HEY GOOD LOOKIN' (1982)

 This is a Ralph Bakshi directed and animated film that I knew nothing about until finding it the other day on an old VHS tape. Being a big fan of Baski's 70s output I had some high expectations going in. Sadly they weren't all met. Not to say that this is terrible, the animation, as usual, is top-notch and quite trippy and the idea of the film is cool. The main problem for me was the music used. Even though the film is set in the 50s everytime some tune from the soundtrack played the audience is abruptly reminded that the film was made in the 80s and that's a bit jarring. Also the story is kind of a mess with some pretty appealing characters that are hard to latch onto. Even our cool Fonzie-like hero turns out to be a cowardly wuss by the end. While this may be some deep comment on the nature of humanity it doesn't exactly make for a compelling viewing experience. I suppose this one is for Bakshi-completists only or people that don;t mind their fake 50s cartoons being extra fake.
 The history of the making of this film seems more interesting than the final product. Apparently it was started way back in 1974 as a mix of live-action and animation. That version, which allegedly included some footage of The New York Dolls performing, was completed in the late 70s but Warner Bros. didn't care for it and made Bakshi go back and animate all the live-action parts which took him up to '82 to finish. The original live-action mix doesn't seem to exist anymore which is a shame since it seems like it would at least have been interesting to check out as some kinda proto-WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? but made for adults.


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COONSKIN (1975)

 Director/animator Ralph Bakshi followed up his classic FRITZ THE CAT and HEAVY TRAFFIC cartoon flicks with this mostly animated, but also some live-action, version of a blaxploitation movie. It starts out with the unforgettable tune "Nigger Man" sung by the great Scatman Crothers, from there we get Scat and a younger buddy attempting a prison break and while this goes on he tells(and we get to see in cartoon form) the old story of Brer Rabbit but updated to a very urban environment with some crazy violence and sex thrown in. The whole film is a statement on being race in America. It is a film that was made in an era when being offensive was not seen as the ultimate sin as it is in these sad days. While it may seem most offensive to black folks on the surface due to the characterization and stereotypes on display it does not give very positive depictions to the white police or the Italian mafioso-types either. In fact I'm pretty sure the design and intent of this film is to offend everyone watching and therefore at least make some people think after viewing. Of course this would be wasted on today's audience which will never lay eyes upon anything that makes them in the least bit uncomfortable.
 A couple of stars beside Scatman include Barry White and his smooth deep voice and Philip Michael Thomas(aka that black dude from MIAMI VICE). Give it a watch if you're not an overly-sensitive, politically-correct piece of human-garbage(aka almost everyone still alive in 2017) or you just dig weird psychedelic cartoons. AKA STREET FIGHT and re-released as BUSTIN' OUT


                                                         
                                                          Scat!!:


                                                 

                                                  The less offensive title:

WIZARDS (1977)

 Ralph Bakshi is probably best known for his X-Rated film version of R. Crumb's FRITZ THE CAT but he did a whole bunch of sorta-similar but different animated films over the years. This one has some of the same voices from FRITZ and also some of the same goofiness but it's way less porno-like(only rated PG- sorry pervs!) and more of a melding of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS/LORD OF THE RINGS and post-apocalyptic Saturday Morning kiddie cartoon. The tone of this varies wildly from totally nihilistic downer to light-fantasy romp with the blink of an eye. I would definitely recommend this to animation fans of any type and especially if you dig stuff like HEAVY METAL which I was actually lucky enough to catch this on a double-feature with yesterday afternoon. It's probably also a real delightful trip if you do a lot of acid.
 If you have seen this movie before then you know that Bakshi throws a bunch of World War II footage of Nazis and Adolph Hitler into his movie to reinforce how very very bad his main evil wizard character is. While I found this an interesting juxtaposition with bumbling cartoon fairies and elves a couple of Hasidic Jews attending this screening apparently didn't find it quite as intriguing and quickly split at the first sight of blitzkrieg. I guess you can't please everyone.


Crazy-ass Nazi-wizards!: