Born: Ralph Bakshi
Birthday: October 29, 1938
Location: Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine
Occupation: Animator, Director, Producer
Years active: 1956-2015
Ralph Bakshi was born in Palestine under the British Mandate, and raised in Brownsville after his family fled to New York during World War II. For a time, the family moved to an impoverished apartment in the predominantly black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom near Washington D.C. before eventually moving back to Brownsville. Ralph graduated from Manhattan’s School of Industrial Arts in 1957 with an award in cartooning.
At 18, Bakshi was hired by the Terrytoons cartoon studio as a cel polisher, commuting four hours each day to the studio. He graduated to cell painting, and practicing nights and weekends, he became an inker and then an animator, working on such shows like Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, and Deputy Dawg. After a decade at the studio, he created and directed The Mighty Heroes cartoon series, a superhero spoof.
Moving to Paramount Studios in 1967, Bakshi worked on episodes of the animated Spider-Man TV series as well as several short films.
In the 1970s, Ralph launched an independent project to produce Fritz the Cat, an animated film adaptation of Robert Crumb’s comic book. Its 1972 premiere was both highly successful and the first X-rated feature-length animated film.
Encouraged by the success of Fritz the Cat, Bakshi pushed forward animating more features based on his gritty urban experiences. He produced the critically acclaimed, but highly controversial films Heavy Traffic and Coonskin. He completed a movie combining live-action and animation called Hey Good Lookin’ for Warner Brothers. The WB executives didn’t believe the hybrid film was marketable, compelling Ralph to return and animate over the live action shots.
At the same time, Bakshi turned out two animated fantasy films, Wizards and an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The features did well enough at the box office, but critics were confused and treated them harshly. United Artists declined to fund the planned sequel to Ralph’s The Lord of the Rings adaptation.
During the animation decline of the 1980s, he produced American Pop which was both a critical and financial failure. The fully animated version of Hey Good Lookin’ was released the same year, but performed similarly. Bakshi collaborated with Frank Frazetta for his final ‘80s movie, Fire & Ice. It suffered the same fate as Ralph’s other productions that decade.
Bakshi returned to producing television shows in 1987 with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures for two years before resuming feature animation directing duties on what would become Cool World. In 1992. The script was rewritten many times without Bakshi’s knowledge throughout production and the film suffered greatly for it. Cool World received poor reviews and was a box office disaster.
Ralph Bakshi returned once again to television with the live-action Cool and the Crazy and the Spicy City anthology series before largely retiring from animation in 2000 to take up painting in New Mexico.
No Comment