Ralph Bakshi
Encyclopedia
Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated
and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent
and adult
-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer and animator.
Beginning his career at the Terrytoons
television cartoon studio as a cel
polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to director. He 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 additional 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 it was canceled due to complaints from a conservative political group over perceived drug references. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World
(1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor 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. During the 2000s, he has focused largely on painting. 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
.
, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel
), as a Krymchak
Jew. In 1939, his family emigrated to New York
to escape World War II, and he grew up in the Brownsville
neighborhood of Brooklyn
. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to get a hold of them.
In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, D.C.
, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "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!"
The racial segregation
of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Bakshi was the only white student in the classroom. While most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police
. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white student was attending a black school, the police dragged Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events.
At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes
' Complete Guide to Cartooning at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenage years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School
, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan
's School of Industrial Art
. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning.
; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel
polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle
. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, and promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped ten cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. 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.
Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip
about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch
. However, Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes: a hat floating on water and Deputy Dawg
, the lead character of one of Terrytoons' syndicated television series, running. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor.
At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series Sad Cat. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short
alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "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." Independent animation studios such as Hanna-Barbera
were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS
) were declining in popularity. 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's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman
, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called The Mighty Heroes
. He described 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." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director.
Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing and voice acting. Although the series' first two seasons were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards
. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures
had recently fired Shamus Culhane
, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic book and pulp fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman
, Lin Carter
, Gray Morrow
, Archie Goodwin
, Wally Wood
and Jim Steranko
to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs and Mouse Trek. Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower-child
picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier
called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust".
Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. 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
. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto
, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest
were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard 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; he was searched and interrogated for six hours.
Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District
of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man
television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970.
and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse
, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica
. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed Heavy Traffic
, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place
, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert 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. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference.
Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodé
warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he 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. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract.
After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros.
bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators he had worked with in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries
, a distributor specializing in exploitation film
s. 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.
Despite receiving financing from other 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, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side
, Washington Square Park, Chinatown
and Harlem
, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph
, the technical pen
preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School
painters such as George Luks
and John French Sloan
. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye
camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings
of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue—this too would become a signature of Bakshi's.
In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner
, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross
, Norman McCabe
and John Sparey
, welcomed Bakshi and felt that Fritz the Cat
would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter
, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles
' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
to considerable success, despite the X rating
it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America
gave Bakshi's film an X rating as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising Fritz the Cat as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" Variety
called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born.
s, where Bakshi often played pinball
, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff
, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist
" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW
and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese
, Francis Ford Coppola
and Steven Spielberg
. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied.
As he continued to work on Heavy Traffic, 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, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather
. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones
, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later.
Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib
during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, Heavy Traffic was rated X. However, due to the success of Fritz the Cat, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney
to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics. Newsweek
applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie and peculiar raw beauty." The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby
of The New York Times ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada.
, Philip Michael Thomas
, Barry White
and Charles Gordone
in 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". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap
".
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 figures from The Wind in the Willows
were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia
. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin
. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality
, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company
, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles.
Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy
commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. 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". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film.
After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." Hey Good Lookin' is set 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 on Bakshi's high school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973.
An initial version ofHey Good Lookin' was completed in 1975. A three-minute promo of this version was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival
, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as Wizards, The Lord of the Rings
and American Pop
. The live-action sequences ofHey Good Lookin' were gradually replaced by animation; among the eliminated live-action sequences was one featuring the glam punk
band New York Dolls
. Singer Dan Hicks
worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara.
Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. The film's release was limited, and went largely unnoticed in the United States, although it garnered respectable business in foreign markets. In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". 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." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television
and home video. Quentin Tarantino
stated that he preferredHey Good Lookin' to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets
.
. 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. 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 with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr.
declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas
's Star Wars
. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves.
Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein
's Alexander Nevsky
, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning 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 to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy.
As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards to avoid conflict with Star Wars; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill
to take time off from Star Wars to record a voice for Wizards. Although Wizards received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr
of The Chicago Reader
saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard
character. [...] 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."
Also during this time, Ralph's friend Cosmo Anzilotti left to work on the infamous "crack monster" segment for Sesame Street
. However, this was so scary, it was only aired twice and was to be never seen again.
In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman
was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings
, in which J. R. R. Tolkien
's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy
, United Artists
' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. 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. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; 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 $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals
from the film.
Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. 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. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints.
After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt
, who performed the role of Aragorn
. The project's high profile brought heavy trade journal
coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger
visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action costume, which he wore while animating.
Viewing The Lord of the Rings as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". Newsday
s Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". 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". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby
of New York
felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival
.
to Columbia Pictures
president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish
immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop
. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson
, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi 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." 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 $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video
until 1998.
By 1982, fantasy films such as The Beastmaster
and Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta
. Fire and Ice
was financed by some of American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. 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. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company
. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal 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."
'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
, Mickey Spillane
's Mike Hammer
novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes
. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury
's Something Wicked This Way Comes
and Philip K. Dick
's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
He passed the latter to Ridley Scott
, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner
.
During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger
's The Catcher in the Rye
, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield
. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form.
Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he 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 he 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." In 1985, he 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 wanted Bakshi to direct the music video
. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Award
s. 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 within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and 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 the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time.
Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen film
s of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures
, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential prime time
series called Suzy's in Love, but attracted no serious interest.
, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon
met to brainstorm. 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." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but 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 and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he 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'!"
Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm
, Andrew Stanton
, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes.
During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine
use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the 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 CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy.
In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award
for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot
loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "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." Nickelodeon
was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown.
On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon
, head of the American Family Association
(AFA), 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
. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with 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." Bakshi responded, "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!" 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". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television
, favorable reviews, and a ranking in Time
magazine's "Best of '87" feature, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was canceled by CBS following the controversy.
The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to Junktown. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, Christmas in Tattertown
, in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS
's Imagining America anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, This Ain't Bebop, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac
, jazz
, the Beat Generation
and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel
. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity."
As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss
's The Butter Battle Book
for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit".
to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film
. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. 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 on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios
and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso, Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais
and Mark Victor
, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt
, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore
, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger
, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"
Designer Milton Knight
recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." 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." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting.
In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway
series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy
. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto
, Alicia Silverstone
, Jennifer Blanc
and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it 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".
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 after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker
and Matt Stone
's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa
. 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. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips
. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's South Park
—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings. 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, the series was canceled.
Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts
. He became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel
, without results. His attempt to independently finance a low-budget animated feature, Last Days of Coney Island
, intended as his most personal film, failed. In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico
, where he became more productive than ever in his painting. In 2003, he appeared as a guest on John Kricfalusi
's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon".
In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards. In 2010, it was announced that Bakshi will collaborate with Robert Rodriguez
on a live-action remake of Fire and Ice.The deal was closed shortly after Frazetta's death
retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre
in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California
, in April 2005. 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.
The Online Film Critics Society
released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice. Fritz the Cat was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4
for its documentary The 100 Greatest Cartoons. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation.
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"
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent
Independent animation
Independent animation is a term used to describe animated short cartoons and feature films produced outside the professional Hollywood animation industry.- Early independent animation :The history of animation is as old as the film industry itself...
and adult
Adult animation
Adult animation is a term used to describe animation that is targeted at adults. Animated films and television shows may be considered adult for a number of reasons. Some productions are noted for experimental storytelling and animation techniques, or sophisticated storytelling...
-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer and animator.
Beginning his career at the Terrytoons
Terrytoons
Terrytoons was an animation studio founded by Paul Terry. The studio, located in suburban New Rochelle, New York, operated from 1929 to 1968. Its most popular characters included Mighty Mouse, Gandy Goose, Sourpuss, Dinky Duck, Deputy Dawg, Luno and Heckle and Jeckle; these cartoons and all of its...
television cartoon studio as a cel
Cel
A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid was used during the first half of the 20th century, but since it was flammable and dimensionally unstable it was largely replaced by cellulose acetate...
polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz
Steve Krantz
Stephen Falk Krantz was a film producer and writer who was most active from 1966 to 1996.- Career :Born in Brooklyn, New York, Steve Krantz graduated from Columbia University and went on to serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II as a second lieutenant.He worked as a...
, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat (film)
Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American animated comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi as his feature film debut. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States...
, released in 1972. It was the first animated film to receive an X rating
X-rated
In some countries, X is or has been a motion picture rating reserved for the most explicit films. Films rated X are intended only for viewing by adults, usually legally defined as people over the age of 17.-United Kingdom:...
from the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
, and the most successful independent animated feature of all time.
Over the next eleven years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for his fantasy films, which include Wizards
Wizards (film)
Wizards is a 1977 American animated post-apocalyptic science fantasy film about the battle between two wizards, one representing the forces of magic and one representing the forces of industrial technology. It was written, produced, and directed by Ralph Bakshi...
(1977), The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It contains both animation and live action footage which is rotoscoped to give it a more consistent look throughout the length of the movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of the high fantasy...
(1978) and Fire and Ice
Fire and Ice (1983 film)
Fire and Ice is a 1983 animated film, a collaboration between Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta, distributed by 20th Century Fox, which also distributed Bakshi's 1977 release, Wizards...
(1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures is a 1987 revival of the classic Mighty Mouse cartoon character. Produced by Bakshi-Hyde Ventures , it aired on CBS on Saturday mornings from fall 1987 through the 1988-89 season...
, which ran for two years before it was canceled due to complaints from a conservative political group over perceived drug references. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World
Cool World
Cool World is a 1992 American live-action/animated film directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne, and Brad Pitt. It tells the story of a cartoonist who finds himself in the animated world he created, and is seduced by one of his characters, a comic strip vamp who wants to...
(1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy
Cool and the Crazy
Cool and the Crazy is a 1994 film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi and starring Jared Leto and Alicia Silverstone as an unhappily married couple in the late 1950s who both lead separate affairs...
(1994) and the anthology series Spicy City (1997).
He founded the Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning in 2003. During the 2000s, he has focused largely on painting. He has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for The Lord of the Rings at the Giffoni Film Festival
Giffoni Film Festival
The Giffoni International Film Festival is the largest children’s film festival in Europe, and possibly the World. It takes place in the little Italian town of Giffoni Valle Piana in Southern Italy, close to Salerno. Over 2,000 children attend the festival from 39 countries around the world...
, the 1988 Annie Award
Annie Award
The Annie Awards have been presented by the Los Angeles, California branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972...
for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival
Cinequest Film Festival
The Cinequest Film Festival is an annual independent film festival held in San Jose, California. The festival highlights the work of new film makers....
.
Early life (1938–1956)
Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in HaifaHaifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
), as a Krymchak
Krymchaks
The Krymchaks are a Turkic people, community of Turkic languages and adherents of Rabbinic Judaism living in Crimea. They have historically lived in close proximity to the Crimean Karaites...
Jew. In 1939, his family emigrated to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to escape World War II, and he grew up in the Brownsville
Brownsville, Brooklyn
Brownsville is a residential neighborhood located in eastern Brooklyn, New York City.The total land area is one square mile, and the ZIP code for the neighborhood is 11212....
neighborhood of Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to get a hold of them.
In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "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!"
The racial segregation
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Bakshi was the only white student in the classroom. While most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...
. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white student was attending a black school, the police dragged Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events.
At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes
Gene Byrnes
Eugene Francis Byrnes created the long running comic strip Reg'lar Fellers, which he signed Gene Byrnes...
' Complete Guide to Cartooning at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenage years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School
Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn, New York)
Thomas Jefferson High School is a former high school in the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York. The New York City Department of Education closed the school and broke it into several different schools in 2007, owing to low graduation rates....
, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
's School of Industrial Art
High School of Art and Design
The High School of Art and Design is a Career and Technical Education high school located at 1075 Second Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets in Manhattan, New York City, New York.It is operated by the New York City Department of Education...
. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning.
Early career (1956–1968)
When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio TerrytoonsTerrytoons
Terrytoons was an animation studio founded by Paul Terry. The studio, located in suburban New Rochelle, New York, operated from 1929 to 1968. Its most popular characters included Mighty Mouse, Gandy Goose, Sourpuss, Dinky Duck, Deputy Dawg, Luno and Heckle and Jeckle; these cartoons and all of its...
; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel
Cel
A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid was used during the first half of the 20th century, but since it was flammable and dimensionally unstable it was largely replaced by cellulose acetate...
polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle
New Rochelle, New York
New Rochelle is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state.The town was settled by refugee Huguenots in 1688 who were fleeing persecution in France...
. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, and promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped ten cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. 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.
Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch
Gene Deitch
Eugene Merril "Gene" Deitch is an American illustrator, animator and film director. He has been based in Prague, capital of Czechoslovakia and the present-day Czech Republic, since 1959. Since 1968, Deitch has been the leading animation director for the Connecticut organization Weston...
. However, Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes: a hat floating on water and Deputy Dawg
Deputy Dawg
Deputy Dawg is a Terrytoons cartoon character featured on the animated television series of the same name in an original TV weekly run from 8 September 1962 to 25 May 1963, with no episodes on 8 December to 29 December 1962, resuming on 5 January 1963. The cartoons are between four and six minutes...
, the lead character of one of Terrytoons' syndicated television series, running. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor.
At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series Sad Cat. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "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." Independent animation studios such as Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
) were declining in popularity. 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's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman
Fred Silverman
Fred Silverman is an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at the CBS, ABC and NBC networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as the series Scooby-Doo , All in the Family , The Waltons , and Charlie's Angels , as well as the...
, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called The Mighty Heroes
The Mighty Heroes
The Mighty Heroes was an animated television series created by Ralph Bakshi for the Terrytoons company. The original show debuted on CBS, on Oct. 29, 1966, and ran for 1 season for 21 episodes....
. He described 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." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director.
Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing and voice acting. Although the series' first two seasons were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards
Wizards (film)
Wizards is a 1977 American animated post-apocalyptic science fantasy film about the battle between two wizards, one representing the forces of magic and one representing the forces of industrial technology. It was written, produced, and directed by Ralph Bakshi...
. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
had recently fired Shamus Culhane
Shamus Culhane
James "Shamus" Culhane was an American animator, film director, and film producer.Culhane worked for a number of American animation studios, including Fleischer Studios, the Ub Iwerks studio, Walt Disney Productions, and the Walter Lantz studio. He began his animation career in 1925 working for J.R...
, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic book and pulp fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
, Lin Carter
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
, Gray Morrow
Gray Morrow
Dwight Graydon "Gray" Morrow was an American illustrator of paperback books and comics.-Biography:Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Morrow is best known as art director of Spider-Man between 1967 and 1970 and as illustrator of the syndicated Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Prince Valiant comic...
, Archie Goodwin
Archie Goodwin (comics)
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work...
, Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
and Jim Steranko
Jim Steranko
James F. Steranko is an American graphic artist, comic book writer-artist-historian, magician, publisher and film production illustrator....
to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs and Mouse Trek. Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower-child
Flower child
Flower child originated as a synonym for hippie, especially the idealistic young people who gathered in San Francisco and environs during the 1967 Summer of Love. It was the custom of "flower children" to wear and distribute flowers or floral-themed decorations to symbolize altruistic ideals of...
picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier
Michael Barrier (historian)
Michael Barrier is an American animation historian. Barrier was the founder and editor of Funnyworld, the first magazine exclusively devoted to comics and animation. It began as a contribution to the CAPA-Alpha amateur press association...
called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust".
Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz
Steve Krantz
Stephen Falk Krantz was a film producer and writer who was most active from 1966 to 1996.- Career :Born in Brooklyn, New York, Steve Krantz graduated from Columbia University and went on to serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II as a second lieutenant.He worked as a...
, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
series Rocket Robin Hood
Rocket Robin Hood
Rocket Robin Hood is a Canadian animated television series, placing the characters and conflicts of the classic Robin Hood legend in a futuristic, outer space setting, produced by Krantz Films, Inc...
. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest
Al Guest
Al Guest is a Canadian animation producer.He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and started his career there when he dropped out of the University of Manitoba to pursue a career in films. A writer and fine artist, he has exhibited his paintings at many galleries in Winnipeg and Toronto...
were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard 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; he was searched and interrogated for six hours.
Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District
Garment District, Manhattan
The Garment District, also known as the Garment Center, the Fashion District, or the Fashion Center, is a neighborhood located in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The dense concentration of fashion-related uses give the neighborhood, which is generally considered to span between Fifth Avenue...
of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man
Spider-Man (1967 TV series)
Spider-Man is an animated television series that ran from September 9, 1967 to June 14, 1970. It was jointly produced in Canada and the United States and was the first animated adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book series, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko...
television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970.
Fritz the Cat (1969–1972)
In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-ColaCoca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse
Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse
Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse was a Canadian animated television series produced by the late Steve Krantz, which originally aired in Canada in 1967 and became popular in several parts of the world, most notably the United States, where it was syndicated on both local and PBS stations between 1970...
, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed Heavy Traffic
Heavy Traffic
Heavy Traffic is a 1973 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film, which begins, ends, and occasionally combines with live-action, explores the often surreal fantasies of a young New York cartoonist named Michael Corleone, using pinball imagery as a metaphor for...
, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place
St. Mark's Place (Manhattan)
Saint Mark's Place is a street in the East Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is named after St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on 10th Street at Second Avenue. St. Mark's Place, which is a section of 8th Street, runs from Third Avenue to Avenue A...
, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
's Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat is a comic strip created by Robert Crumb. Set in a "supercity" of anthropomorphic animals, the strip focuses on Fritz, a feline con artist who frequently goes on wild adventures that sometimes involve sexcapades. Crumb began drawing this character in homemade comic books when he was a...
. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference.
Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodé
Vaughn Bodé
Vaughn Bodē was an artist involved in underground comics, graphic design and graffiti. He is perhaps best known for his comic strip character Cheech Wizard and artwork depicting voluptuous women. His works are noted for their psychedelic look and feel...
warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he 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. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract.
After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators he had worked with in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries
Cinemation Industries
Cinemation Industries was a New York City-based film studio and distributor. Among other films, the company has distributed exploitation films such as Shanty Tramp , Teenage Mother , The Cheerleaders , The Black Six , and The Black Godfather .But the company has also distributed unexpected smash...
, a distributor specializing in exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
s. 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
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
slate.
Saul Zaentz
Saul Zaentz is an American film producer and former record company executive. He has won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and in 1996 was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award....
(who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album
Fritz the Cat (soundtrack)
The Fritz the Cat OST is the 1972 soundtrack album to the animated film of the same name. The soundtrack features a number of blues, funk and rock and roll songs as well as the film's score as performed by Ed Bogas and Ray Shanklin....
on his Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records is a United States-based record label that was founded by Max and Sol Weiss in 1949 in San Francisco, California. They had previously operated a record-pressing plant called Circle Record Company before forming the Fantasy label...
label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
, Washington Square Park, Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
and Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph
Rotring
Rotring is a German technical writing and drawing instruments company based in Hamburg.-History:The company was established in 1928 as Tintenkuli Handels GmbH. The company's first product was the Tintenkuli, a stylographic pen—a fountain pen with a narrow steel tube instead of a conventional nib...
, the technical pen
Technical pen
A technical pen is a specialized instrument used by an engineer, architect, or drafter to make lines of constant width for architectural, engineering, or technical drawings. It has been also generally called "rapidograph", although that particular name is officially a trademarked line of products...
preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School
Ashcan School
The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods. The movement grew out of a group...
painters such as George Luks
George Luks
George Benjamin Luks, was an American realist artist and illustrator. His vigorously painted genre paintings of urban subjects are examples of the Ashcan school in American art.-Early life:...
and John French Sloan
John French Sloan
John French Sloan was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window...
. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye
Fisheye lens
In photography, a fisheye lens is a wide-angle lens that takes in a broad, panoramic and hemispherical image. Originally developed for use in meteorology to study cloud formation and called "whole-sky lenses", fisheye lenses quickly became popular in general photography for their unique, distorted...
camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings
Radio documentary
A radio documentary or feature is a purely acoustic performance devoted to covering a particular topic in some depth, usually with a mixture of commentary and sound pictures. It is broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD...
of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue—this too would become a signature of Bakshi's.
In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner
Rod Scribner
Roderick H. "Rod" Scribner was an American animator best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros.. His animation was one of the wildest things ever seen on screen during The Golden Age of American animation. He started as an animator for Ben...
, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross
Virgil Walter Ross
Virgil Walter Ross was an American artist, cartoonist, and animator best known for his work on the Warner Bros. animated shorts.-Early years:...
, Norman McCabe
Norman McCabe
Norman McCabe was an American animator who enjoyed a long career which lasted into the 1990s.-Early career:...
and John Sparey
John Sparey
John Sparey , was a cartoon animator and director. His first credit was Calvin and the Colonel. Sparey died on December 15, 2010.-External links:...
, welcomed Bakshi and felt that Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat (film)
Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American animated comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi as his feature film debut. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States...
would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...
' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a 1971 American independent drama film, written, produced, scored, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles, father of actor Mario Van Peebles . It tells the picaresque story of a poor African American man on his flight from the white authority...
to considerable success, despite the X rating
X-rated
In some countries, X is or has been a motion picture rating reserved for the most explicit films. Films rated X are intended only for viewing by adults, usually legally defined as people over the age of 17.-United Kingdom:...
it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
gave Bakshi's film an X rating as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising Fritz the Cat as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born.
Heavy Traffic (1972–1973)
By the time Fritz the Cat was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of Heavy Traffic in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcadePenny Arcade
Penny Arcade may refer to:* Penny arcade, a venue for coin-operated devices* Penny Arcade ** Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, a series of video games based on the webcomic...
s, where Bakshi often played pinball
Pinball
Pinball is a type of arcade game, usually coin-operated, where a player attempts to score points by manipulating one or more metal balls on a playfield inside a glass-covered case called a pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible...
, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff
Samuel Z. Arkoff
Samuel Zachary Arkoff was an American producer of B movies.-Life and career:Born in Fort Dodge, Iowa to a Russian Jewish family, Arkoff first studied to be a lawyer. Along with business partner James H. Nicholson and producer-director Roger Corman, he produced eighteen films...
, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
and Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied.
As he continued to work on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881...
story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later.
Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib
Ad libitum
Ad libitum is Latin for "at one's pleasure"; it is often shortened to "ad lib" or "ad-lib"...
during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, Heavy Traffic was rated X. However, due to the success of Fritz the Cat, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics. Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie and peculiar raw beauty." The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
of The New York Times ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada.
Coonskin (1973–1975)
In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began production on Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. 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 pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman CrothersScatman Crothers
Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and as Dick Hallorann in The Shining in 1980...
, Philip Michael Thomas
Philip Michael Thomas
Philip Michael Thomas is an American actor. Thomas's most famous role is that of detective Ricardo Tubbs on the hit 1980s TV series Miami Vice. His first notable roles were in Coonskin and opposite Irene Cara in the 1976 film Sparkle...
, Barry White
Barry White
Barry White, born Barry Eugene Carter , was an American composer and singer-songwriter.A five-time Grammy Award-winner known for his distinctive bass voice and romantic image, White's greatest success came in the 1970s as a solo singer and with the Love Unlimited Orchestra, crafting many enduring...
and Charles Gordone
Charles Gordone
Charles Edward Gordone was an American playwright, actor, director, and educator. He was the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and devoted much of his professional life to the pursuit of multi-racial American theater and racial unity.-Early years:Born Charles Edward...
in 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". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
".
Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows
The Wind in the Willows
The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England...
were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin
Coonskin (film)
Coonskin is a 1975 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi, about an African American rabbit, fox, and bear who rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists and the Mafia...
. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company
Bryanston Distributing Company
Bryanston Distributing Company is an American film distribution company that was very active during the early 1970s and was left dormant for almost thirty years...
, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles.
Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. 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". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published Monday through Friday in the afternoon, and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. The afternoon Herald-Express and the morning Examiner, both of which had been publishing in...
wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film.
Hey Good Lookin' (1973–1975/1982)
After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." Hey Good Lookin' is set 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 on Bakshi's high school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973.An initial version of
1975 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Jeanne Moreau, President, actress*André Delvaux, director*Anthony Burgess, writer*Fernando Rey, actor*George Roy Hill, director*Gérard Ducaux-Rupp, producer*Léa Massari, actress*Pierre Mazars, journalist*Pierre Salinger, writer...
, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as Wizards, The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It contains both animation and live action footage which is rotoscoped to give it a more consistent look throughout the length of the movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of the high fantasy...
and American Pop
American Pop
American Pop is a 1981 American animated musical drama film produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film tells the story of four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of American popular music....
. The live-action sequences of
Glam punk
Glam Punk is a music genre that mixes elements of glam rock with protopunk or punk rock ....
band New York Dolls
New York Dolls
The New York Dolls is an American rock band, formed in New York in 1971. The band's protopunk sound prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era; their visual style influenced the look of many new wave and 1980s-era glam metal groups, and they began the local New York scene that later...
. Singer Dan Hicks
Dan Hicks (singer)
Dan Hicks , is an American singer-songwriter working at the intersection of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music...
worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara.
Jerry Beck
Jerry Beck is a well-known animation historian, with ten books and numerous articles to his credit. He is also an animation producer, an industry consultant to Warner Bros., and has been an executive with Nickelodeon and Disney....
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." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
and home video. Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
stated that he preferred
Mean Streets
Mean Streets is a 1973 drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin. The film stars Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. It was released by Warner Bros. on October 2, 1973...
.
Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978)
In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
. 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. British illustrator Ian Miller
Ian Miller (illustrator)
Ian Miller is a British fantasy illustrator and writer best known for his quirkily etched gothic style and macabre sensibility, and noted for his book and magazine cover and interior illustrations, including covers for books by H.P...
and comic book artist Mike Ploog
Mike Ploog
Michael G. Ploog is an American storyboard and comic book artist, and a visual designer for movies....
were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr.
Alan Ladd, Jr.
Alan Ladd, Jr. is an American film industry executive and producer. He is famous for giving George Lucas the go-ahead to make Star Wars and remained as Lucas' only support at times when the Board of Directors wished to shut down production...
declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
's Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves.
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
's Alexander Nevsky
Alexander Nevsky (film)
Alexander Nevsky is a 1938 historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein, in association with Dmitri Vasilyev and a script co-written with Pyotr Pavlenko, who were assigned to ensure Eisenstein did not stray into "formalism" and to facilitate shooting on a reasonable timetable...
, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
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 to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy.
As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards to avoid conflict with Star Wars; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
to take time off from Star Wars to record a voice for Wizards. Although Wizards received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr is an American film critic. A critic at the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune for many years, he writes a weekly column for The New York Times on DVD releases, in addition to contributing occasional pieces on individual films or filmmakers.-Early life and education:Dave Kehr did...
of The Chicago Reader
The Chicago Reader
The Chicago Reader is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded in 1971 by a group of friends from Carleton College...
saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard
Cheech Wizard
Cheech Wizard was a cartoon character created by artist Vaughn Bodé and appearing in various works, including the National Lampoon, from 1967 until Bodé's death in 1975...
character. [...] The film has a few interesting moments, particularly in a series of still illustrations by Marvel
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
comic artist Mike Ploog, but is perhaps most notable as a turning point, not necessarily a positive one, in Bakshi's film career."
Also during this time, Ralph's friend Cosmo Anzilotti left to work on the infamous "crack monster" segment for Sesame Street
Sesame Street
Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...
. However, this was so scary, it was only aired twice and was to be never seen again.
In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman
John Boorman
John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
, in which J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy
Mike Medavoy
Morris Mike Medavoy is an American film producer and executive, co-founder of Orion Pictures , former chairman of TriStar Pictures, former head of production for United Artists and current chairman and CEO of Phoenix Pictures.-Early life and career:Medavoy was born in Shanghai, China in 1941 to...
, United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to The Lord of the Rings. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; 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 $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals
Residual (entertainment industry)
A residual is a payment made to the creator of performance art for subsequent showings or screenings of the work. A typical use is in the payment of residuals for television reruns. The word is often used in the plural form.-Radio and television:The residual system started in U.S. network radio...
from the film.
Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. 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
Orc (Middle-earth)
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings, Orcs or Orks are a race of creatures who are used as soldiers and henchmen by both the greater and lesser villains of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings — Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman...
costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints.
After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, who performed the role of Aragorn
Aragorn
Aragorn II is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, one of the main protagonists of The Lord of the Rings. He is first introduced by the name Strider, which the hobbits continue to call him...
. The project's high profile brought heavy trade journal
Trade journal
A trade magazine, also called a professional magazine, is a magazine published with the intention of target marketing to a specific industry or type of trade. The collective term for this area of publishing is the trade press....
coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action costume, which he wore while animating.
Viewing The Lord of the Rings as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
s Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
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". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
of New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival
Giffoni Film Festival
The Giffoni International Film Festival is the largest children’s film festival in Europe, and possibly the World. It takes place in the little Italian town of Giffoni Valle Piana in Southern Italy, close to Salerno. Over 2,000 children attend the festival from 39 countries around the world...
.
American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983)
Following the production struggles of The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched American PopAmerican Pop
American Pop is a 1981 American animated musical drama film produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film tells the story of four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of American popular music....
to Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish
History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union
The vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest populations of Jews in the diaspora. Within these territories the Jewish community flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of...
immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson
Barry E. Jackson
Barry Edward Jackson is an American production designer and writer.Although he grew up in Lompoc, California, he was born in Omaha, Nebraska....
, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi 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." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, and Louis Prima
Louis Prima
Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...
—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
until 1998.
By 1982, fantasy films such as The Beastmaster
The Beastmaster (film)
The Beastmaster is 1982 fantasy film directed by Don Coscarelli that starred Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, John Amos and Rip Torn. The film was marketed with the tagline "Born with the courage of an eagle, the strength of a black tiger, and the power of a god."-Summary:The Beastmaster tells the story...
and Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
. Fire and Ice
Fire and Ice (1983 film)
Fire and Ice is a 1983 animated film, a collaboration between Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta, distributed by 20th Century Fox, which also distributed Bakshi's 1977 release, Wizards...
was financed by some of American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney
James Gurney
James Gurney is an artist and author best known for his illustrated book series Dinotopia, which is presented in the form of a 19th century explorer’s journal from an island utopia cohabited by humans and dinosaurs...
and Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade is an American painter of popular and commercial realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company...
, layout artist Peter Chung
Peter Chung
Peter Kunshik Chung Peter Kunshik Chung Peter Kunshik Chung (born April 19, 1961 in Seoul, South Korea, as 정건식 (Chung Geun-sik, or alternative spelling Jeong Geun-Sik) is a Korean American animator...
, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation
Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...
's He-Man
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is an American animated television series produced by Filmation based on Mattel's successful toy line Masters of the Universe...
series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
's appearance as Conan."
Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986)
After production of Fire and Ice wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. ThompsonHunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Kotzwinkle
William Kotzwinkle
William Kotzwinkle is an American novelist, children's writer, and screenwriter. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He has won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Doctor Rat in 1977, and has also won the National Magazine Award for fiction. Kotzwinkle wrote the novelization of the...
's The Fan Man
The Fan Man
The Fan Man is a comic novel published in 1974 by the American writer William Kotzwinkle. It is told in the first-person by the narrator, Horse Badorties, a down-at-the-heels hippie living a life of drug-fueled befuddlement in New York City c. 1970...
, Eric Rücker Eddison
Eric Rucker Eddison
Eric Rücker Eddison was an English civil servant and author, writing under the name "E.R. Eddison."-Biography:...
's The Worm Ouroboros
The Worm Ouroboros
The Worm Ouroboros is a heroic high fantasy novel by Eric Rücker Eddison, first published in 1922. The book describes the protracted war between the domineering King Gorice of Witchland and the Lords of Demonland in an imaginary world that appears mainly medieval and partly reminiscent of Norse sagas...
, Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is an 1893 novel by American author Stephen Crane. Often called a novella because of its short length, it was Crane's first published book of fiction. Because the work was considered too risqué by publishers, Crane, who was 21 years old at the time, had to finance...
, Mickey Spillane
Mickey Spillane
Frank Morrison Spillane , better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally...
's Mike Hammer
Mike Hammer
Michael "Mike" Hammer is a fictional detective created by the American author Mickey Spillane in the 1947 book I, the Jury .-Description:...
novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
's Something Wicked This Way Comes
Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
and Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick first published in 1968. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter of androids, while the secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-normal intelligence who befriends some of the...
He passed the latter to Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
.
During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....
's The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major...
, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield is the 16-to-17 years old protagonist of author J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. He is universally recognized for his resistance to growing older and desire to protect childhood innocence...
. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form.
Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he 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 he 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." In 1985, he received a phone call from The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl
Bob & Earl
Bob & Earl were an American soul music singing duo in the 1960s, best known for writing and recording the original version of "Harlem Shuffle".-Career:...
's "Harlem Shuffle
Harlem Shuffle
Harlem Shuffle can refer to:* "Harlem Shuffle" * Harlem Shuffle...
", and wanted Bakshi to direct the music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi
John Kricfalusi
Michael John Kricfalusi , better known as John K., is a Canadian animator. He is creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, its adults-only spin-off Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", The Ripping Friends animated series, and Weekend Pussy Hunt, which was billed as "the world's first interactive web-based...
had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor
Lynne Naylor
Lynne Naylor is an artist who has worked prolifically in animation, collaborating with others like Bruce Timm and Timothy Björklund, and designing female characters for Batman: The Animated Series. She also co-founded Spümcø, the company of her former boyfriend John Kricfalusi...
, Jim Smith
Jim Smith (animator)
Jim Smith, , is an American animator and musician. He worked on Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures with his long-time working partner John Kricfalusi...
and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and 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 the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time.
Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen film
Teen film
Teen films is a film genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the special interests of teenagers, such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, conflict with parents, teen angst, and alienation...
s of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film production/distribution studio and subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures...
, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
series called Suzy's in Love, but attracted no serious interest.
Return to television (1987–1989)
In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom MintonTom Minton
Tom Minton is an American animation producer, writer, story editor and storyboard artist. He created and wrote the "Toby Danger" episode of Freakazoid!, wrote the lyrics to the song "Brainstem" and served as head model for the Warner Bros character the Brain in Pinky and the Brain...
, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon is an animation director and storyboard consultant, best known for his work on the animated TV series The Simpsons. He has directed over 30 episodes of the series, and was credited as a supervising director for seasons 9 through 15...
met to brainstorm. 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." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to Mighty Mouse
Mighty Mouse
Mighty Mouse is an animated superhero mouse character created by the Terrytoons studio for 20th Century Fox.-History:The character was created by story man Izzy Klein as a super-powered housefly named Superfly. Studio head Paul Terry changed the character into a cartoon mouse instead...
, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he 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'!"
Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures is a 1987 revival of the classic Mighty Mouse cartoon character. Produced by Bakshi-Hyde Ventures , it aired on CBS on Saturday mornings from fall 1987 through the 1988-89 season...
went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm
Bruce Timm
Bruce Walter Timm is an American character designer, animator and producer. He is also a writer and artist working in comics, and is known for his contributions building the modern DC Comics animated franchise, the DC animated universe.-Animation:Timm's early career in animation was varied; he...
, Andrew Stanton
Andrew Stanton
Andrew Stanton is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional voice actor based at Pixar Animation Studios. His film work includes writing and directing Finding Nemo and WALL-E; both films earned him the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.-Life and career:Stanton was...
, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes.
During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the 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 CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy.
In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award
Annie Award
The Annie Awards have been presented by the Los Angeles, California branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972...
for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
and Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
jazzing up the soundtrack." Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown.
On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon
Donald Wildmon
Donald E. Wildmon is an ordained United Methodist minister, author, former radio host, and founder and chairman emeritus of the American Family Association and American Family Radio.-Biography:...
, head of the American Family Association
American Family Association
The American Family Association is a 501 non-profit organization that promotes conservative Christian values, such as opposition to same-sex marriage, pornography, and abortion, as well as other public policy goals such as deregulation of the oil industry and lobbying against the Employee Free...
(AFA), 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
Exorcist II: The Heretic
Exorcist II: The Heretic is a 1977 American horror film and the sequel to The Exorcist , directed by John Boorman from a screenplay by William Goodhart and starring Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow, James Earl Jones, Ned Beatty and Kitty Winn...
. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with 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." Bakshi responded, "You could pick a still out of Lady and the Tramp
Lady and the Tramp
Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released to theaters on June 22, 1955, by Buena Vista Distribution. The fifteenth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, it was the first animated feature filmed in the CinemaScope widescreen...
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
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!" 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". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television
Action for Children's Television
Action for Children's Television was founded by Peggy Charren and Judy Chalfen in Newton, Massachusetts in 1968 as a grassroots organization dedicated to improving the quality of television programming offered to children...
, favorable reviews, and a ranking in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's "Best of '87" feature, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was canceled by CBS following the controversy.
The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to Junktown. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, Christmas in Tattertown
Christmas in Tattertown
Christmas in Tattertown is a 1988 television special created and directed by Ralph Bakshi about a place where everything discarded in the world came alive. It aired on the cable television network Nickelodeon.- History :...
, in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
's Imagining America anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, This Ain't Bebop, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, the Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity."
As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
's The Butter Battle Book
The Butter Battle Book
The Butter Battle Book is a rhyming story written by Dr. Seuss. It was published by Random House Books for Young Readers on January 12, 1984. It is an anti-war story; specifically, a parable about arms races in general, mutually assured destruction and nuclear weapons in particular...
for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit".
Return to film, continued television projects and retirement (1990–present)
In 1990, Bakshi pitched Cool WorldCool World
Cool World is a 1992 American live-action/animated film directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne, and Brad Pitt. It tells the story of a cartoonist who finds himself in the animated world he created, and is seduced by one of his characters, a comic strip vamp who wants to...
to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. 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 on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso, Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais
Michael Grais
Michael Grais is a screenwriter, most well-known as the co-writer of Poltergeist .He has also produced such movies as Great Balls of Fire! , Marked for Death and Sleepwalkers .- Biography :...
and Mark Victor
Mark Victor
Mark Victor is a screenwriter. He co-wrote Poltergeist , Poltergeist II: The Other Side , Marked for Death , and Cool World .-References:...
, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger
Kim Basinger
Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for her portrayals of Domino Petachi, the Bond girl in Never Say Never Again , and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman . Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture...
, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"
Milton Knight
Milton Knight is a cartoonist/animator, comic book artist and writer, painter, and storyboard/layout artist known for his Golden Age cartooning style.-Biography:...
recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." 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
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...
, 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." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting.
In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway
Rebel Highway
Rebel Highway was a short-lived revival of American International Pictures created and produced by Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff and Debra Hill for the Showtime channel in 1994. The concept was 10-week series of 1950s "drive-in classic" B-movies remade "with a '90s edge"...
series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy
Cool and the Crazy
Cool and the Crazy is a 1994 film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi and starring Jared Leto and Alicia Silverstone as an unhappily married couple in the late 1950s who both lead separate affairs...
. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto
Jared Leto
Jared Joseph Leto is an American actor, director, producer, occasional model and musician. Leto has appeared in both big budget Hollywood films and smaller projects from independent producers and art houses. He rose to prominence for playing Jordan Catalano in the teenage drama My So-Called Life...
, Alicia Silverstone
Alicia Silverstone
Alicia Silverstone is an American actress, author, and former fashion model. She first came to widespread attention in music videos for Aerosmith, and is perhaps best known for her roles in Hollywood films such as Clueless and her portrayal of Batgirl in Batman & Robin .-Early life:Silverstone...
, Jennifer Blanc
Jennifer Blanc
Jennifer Blanc is an American actress.She was born Jennifer Tara in New York City, New York.-Selected filmography:* Jerseyboy Hero * The Blood Bond...
and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it 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
Sidney J. Furie
Sidney J. Furie is a Canadian film director. Furie is perhaps best known for directing American Soldiers, The IPCRESS File, The Entity, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Lady Sings the Blues, The Boys, Gable and Lombard, Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York and the Iron Eagle films.Also...
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".
In 1995, Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
producer Fred Seibert
Fred Seibert
Frederick "Fred" Seibert is a television and film producer and entertainment entrepreneur who owns Frederator Studios, and who has held leading positions with MTV Networks, Hanna-Barbera, and Next New Networks; he owns Frederator Studios...
offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (United States)
Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...
's What a Cartoon! Show
The Cartoon Cartoon Show
What a Cartoon! , is an American animation showcase project created by Fred Seibert for Hanna-Barbera Cartoons to be run on Cartoon Network...
: 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 after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker
Trey Parker
Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...
and Matt Stone
Matt Stone
Matthew Richard "Matt" Stone is an American screenwriter, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of South Park along with creative partner and best friend, Trey Parker....
's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa
The Spirit of Christmas (short film)
The Spirit of Christmas is the name of two different animated short films made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They are notable for being precursors to the animated series South Park. To differentiate the two, they are often referred to as Jesus vs. Frosty and Jesus vs. Santa .- Jesus vs. Frosty...
. 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
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
, technology-driven future. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips
Michelle Phillips
Michelle Phillips is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She gained fame as a member of the 1960s group The Mamas & the Papas, and is the last surviving original member of the group.-Early life:...
. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings. 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, the series was canceled.
Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
. He became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
, without results. His attempt to independently finance a low-budget animated feature, Last Days of Coney Island
Last Days of Coney Island
Last Days of Coney Island is an unfinished project written, produced, directed and animated by filmmaker Ralph Bakshi, about a NYPD detective, the prostitute he alternately loves and arrests, and the seedy characters that haunt the streets of New York City's run-down amusement...
, intended as his most personal film, failed. In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, where he became more productive than ever in his painting. In 2003, he appeared as a guest on John Kricfalusi
John Kricfalusi
Michael John Kricfalusi , better known as John K., is a Canadian animator. He is creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, its adults-only spin-off Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", The Ripping Friends animated series, and Weekend Pussy Hunt, which was billed as "the world's first interactive web-based...
's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon".
In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards. In 2010, it was announced that Bakshi will collaborate with Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...
on a live-action remake of Fire and Ice.The deal was closed shortly after Frazetta's death
Legacy
In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival. The same year, he 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. The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet sparked a resurgence of interest in his career, resulting in a three-day American CinemathequeAmerican Cinematheque
The American Cinematheque is an independent, non-profit cultural organization in Los Angeles dedicated exclusively to the public presentation of the Moving Image in all its forms. It is considered among the premier organizations of its kind in America....
retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California, is one of the world's most famous movie theatres. Opened in 1922, it was the venue for the first-ever Hollywood premiere.- History :...
in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
, in April 2005. 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
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
and the afterword by Bakshi.
The Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice. Fritz the Cat was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
for its documentary The 100 Greatest Cartoons. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation.
Films
| Year | Film | Credited as | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director Film director A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:... |
Writer Screenwriter Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:... |
Producer Film producer A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The... |
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| 1972 | Fritz the Cat Fritz the Cat (film) Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American animated comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi as his feature film debut. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States... |
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| 1973 | Heavy Traffic Heavy Traffic Heavy Traffic is a 1973 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film, which begins, ends, and occasionally combines with live-action, explores the often surreal fantasies of a young New York cartoonist named Michael Corleone, using pinball imagery as a metaphor for... |
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| 1975 | Coonskin Coonskin (film) Coonskin is a 1975 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi, about an African American rabbit, fox, and bear who rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists and the Mafia... |
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| 1977 | Wizards Wizards (film) Wizards is a 1977 American animated post-apocalyptic science fantasy film about the battle between two wizards, one representing the forces of magic and one representing the forces of industrial technology. It was written, produced, and directed by Ralph Bakshi... |
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| 1978 | The Lord of the Rings The Lord of the Rings (1978 film) J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It contains both animation and live action footage which is rotoscoped to give it a more consistent look throughout the length of the movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of the high fantasy... |
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| 1981 | American Pop American Pop American Pop is a 1981 American animated musical drama film produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film tells the story of four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of American popular music.... |
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| 1982 | Hey Good Lookin' | |||
| 1983 | Fire and Ice Fire and Ice (1983 film) Fire and Ice is a 1983 animated film, a collaboration between Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta, distributed by 20th Century Fox, which also distributed Bakshi's 1977 release, Wizards... |
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| 1992 | Cool World Cool World Cool World is a 1992 American live-action/animated film directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne, and Brad Pitt. It tells the story of a cartoonist who finds himself in the animated world he created, and is seduced by one of his characters, a comic strip vamp who wants to... |
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Television
| Year | Show | Credited as | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director Film director A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:... |
Writer Screenwriter Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:... |
Producer Film producer A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The... |
Animator Animator An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an... |
Voice Voice acting Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called... |
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| 1957 | James Hound | — | — | — | ||
| Heckle and Jeckle Heckle and Jeckle Heckle and Jeckle are cartoon characters created by Paul Terry, and released by his own studio, Terrytoons for 20th Century Fox. The characters are a pair of identical magpies who calmly outwitted their foes in the manner of Bugs Bunny, while maintaining a mischievous streak reminiscent of Woody... |
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| 1959 | Deputy Dawg Deputy Dawg Deputy Dawg is a Terrytoons cartoon character featured on the animated television series of the same name in an original TV weekly run from 8 September 1962 to 25 May 1963, with no episodes on 8 December to 29 December 1962, resuming on 5 January 1963. The cartoons are between four and six minutes... |
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| Foofle | — | — | — | |||
| 1962 | Lariat Sam | — | — | — | ||
| 1965 | Sad Cat | — | — | — | — | |
| 1966 | The Mighty Heroes The Mighty Heroes The Mighty Heroes was an animated television series created by Ralph Bakshi for the Terrytoons company. The original show debuted on CBS, on Oct. 29, 1966, and ran for 1 season for 21 episodes.... |
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| 1967 | Spider-Man Spider-Man (1967 TV series) Spider-Man is an animated television series that ran from September 9, 1967 to June 14, 1970. It was jointly produced in Canada and the United States and was the first animated adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book series, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko... |
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| 1987 | Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures is a 1987 revival of the classic Mighty Mouse cartoon character. Produced by Bakshi-Hyde Ventures , it aired on CBS on Saturday mornings from fall 1987 through the 1988-89 season... |
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| 1988 | Christmas in Tattertown Christmas in Tattertown Christmas in Tattertown is a 1988 television special created and directed by Ralph Bakshi about a place where everything discarded in the world came alive. It aired on the cable television network Nickelodeon.- History :... |
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| 1989 | This Ain't Bebop | — | — | |||
| The Butter Battle Book The Butter Battle Book The Butter Battle Book is a rhyming story written by Dr. Seuss. It was published by Random House Books for Young Readers on January 12, 1984. It is an anti-war story; specifically, a parable about arms races in general, mutually assured destruction and nuclear weapons in particular... |
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| Hound Town | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1994 | Cool and the Crazy Cool and the Crazy Cool and the Crazy is a 1994 film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi and starring Jared Leto and Alicia Silverstone as an unhappily married couple in the late 1950s who both lead separate affairs... |
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| 1997 | Malcom and Melvin | — | — | |||
| Babe, He Calls Me | — | — | ||||
| Spicy City | — | — | ||||
| 2003 | Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" | — | — | — | — |
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"