Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938(1938-10-29)) is an American director of animated and live-action films. Bakshi established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions.He is best remembered for his film, Fritz the Cat.
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 that it would work as a film.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.
Here's a favorite clip of mine, from the film:
Fritz: Hello men... everybody all busy studyin' for their goddamn exams and all? Hey Fuz, how'd it go with that Dee Dee chick, huh? She's got some bod' you have to admit... ol' Charlene isn't bad either... like, wow! Heinz, you swine, ol' buddy pig, ya groove behind Alvina and get some kicks tonight, huh?
[Scene fades into black]
Fritz: Bastards... you'd think the goddamn exams was the be-all end-all of existence... the cosmic life-force or somethin'. Can't even say a few decent words to a guy... th' bastards... What a bore... take some bennies an' stay up all night with your face stuck in a bunch of books an' your thumbs up your ass... Yes... yes... I remember the time when it was all very inspiring and enlightening... all this history and literature and sociology shit... You think learning is a really big thing an' you become this big fuckin' intellectual and sit around tryin' ta out-intellectual all the other big fuckin' intellectuals... you spend years and years with your nose buried in these goddamn tomes while out there the world is passin' you by... and all the stuff to see and all th' kicks an' girls are all out there... an' ME, a writer ad a poet who should be havin' adventures an' experiencing all the diversities and paradoxes and ironies of life and passin' over all the roads of the world and digging all the cities and towns and rives and oceans... and making all them chicks!
[Imagines naked woman]
Fritz: As a writer and poet it is my duty to get out there and dig the world... to swing with the whole friggin' scene while there's still time!
[Grabs papers]
Fritz: My farting around days are over! From this day on I shall live every day as if yit were my last! Yes! Yes! I must do it! No more the dreary boring classes, the dismal lectures, the sitting around bullshitting with pretentious fat-assed hippies, no more the books, the spoutings of a bunch of old farts who think they know the whole goddamn score!
[Breathes fire]
Fritz: Oh God! What have I done? I've set all my notes and books and stuff on fire and now I can't study for my exams... I'll flunk out and my folks'll be pissed off as hell... I'll get a blanket... the blanket's on fire. We'd better call the fire department
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