Fritz the Cat

King

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Maybe I'm the only one that thinks like this, but...I didn't liked the film. Make it, I was almost about to hate this film.
I do get a lot of the reasons why many ppl like this film. It was something new for its time. Back then in U.S animation, showing blood, sex and being rude up to adult level was something new. But, maybe it's just me, I felt like the movie was trying to hard being edgy.
Maybe because I'm just used to seeing edgy theme in animation, maybe because I wasn't born at that time in animation.
But a good half what the film shown was very unnecessarily.
You don't really need blood or sex to make it an adult theme animation film. But if you want to put those things in it, learn how to do it right.

But, like I said, I do see the points why this film is a cult hit. But, its really nothing but a movie that asking for attention.

Though, I could be dead wrong.
 

CaptainHero

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Maybe I'm the only one that thinks like this, but...I didn't liked the film. Make it, I was almost about to hate this film.
I do get a lot of the reasons why many ppl like this film. It was something new for its time. Back then in U.S animation, showing blood, sex and being rude up to adult level was something new. But, maybe it's just me, I felt like the movie was trying to hard being edgy.
Maybe because I'm just used to seeing edgy theme in animation, maybe because I wasn't born at that time in animation.
But a good half what the film shown was very unnecessarily.
You don't really need blood or sex to make it an adult theme animation film. But if you want to put those things in it, learn how to do it right.

But, like I said, I do see the points why this film is a cult hit. But, its really nothing but a movie that asking for attention.

Though, I could be dead wrong.

Really? I didn't think this film was nearly as shocking as people claimed it to be. Today's standards would give it an R-rating no problem, I really liked the atmosphere of this film, very dark and gritty, even the animation itself gives a very unpolished gritty feel to it, which I think benefits the film.

It's extremely dated by now, but the film also offered a great social commentary on why hippies suck which I thought was pretty cool, especially considering the time this film was made.
 

Lemanic

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A lill' OT, but I'm workin' on a remix of that theme tune into Ol'Skool House Music.
 

Robochao

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Sure the movie's tagline is that the movie is really dirty but this movie is based off of an edgy comic anyway. I saw this movie and it's really great with all the blood, sex, and drugs intact. Bakshi is a great man. He makes what he wants to make regardless of what people think about it.

If it's not your cup of tea then just keep walking. I love this movie.

Robert Crumb the creator of Fritz sure didn't like it though. After the movie came out he killed the character and nothing of him was ever made again. :mad:

Bakshi sure did change animated movies around. That was something that needed to be done. Disney dominating the theaters forever would be a nightmare.
 

defunctzombie

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I didn't watch this but I remember seeing in in the cabinet with my disney videos as a child. Luckily I was smart enough to know what X meant. :shrug:

As an adult I should probably watch it. I'm way behind in my cult film exposure.
 

OriginalGagBonke

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I think I watched this movie when I was 15, havent watched it since then. But I remembered it was sorta screwed up. But at the same time I didnt know this would be the very first adult cartoon in the US to change how animation was.

I should watch it again sometime once I can find it in my stack of videos. I sorta wonder if there should be a new fritz movie but unlike the first two films, it would be more true to the comic. I think a 3rd one was into the works by reading Jim Smith's blog posting a picture of something I cant say on here.
 

Radical Raven

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It's extremely dated by now, but the film also offered a great social commentary on why hippies suck which I thought was pretty cool, especially considering the time this film was made.

Interestingly enough (if you're talking about the scene I think you're talking about - the one near the end?) Fritz's OC is purported to have found that rant one of the worst things about the movie, calling it "redneck", among other things. I thought it was really well-done, especially given what follows - Fritz has a revelation only to promptly give it up.:p

The movie is not overly-shocking by today's standards, where you can easily see worse on TV (coughFamilyGuycough) but there's a wonderful feeling of deliberation about it - I picture Bakshi saying to himself "This is how I'll piss off Jews, this is how I'll piss of hippies, this is how I'll piss off women" - that makes it more subversive/hilarious then it would have been otherwise. IMO, anyway.
 

Fone Bone

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Shocker. My opinion has changed. My memory isn't playing tricks though. I just have better perspective than I did as a 13-year-old.

It seemed a bit unwise to start a legit talkback on this specific movie on a family friendly board, so I'll just post my review here.

Fritz The Cat

I have seen this movie exactly once in my lifetime before this. I was 13 and tricked my mom into renting it from the videostore. To this day I have never been found out. And per usual, my "Adult-oriented movie I shouldn't have seen as a kid" story is better than yours. I got you all beat.

I figured since it was on Amazon Prime, it was worth a revisit. I recall when I saw Hey Good Lookin' years later (I had been lukewarm on it as a teenager) I thought it was a blight upon the Earth. I was curious if the same thing would happen to Fritz. I'm not going to give it a positive review or a passing grade. What I will say is the movie is shockingly exactly like I remember when I saw it, like 35 years ago. That's how memorable it was at the time. I remembered all of these bits decades later. I almost NEVER do for movies I saw as a kid. It's a crap movie. That I'll never forget. "I shot the John!" I never forgot that bit. And it's exactly the same decades later. Or "Ever make it with an Aardvark?" I remember that joke from when I was 13! That's wild to me.

One of the reasons I rewatched Hey Good Lookin' was because as a kid I always assumed I didn't understand it because it dealt with adult themes beneath what my tender mind could grasp. I felt the same sort of detachment towards the Doonesbury comic strip as a kid. I get Doonesbury as an adult, but I knew it wasn't for me as a kid. I wanted to see what Ralph Bakshi messages similarly sailed over my head back then.

It turns out the reason my 14-year-old self believed Hey Good Lookin' was an utter mess, is because it WAS an utter mess. There was no larger subtext that I missed. It was sincerely that dumb. It made absolutely no sense, and Bakshi's script is just awful on every level you can think of. I was very surprised rewatching Fritz the Cat that there WERE indeed adult themes I was unable to grasp at the time.

Make no mistake: Fritz's script is a mess too. But there are larger themes present in this film that I didn't get as a kid.

The biggest theme I didn't understand is that Fritz is the villain of the film. It's like Bakshi read Catcher In The Rye, thought Holden Caulfield was a worthless sack of crap, and used Fritz to prove it with receipts. One of the themes I was astounded to realize somebody as otherwise racially tone-deaf as Ralph Bakshi understood is that white liberal arts college students of the 1960's claiming solidarity with the disenfranchised minorities, and promising to stand with them side by side during the revolution, are in reality cowardly pieces of instigating crap. And that describes Fritz, who is always stirring up trouble because he's bored, and quietly slinks away with his literal tail tucked between his legs when a bunch of people get killed for taking his nonsense seriously. I am not surprised what an utter sexually perverted creep Fritz is. It's on-brand for that movie. What shocks me is that Fritz is a searing indictment of insincere white liberal guilt, and how destructive it can be to minorities who fall for it. I have always felt Ralph Bakshi's claims of loving black culture are a mile wide and an inch deep just based on a lot of his output like Hey Good Lookin', Heavy Traffic, and Coonskin. But he certainly shows the right amount of self-awareness with that idea here.

But the film is a mess. I mean it's comedy, and Duke's death is absolutely effecting and horrific (him envisioning the billiards going into the pockets as his heart slows and then stops is actually haunting), and immediately afterwards they show this cartoony police car chase around town set to literal circus music. The film cannot decide what it wants to be.

And I'll tell you what it ultimately sadly is. And it's not something Bakshi wanted it to be, and in fact took great pains to make sure it wasn't. In hindsight, he failed. The genre Fritz the Cat most comfortably fits into is pornography. It's true. The cartoon sex and nudity are portrayed in the most salacious and obvious manner possible. Just like porn. It's done to give the viewer a sick thrill. Just like porn. The nudity and sex are basically what the movie advertises on posters and videocassette boxes. Just like porn. Bakshi was very annoyed that a lot of talentless perverted animators showed up to gleefully make this dirty movie without realizing he wanted it to be well-animated and credible during those scenes. He fired them. The scenes still aren't anything but pornographic. They are also exploitative as hell.

The best animated scene in the movie was the extended shot of the crow grooving to music in the dark as the colored lights spilled over him. Frankly, I can't think of much animation in Bakshi's career that I'd declare well-animated. That is a nice notable exception for that specific reason.

Fritz is one of the most unusual screen villains in that he is the actual protagonist. I don't think we are supposed to root or sympathize with him, but it's weird we mostly see things through the eyes of a chaotic, destructive, narcissistic sociopath.

The music is great. Do you know what's weird? I actually remembered it 35 years later. That is absolutely crazy to me.

It always amused me (even back then) that the X-rated disclaimer is flashed only after the final credits end. Little late, right? Young Tommy isn't getting to sleep tonight.

Like most of Ralph Bakshi's other films, this is a mess, and an exploitative mess at that. Unlike those other "adult" cartoons Bakshi puked out in the 1970's and 80's, I think Fritz is the one thing in his filmography on that subject that actually has a bit of merit. Also notable, because despite the fact that almost all of Bakshi's films have out-there, cartoonishly outrageous jokes that don't fit their premises, his first film is his one and only comedy. It's a bit of an unusual project for him for that reason too. Fritz is his his only "Adults only" project that isn't majorly depressing. And there are dark as hell themes. But even poor Harriet's terrible ordeal didn't leave leave the bad taste in my mouth Heavy Traffic, Hey Good Lookin', Coonskin, and American Pop did. Probably because Bakshi had enough good taste in him to not actually show the rape, which was another pleasant surprise to me.

But it's a bad movie, really. That I never forgot. And I probably never will. **1/2.

Among other things, he disliked the way the revolutionaries were portrayed in the movie as opposed to his original comix. You can read more at MichaelBarrier.com -- Funnyworld Revisited: I. Bucking the Tide
I don't think Bakshi is against the revolution itself. He's against the posers who coopt the revolution for their own ends for vanity and glory and scurry off when the cops come. He's right to criticize that and Crumb is wrong for missing that valid point.
 
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Classic Speedy

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Shocker. My opinion has changed. My memory isn't playing tricks though. I just have better perspective than I did as a 13-year-old.

It seemed a bit unwise to start a legit talkback on this specific movie on a family friendly board, so I'll just post my review here.

Fritz The Cat

I have seen this movie exactly once in my lifetime before this. I was 13 and tricked my mom into renting it from the videostore. To this day I have never been found out. And per usual, my "Adult-oriented movie I shouldn't have seen as a kid" story is better than yours. I got you all beat.

I figured since it was on Amazon Prime, it was worth a revisit. I recall when I saw Hey Good Lookin' years later (I had been lukewarm on it as a teenager) I thought it was a blight upon the Earth. I was curious if the same thing would happen to Fritz. I'm not going to give it a positive review or a passing grade. What I will say is the movie is shockingly exactly like I remember when I saw it, like 35 years ago. That's how memorable it was at the time. I remembered all of these bits decades later. I almost NEVER do for movies I saw as a kid. It's a crap movie. That I'll never forget. "I shot the John!" I never forgot that bit. And it's exactly the same decades later. Or "Ever make it with an Aardvark?" I remember that joke from when I was 13! That's wild to me.

One of the reasons I rewatched Hey Good Lookin' was because as a kid I always assumed I didn't understand it because it dealt with adult themes beneath what my tender mind could grasp. I felt the same sort of detachment towards the Doonesbury comic strip as a kid. I get Doonesbury as an adult, but I knew it wasn't for me as a kid. I wanted to see what Ralph Bakshi messages similarly sailed over my head back then.

It turns out the reason my 14-year-old self believed Hey Good Lookin' was an utter mess, is because it WAS an utter mess. There was no larger subtext that I missed. It was sincerely that dumb. It made absolutely no sense, and Bakshi's script is just awful on every level you can think of. I was very surprised rewatching Fritz the Cat that there WERE indeed adult themes I was unable to grasp at the time.

Make no mistake: Fritz's script is a mess too. But there are larger themes present in this film that I didn't get as a kid.

The biggest theme I didn't understand is that Fritz is the villain of the film. It's like Bakshi read Catcher In The Rye, thought Holden Caulfield was a worthless sack of crap, and used Fritz to prove it with receipts. One of the themes I was astounded to realize somebody as otherwise racially tone-deaf as Ralph Bakshi understood is that white liberal arts college students of the 1960's claiming solidarity with the disenfranchised minorities, and promising to stand with them side by side during the revolution, are in reality cowardly pieces of instigating crap. And that describes Fritz, who is always stirring up trouble because he's bored, and quietly slinks away with his literal tail tucked between his legs when a bunch of people get killed for taking his nonsense seriously. I am not surprised what an utter sexually perverted creep Fritz is. It's on-brand for that movie. What shocks me is that Fritz is a searing indictment of insincere white liberal guilt, and how destructive it can be to minorities who fall for it. I have always felt Ralph Bakshi's claims of loving black culture are a mile wide and an inch deep just based on a lot of his output like Hey Good Lookin', Heavy Traffic, and Coonskin. But he certainly shows the right amount of self-awareness with that idea here.

But the film is a mess. I mean it's comedy, and Duke's death is absolutely effecting and horrific (him envisioning the billiards going into the pockets as his heart slows and then stops is actually haunting), and immediately afterwards they show this cartoony police car chase around town set to literal circus music. The film cannot decide what it wants to be.

And I'll tell you what it ultimately sadly is. And it's not something Bakshi wanted it to be, and in fact took great pains to make sure it wasn't. In hindsight, he failed. The genre Fritz the Cat most comfortably fits into is pornography. It's true. The cartoon sex and nudity are portrayed in the most salacious and obvious manner possible. Just like porn. It's done to give the viewer a sick thrill. Just like porn. The nudity and sex are basically what the movie advertises on posters and videocassette boxes. Just like porn. Bakshi was very annoyed that a lot of talentless perverted animators showed up to gleefully make this dirty movie without realizing he wanted it to be well-animated and credible during those scenes. He fired them. The scenes still aren't anything but pornographic. They are also exploitative as hell.

The best animated scene in the movie was the extended shot of the crow grooving to music in the dark as the colored lights spilled over him. Frankly, I can't think of much animation in Bakshi's career that I'd declare well-animated. That is a nice notable exception for that specific reason.

Fritz is one of the most unusual screen villains in that he is the actual protagonist. I don't think we are supposed to root or sympathize with him, but it's weird we mostly see things through the eyes of a chaotic, destructive, narcissistic sociopath.

The music is great. Do you know what's weird? I actually remembered it 35 years later. That is absolutely crazy to me.

It always amused me (even back then) that the X-rated disclaimer is flashed only after the final credits end. Little late, right? Young Tommy isn't getting to sleep tonight.

Like most of Ralph Bakshi's other films, this is a mess, and an exploitative mess at that. Unlike those other "adult" cartoons Bakshi puked out in the 1970's and 80's, I think Fritz is the one thing in his filmography on that subject that actually has a bit of merit. Also notable, because despite the fact that almost all of Bakshi's films have out-there, cartoonishly outrageous jokes that don't fit their premises, his first film is his one and only comedy. It's a bit of an unusual project for him for that reason too. Fritz is his his only "Adults only" project that isn't majorly depressing. And there are dark as hell themes. But even poor Harriet's terrible ordeal didn't leave leave the bad taste in my mouth Heavy Traffic, Hey Good Lookin', Coonskin, and American Pop did. Probably because Bakshi had enough good taste in him to not actually show the rape, which was another pleasant surprise to me.

But it's a bad movie, really. That I never forgot. And I probably never will. **1/2.


I don't think Bakshi is against the revolution itself. He's against the posers who coopt the revolution for their own ends for vanity and glory and scurry off when the cops come. He's right to criticize that and Crumb is wrong for missing that valid point.
The Blu-ray for the movie has an audio commentary and the participants made an intriguing statement: That Bakshi's movies aren't meant to have a cohesive or logical narrative- they're meant to evoke moods, like a painting or music. So if you look at it in that sense, it's not a flaw that one scene is comedic (the orgy that gets out of hand) but another is more serious (Duke's death). Not sure I agree 100%- I usually like a strong narrative, but it got me to think.

On the "this is porn" argument, if it's a porn movie it's a bad one, because it's way too long between the sex scenes and what few ones there are are comedic in nature. Seriously, the only moment which really plays it straight is when Fritz is having intercourse in the bathtub, which is maybe thirty seconds (and it's not even shown in graphic detail, which porn kinda has to have by definition). The rest of the scene is so outlandish and over-the-top that it's really not meant to be titillating. The later sex scene with the crow is similarly discreet- we never actually see the two have sex in detail, as the scene ends after the small dick joke.

Hey Good Lookin' I would argue is also a comedic Bakshi film, but unlike Fritz it fails miserably. And that's just one of its many problems.
 
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Fone Bone

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I saw the film before I reviewed it only yesterday, but it's still stuck with me. Weirdly Cobra Kai did the same thing. But I'll go a little beyond the review for this next thing.

What I'm sort of thinking about is the fact that during the sex scenes, particularly the one in the tub, the animators gave Fritz an incredibly sinister expression on his face. It looks like he believes he's taking advantage of the women, tricking them, degrading them, and exploiting them. And that fact seems to excite him. He gets off on the fact that he believes he's ultimately hurting the women he's doing sexual things with. And I have seen the same kind of unequal power dynamics in straight porn before, which is why I don't like it. It's also why I believe the film is ultimately pornographic. @Classic Speedy made some interesting points about how the movie isn't exactly as explicit as a hard-core porn film. But neither is soft-core porn. It's still porn. And the act of sex being treated as if Fritz is mistreating women or being subversive with them is basically porn. Whether the rim of the tub covers the "good stuff" or not.

Those expressions, man. They disturb me. I said I believed Fritz is the villain of the film. And stuff like that is the reason why I think that.
 
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Classic Speedy

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Oh he's definitely an anti-hero. There's really no getting around that. It's even more pronounced in the sequel, when he's also a deadbeat father. The same commentary track made the point that Fritz is also the ultimate poser: He doesn't have any stances of his own, he just does whatever will get him in with whatever group he's with. It's not until the end when he finally takes a stand and decides not to commit terrorism.

Maybe it's meant to be a commentary on the times, when people were "finding themselves".
 

Fone Bone

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And once the bullets start flying and the cops come he slinks off like the coward he is, despite always having instigated the entire thing.
 

The Overlord

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And once the bullets start flying and the cops come he slinks off like the coward he is, despite always having instigated the entire thing.

It's probably why the movie has abusive Nazis in it, like anyone looks like sympathetic when compared to a sadistic Nazi. Though Fritz is apparently way worse in the comics, he got tonned down in the film.
 

Petran Markou

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I think movie did well in shaking the animation landscape, combined with Tezuka's adult movies in Japan at that time.
I find Bakshi's Coonskin much better overall in that regard and with more freedom, not tied to any comics, but it needed Fritz the Cat for it to happen first.
Movie was as faithful to the comics as one could hope for.
However Fritz influence would not last long and theatrical animation would once again resort to the Disney formula for decades. At that time Deep Throat movie was radical too for porn and there was even a screening with Hollywood actors participating. However movie's influence was buried to the underground also because of the shady production behind.

However Bakshi returned with the Mighty Mouse tv series with many animators under his guidance that influenced the 90s TV animation landscape.
 

[classic swim]

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It’s been years since I’ve watched Fritz The Cat, but I don’t remember liking it.

I remember it as an awkward, sickly and aggressively horny cartoon movie.

A lot happens! It’s a very well drawn motion picture.

It set out to be the first real adult ADULT cartoon, which it succeeded; but it felt like in the end almost nothing substantial was said.

While there’s a lot of 70s culture that I actually do enjoy, this is almost a lousy example of the era.

I would love it to no end if I was living well 60-50 years ago and the only other cartoons in existence I had to enjoy was Looney Tunes, Popeye & the Hanna-Barbera catalogue.

⬇️ This is another cartoon from Ralph that I’ve watched more recently.

I can’t decide if it was slightly better or horrifically worse than Fritz The Cat, but I do love Barry White & Scatman Crothers.

2E139ACE-7CC4-41C2-A1C0-CAE1C410BCBD.jpeg
 

Daikun

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The only thing you can really give Fritz the Cat credit for is being the first animated film strictly for adults.
It's a shame the first example had to be a mediocre one. You can't really credit the movie for anything else.
 

Pooky

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I suspect you had to be there to fully appreciate it, not just the novelty of an adult cartoon, also the then recent past it was commenting on. Lord knows what people who have no cultural conception of the late 60s would make of it, which by now is probably a fair amount of people. I didn't really like it, but there are other "groundbreaking" films from the same era (e.g. Easy Rider) I find even more unpalatable.

The Blu-ray for the movie has an audio commentary and the participants made an intriguing statement: That Bakshi's movies aren't meant to have a cohesive or logical narrative- they're meant to evoke moods, like a painting or music. So if you look at it in that sense, it's not a flaw that one scene is comedic (the orgy that gets out of hand) but another is more serious (Duke's death). Not sure I agree 100%- I usually like a strong narrative, but it got me to think.

I like that idea, and maybe even prefer films that work like that, but I don't think Bakshi's work tends to provoke much emotion other than (intended) repulsion. I can only really think of the "my God...it's me!" scene in Heavy Traffic, which honestly worked better as an isolated scene when I saw it at an animation exhibition than when I saw the film in full and realised how, uh, let's just say "undignified" that character is (although I suppose that could be argued to add to the poignancy).

Hey Good Lookin' I would argue is also a comedic Bakshi film, but unlike Fritz it fails miserably. And that's just one of its many problems.

Presumably a large part of the problems with Hey Good Lookin' is that it was a film that was effectively made twice, although I doubt the original part-live action version was appreciably better than the final version, maybe worse. Apparently it was pretty all going to be live action apart from the two main characters, and I cannot figure any stylistic or thematic level on which that would have made sense. He seemed to be daydreaming about becoming a live-action filmmaker for much of that period; he was hoping to make a live action adaptation of Last Exit to Brooklyn with Robert DeNiro, and of course started using rotoscope a lot.
 

Mr HooPoe

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So it’s been a few years since I’ve used this site–I’ve fallen out of the mind of continually watching cartoons–but browse the site every now and then for fun. As soon as I saw this thread, however, I had the sudden urge to drop everything, watch Fritz the Cat, and hop back onto my account to share my thoughts–and that’s exactly what I did.

“Hey yeah, the 1960’s? Happy times, heavy times.”

I had never actually seen this film despite its importance in the medium of animation, something that I automatically admired the film for no matter what came out of watching it. Because ideally speaking, there’s no reason why animation shouldn’t have adult appeal. The inherent concept of a cartoon is adult, in its means of exaggerating aspects of understanding like politics and philosophy–people can dismiss animated series as kiddie fodder with a straight face without looking up from their political cartoons. Early animation may not have indulged in such a blatantly adult sense, but there was at least some level of adult respectability for it as an art form, certainly not an entirely puerile and juvenile regard for its audience. Clearly, by the time Fritz the Cat came around such a mindset was not the norm; that it hailed in with the tagline “We’re not rated X for nothing, baby!” only served to outrage further but looking back–perhaps because of the way it’s broken barriers for adult animation–it’s a fairly sensible move for the medium.

For context, prior to this film the only films from Bakshi I had seen weren’t his most adult–Cool World had amiable aesthetic pleasures but was largely a dud and utter mess, and Wizards I quite liked (I’ll talk a bit about it later). Based on that I had some preconceived notions about what kind of film it would be–it would be satirical, it would contain friendly Jewish slandering, I would never find out why Fritz treats his legs like pants instead of wearing some, and it would be grimy and strenuous. I was then surprised to find I was wrong on this last point.

“Yes, existential, I heard that word once!”
“What’s it mean?”

I still couldn’t tell you if I actually liked the film. On a technical level it does well for its limited budget. At first I was worried the audio was going to be a pain–I do rather like the music but the voice acting seemed to range from “that’s not how you should sound” (Fritz) to “you didn’t mix your audio properly” (various background characters and the officers) and I can be finicky with stuff like that–but I quickly grew accustomed to it without much issue. Visually, there were times where the film attempted a visual haze that looked far too much like a cloudy cel but it was otherwise not too hard to look at, and surprisingly easy to take its janky animation errors in stride. On the other hand, when I think about how Wizards managed to appeal to me despite melting my brain with its whacked out and incomplete visual style, I think Fritz slips by too easily for me in terms of aesthetics. The colours certainly dig into the grime of the city but the whole thing somehow still feels overly polished, believe it or not, and not terribly hallucinogenic. I could argue it’s an attempt to mix the Disney look with the style of the comic on a limited budget, an effect that comes across as more diluted than edgy. (The B&W background sequence just leaves me with a resounding meh.) Certainly not helping is the film’s choice to exaggerate less on the cartoonish nature of the characters as animals themselves, mostly relegating such details to the dialogue (“you’ve ever been with an aardvark?” is as far as I’d like to go here, thanks) while treating the models in a far more anthropomorphic manner than I frankly expected…and preferred. Nothing terrible, but surprisingly I think I found the lack of grime that much more offensive compared to what I’ve seen of his later stuff–about as mellow as Fritz was on his road trip. (The teardrop animation was great though.)

Immediately after watching the film I took a peek at the Fritz comics for a comparison. Visually? They’re far out. They really inhabit the underground nature better than what the film aims for, with more rough edges and warped backgrounds. That could very well be an issue of translating from page to screen, though.

Then there’s the content itself. What really stuck out to me was how much more of a character the whole city was than Fritz himself to the point that whenever he showed up I realised “oh right this movie’s about this guy”. I’m pretty sure he’s in no more than half this movie overall. Even when he was on-screen it always felt as if he was secondary to the rest of the characters and the city. And after peeking at the comics, it suddenly clicked. The motives of the comics, which are more Fritz-focused, are quite different from the film, which seems far more interested in plucking the character and his obscene nature and attitude into the grimy world where Bakshi and co can take satiric shots at society in all kinds of ways. Which certainly explains why he’s gone for half the runtime, but what about the translation of his character? The comics have Fritz spouting his idealistic observations as he lives the life of a reckless antihero, but they also constrain him to his environment; the movie acts like a springboard to a not-so-epic epic where he leaves his friends to have an orgy and then go on a cross-country trek bringing his idealisms along. He doesn’t seem to learn much of anything along the way and keeps to his ideas about empathy and how he sees other cultures. The film’s attempts to replicate his antics come across as slight in comparison; there’s a manic energy to Fritz’s rambling in the comics about the way he thinks before his imposing actions, but the film has him act much more restrained and far slower in comparison, seeming to mute his intended satiric effect of a particular American attitude. (The movie does a replication of the “the blanket’s on fire” shtick that feels quite drowsy, if cute the first time around. Actually, more of the satirical observations seem directly lifted from the comics than I expected…) His lack of interaction with other characters in such instances make the whole effort feel far too lightweight as a result, too much of a fleeting lark in motion and not just looking back. That might be what holds the film back for me: even though the satire flies fast and thick throughout the film (too much to even touch upon), the archetypal Fritz is absent for far too much of it, restricting his wicked insight from being an element of the film. Which I guess makes this about as much as a Bakshi work as expected, but it still strikes me as rather odd overall.

I’ve heard the argument that Bakshi is at his best when he achieves the epic scope he strives for, and on the basis on how I liked Wizards and found this underwhelming I think that’s a sound theory and one I expect to see confirmed on viewings of his other stuff. Maybe this wasn’t as substantial a post as I wanted it to be but I just finished watching it and feel the need to make a comment before that energy dies out on me.

“Far out.”

Random notes and responses:

- Various commenters seem to suggest this movie would not get an X rating (or NC-17 rating) nowadays. I'd...probably debate that for some frankness of the presentation even if it's tame in other regards (especially in violence).

- That cameo for Mickey, Donald, and Daisy with their flag waving patriotism sure was something.

- The songs that parody the style of 60s music are actually pretty cool.

It seemed a bit unwise to start a legit talkback on this specific movie on a family friendly board...

It's an inevitable talkback given the significance of this film. Obviously we can't talk about everything (never mind the obviously explicit content, that goes for a good deal of the satire too), but I think there's still enough here to tell without getting into troubled waters.

It's also why I believe the film is ultimately pornographic. @Classic Speedy made some interesting points about how the movie isn't exactly as explicit as a hard-core porn film. But neither is soft-core porn. It's still porn. And the act of sex being treated as if Fritz is mistreating women or being subversive with them is basically porn. Whether the rim of the tub covers the "good stuff" or not.

And yet I also wanted to comment on this. I glanced at this thread before watching the film and saw the idea of the film being regarded as porn, and I thought you meant something idealistic such that "this film excites people who believe in the ideology of so and so", but then your follow-up comment suggested you were explicitly referring to the sexual stuff. And even with a broader consideration of the term in mind...I probably should have just took the mention in the sexual sense because I couldn't pinpoint any other stretches of the term.

But the film is a mess. I mean it's comedy, and Duke's death is absolutely effecting and horrific (him envisioning the billiards going into the pockets as his heart slows and then stops is actually haunting), and immediately afterwards they show this cartoony police car chase around town set to literal circus music. The film cannot decide what it wants to be.
The Blu-ray for the movie has an audio commentary and the participants made an intriguing statement: That Bakshi's movies aren't meant to have a cohesive or logical narrative- they're meant to evoke moods, like a painting or music. So if you look at it in that sense, it's not a flaw that one scene is comedic (the orgy that gets out of hand) but another is more serious (Duke's death). Not sure I agree 100%- I usually like a strong narrative, but it got me to think.

Fritz the Cat is definitely a film of mood, and I quickly figured out it would be a pictaresque film with its many, many observations on the American landscape and Fritz happening to be on a lark. I still don't think the film does it that well, but expecting a proper narrative out of this film is not at all the way to go about it. Life happens, people die, police cars start spinning comically down the streets. It's tonally jarring, sure, but that's the way life progresses.

Oh he's definitely an anti-hero. There's really no getting around that. It's even more pronounced in the sequel, when he's also a deadbeat father. The same commentary track made the point that Fritz is also the ultimate poser: He doesn't have any stances of his own, he just does whatever will get him in with whatever group he's with. It's not until the end when he finally takes a stand and decides not to commit terrorism.

Maybe it's meant to be a commentary on the times, when people were "finding themselves".

I am definitely going to check out the sequel if out of morbid curiosity and because unlike this film, they actually suggest he's got nine lives (which is...something you could argue was implied in this film but it doesn't seem spelled out very well at all). I have no idea how dreary the sequel is, I am certainly expecting something lesser, but it should be at least interesting on some level even with its toned down content.

The only thing you can really give Fritz the Cat credit for is being the first animated film strictly for adults.
It's a shame the first example had to be a mediocre one. You can't really credit the movie for anything else.

It gave us Ralph Bakshi. That's good enough for me even if the film is pretty average.
 

Classic Speedy

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I am definitely going to check out the sequel if out of morbid curiosity and because unlike this film, they actually suggest he's got nine lives (which is...something you could argue was implied in this film but it doesn't seem spelled out very well at all). I have no idea how dreary the sequel is, I am certainly expecting something lesser, but it should be at least interesting on some level even with its toned down content.
It's not a great movie by any means, but I don't abhor it like I used to when I first made this thread almost twenty years ago (!!). The thing you have to keep in mind with Nine Lives is to treat it like an anthology film, because as a narrative it's even worse than the first Fritz. Some segments are better than others, though.

Upon rewatching recently, it's also better animated than the original Fritz- if there's one thing you can't accuse it of, it's slacking in the animation department.
 

Mr HooPoe

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Fritz the Cat - 5/10
The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat - 4/10

I don’t mind that it took me a month to get around to the sequel; I thought distancing myself enough from the first film without losing the sense of feeling I took away from it. But whereas the first film fired up an instant response from me to summarise how I felt, I’ve been struggling for most of the week to bring myself to say something about The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (I saw it on Sunday). It’s so aimless in comparison, and despite seeming to address various feelings I had about the previous film it still left me feeling empty.

But let’s talk about the good stuff. The last film felt like a compromise between Crumb’s underground style and pretensions to use the Disney mold to make a statement about the audience for animated films; this one on the other hand goes straight for a consistent underground style and feels more aesthetically strong as a result, including the scene that throws in live-action footage (something the first film didn’t get right in that one scene). It’s a quality that gives a film a much stronger sense of atmosphere, while indulging in 70s aesthetic styles like flashing lights to create some solid lurid moments like the second half of the musical sequence. The editing tricks, sans the jarring camera switching to zoomed frames of the same shot, make for a delightfully grimy viewing. It’s paired with a more consistent audio quality, one that actually feels as if everyone was in a professional studio, and a neat soundtrack. (Also despite receiving an R rating compared to the first film, the content isn’t nearly as toned down as I was expecting and still served to be uncomfortable by design.)

As for the rest of the film: is this a parody of Fritz the Cat?

I can see how sequels can take elements from previous films and shuffle them around in uninspired ways to suggest they miss the point of the original, but the attitude this film takes in reusing elements feels like a spoof of what the first film did. They use an opening narration to showcase the world of the 1970’s…in a film made within the first few years of the decade and don’t even make it the focus, just the wraparound setting. While the basis of the wraparound segment comes from Crumb’s material (uncredited of course, because what dignity would there be in associating this film with his name), the elements of the first film that pop up throughout the so-called nine lives (a premise that makes zero logical sense in context but whatever) go well beyond being rehashes and feel like outright jokes. Fritz gives the final speech from the first movie again here, but it lacks the same attempt at heaviness: did the makers realise Fritz seriously saying that was a lousy idea? Fritz has a hallucination where he sees Duke the Crow taunting him. The entire film is actually about Fritz and not just the various settings, pushing his prominence further less for his observations and more because he’s…just there. He’s there when Hitler drops the soap, he’s there when the president of New Africa gets assassinated and gets framed for it. These aren’t things entirely delegated to his character the way scenes like him in the pawn shop or the sewers are, rather they feel present because somebody wanted to push Fritz into more over-the-top fantastical situations (though like the first film, their characteristics as animals have no effect on their anthropomorphic behaviour). All of this uses Fritz’s same voice actor Skip Hinnant essentially keeping him the same as he was in the first film.

There’s also the distinct notion that this take on Fritz is not unakin to classic cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, in that they take his basic character traits and transplant him into any given situation as a lightning rod. Whereas the first film was an epic mounted to showcase a whole country with Fritz merely getting caught in the action, this takes various unrelated events and uses his dismissive, stoned, snarky personality and outlooks thrown in the centre of exaggerated situations to have him receive either a lecture about a niche lifestyle or humiliation sending him to his inevitable death. That every segment ends on a bad note for his death isn’t usually a problem aside from the longer segments (WWII, New Africa) as it keeps to the tone, and the narrative pacing does well to alleviate the slightness of the whole exercise.

It’s definitely a slight exercise. It all builds up to a one-liner Fritz mutters at the end, and while the present gets an unbridled energy out of Fritz taking the berating from his wife, who runs down various grimy and 70s-centric topical aspects (some of which feel lame-brained in shock–that the baby is simply alluded to as taking after his father without any mention of potential baby psychology makes his whole presence uncomfortable to watch), the visions Fritz has (which are, again, illogical if we’re dipping into alternate realities) don’t affect his current position. The actual segments are confusingly structured (if you’re going to run through the nine lives without messing with the linear progression it wouldn’t hurt to label them with setting and which life it is), and unlike the first film keeping Fritz at the centre mutes the political impact with fewer asides and aims for more outright shock value (the surreal nature of the shorts is staged in settings designed to be shocking). If the film was more adherent to its mood via its filmmaking tricks and simply taking in the scene, like with the psychedelic music montage (a highlight of the film even though I was expecting the opposite), it might have been on the same level of the first film quality-wise if not better. In what we actually got, the best way it could have been better is if it leaned into either its dialogue or its visuals because what we get doesn’t sit very well in spite of its charms.

(Footnote: if I understand correctly, there were nine lives in the flashback? I’d say this would technically make the wraparound his 10th life except the logic of Fritz living his nine lives doesn’t line up in the given universe. I wish there was something clever about it timeline wise, something confirmed in transitions instead of cutting back to the same shot of Fritz’s eyes…)
 

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