baadasssss 'Tude (Rated X by an All-Whyte Jury). pp. 117–123. ISBN 0312131925. 
  18. ^ Puchalski, Steven (2002). "Coonskin". Slimetime: A Guide to Sleazy, Mindless Movies. Critical Vision. p. 73. ISBN 1900486210. 
  19. ^ Sito, Tom (2006). "Lost Generations". Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 230–231. ISBN 0813124077. 
  20. ^ Beck, Jerry (2005). "Coonskin". The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago Review Press. p. 59. ISBN 9781556525919. 
  21. ^ a b c Beck, Jerry (2005). "Hey Good Lookin'". The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago Review Press. p. 112. ISBN 9781556525919. 
  22. ^ a b c d Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "Hey Good Lookin'". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 180; 184. ISBN 0789316846. 
  23. ^ Planer, Lindsay (2003). "Dan Hicks". All Music Guide to Country. Backbeat Books. p. 343. ISBN 0879307609. 
  24. ^ a b c d e f g Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "Wizards". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 132-34; 138. ISBN 0789316846. 
  25. ^ Beck, Jerry (2005). "Wizards". The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago Review Press. p. 317. ISBN 9781556525919. 
  26. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "The Lord of the Rings". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 148; 150; 154-55. ISBN 0789316846. 
  27. ^ a b c d e f Beck, Jerry (2005). "The Lord of the Rings". The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago Review Press. pp. 154–155. ISBN 9781556525919. 
  28. ^ Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1978). "Review of The Lord of the Rings". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19780101/REVIEWS/801010307/1023. Retrieved on 2007-01-09. 
  29. ^ Canby, Vincent (November 15, 1978). "Review of The Lord of the Rings". The New York Times. http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1=Lord%20of%20the%20Rings%2c%20The%20%28Movie%29&title2=&reviewer=VINCENT%20CANBY&pdate=19781115&v_id=30049. Retrieved on 2007-01-09. 
  30. ^ Denby, David (December 4, 1978). "Hobbit hobbled and rabbit ran". New York 11 (49): 153–154. ISSN 0028-7369. 
  31. ^ a b c "Awards for Ralph Bakshi". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000835/awards. Retrieved on 2007-12-06. 
  32. ^ a b c d e f Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "American Pop". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 160; 164; 169. ISBN 0789316846. 
  33. ^ a b Beck, Jerry (2005). "American Pop". The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago Review Press. p. 19. ISBN 9781556525919. 
  34. ^ a b c d e f Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "Fire and Ice". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 192; 196. ISBN 0789316846. 
  35. ^ Beck, Jerry (2005). "Fire and Ice". The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago Review Press. p. 84. ISBN 9781556525919. 
  36. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj Gibson, Jon M.; McDonnell, Chris (2008). "Ups & Downs". Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. Universe Publishing. pp. 202-204; 209-211; 216=217; 219; 227; 230; 234-235. ISBN 0789316846. 
  37. ^ a b c d Grant, John (2001). "Ralph Bakshi". Masters of Animation. Watson-Guptill. pp. 28–29. ISBN 0823030415. 
  38. ^ "Who flamed Roger Rabbit?". The Guardian. August 11, 2006. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/aug/11/1. Retrieved on 2006-12-29. 
  39. ^ Ebert, Roger. "Review of Cool World". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19920713/REVIEWS/207130301/1023&template=printart. Retrieved on 2007-01-10. 
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  41. ^ Everett, Todd (1996). "Review of Cool and the Crazy (September 16, 1994)". in Prouty. Variety and Daily Variety Television Reviews, 1993–1994. Volume 18. Taylor & Francis. p. 16. ISBN 0824037979. 
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  43. ^ King, Susan (April 24, 2005). "Bakshi's game of cat and mouse; He took heat when he addressed adult themes in animation, a realm thought to belong to kids. Now it's kudos.". Los Angeles Times. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/826227271.html?dids=826227271:826227271&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Apr+24%2C+2005&author=Susan+King&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=CINE+FILE%3B+Bakshi%27s+game+of+cat+and+mouse%3B+He+took+heat+when+he+addressed+adult+themes+in+animation%2C+a+realm+thought+to+belong+to+kids.+Now+it%27s+kudos.&pqatl=google. Retrieved on 4 March 2009. 
  44. ^ "Main Street Pictures Teams Up With Top Hollywood Creators". Animation World. September 12, 2008. http://news.awn.com/index.php?ltype=top&newsitem_no=24768. Retrieved on 2008-09-26. 
  45. ^ Ball, Ryan (September 15, 2008). "MacFarlane, Bakshi, Woo Move to Main Street". Animation Magazine. http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/8901. Retrieved on 2008-09-26. 
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  49. ^ "Biography". Ralph Bakshi.com. http://www.ralphbakshi.com/bio.php. Retrieved on 2007-01-23. 
  50. ^ Lieck, Ken (August 18, 2006). "DVD Watch: Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes". The Austin Chronicle. http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A395811. Retrieved on 2009-02-21. 

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