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Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi

Directing

Biography

Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938) is a Palestinian-born American animator and filmmaker. 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.

Known For

What a Cartoon!
7.4

Various original cartoons by some of today's top animators.

What a Cartoon!

1995
Spider-Man
7.7

The bite of a radioactive spider transforms a teen into a superhero.

Spider-Man

1967
Rebel Highway
8.0

Rebel Highway is a 1994 revival of American International Pictures, created and produced by Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, and Debra Hill for the Showtime network. The concept was a ten-week series of 1950s "drive-in classic" B-movies remade "with a '90s edge". Each episode shares a title with a late 1950s-early 1960s-era AIP film. However, they are not remakes; each installment is a different story from that which they are titled. The impetus for the series, according to Arkoff was, 'what it would be like if you made Rebel Without a Cause today. It would be more lurid, sexier, and much more dangerous, and you definitely would have had Natalie Wood's top off'.

Rebel Highway

1994
American Playhouse
6.6

American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.

American Playhouse

1982
The Lord of the Rings
6.6

Young Hobbit Frodo Baggins is thrown into an amazing adventure when he's tasked with destroying the One Ring, created by the dark lord Sauron. Frodo must travel in a small fellowship of nine warriors and accomplices. But it won't be an easy journey for the Fellowship of the Ring, on the ultimate quest to rid Middle-earth of evil.

The Lord of the Rings

1978
Spicy City
5.5

In a neo-noir future, nightclub hostess and classy femme fatale Raven presents various stories that either involve some of her guests or even herself. Some are sleazy, some violent, some about love, and some about loneliness, some darkly humorous, and some bittersweet and tragic, some are gritty cyberpunk thrillers and some are more fantastical and lighthearted, but they are all spicy and original.

Spicy City

1997
Cool World
5.7

While incarcerated for murder, cartoonist Jack Deebs found escape by creating Cool World, a series featuring a voluptuous femme fatale named Holli Would. But the artist becomes a prisoner of his own fantasies when Holli transports Jack into Cool World with a scheme to seduce him and bring herself to life. Hard-boiled detective Frank Harris – the only other human in Cool World – cautions Jack with the law: Noids (humans) don't have sex with doodles (cartoons). However, flesh proves weaker than ink as Holli takes human form in Las Vegas, staring in a trans-universal chase that threatens the destruction of both worlds.

Cool World

1992
Cannonball Run II
5.4

When a wealthy sheikh puts up $1 million in prize money for a cross-country car race, there is one person crazy enough to hit the road hard with wheels spinning fast. Legendary driver J.J. McClure enters the competition along with his friend Victor and together they set off across the American landscape in a madcap action-adventure destined to test their wits and automobile skills.

Cannonball Run II

1984
Fritz the Cat
6.2

In late 1960s New York City, fed up with monotonous college life and police repression, free-spirited Fritz, an impenitent seducer and unrestrained party-animal, decides to explore the world. And just like that, as he flees NYC, heading to San Francisco, Fritz embarks on an endless adventure of illumination. Immersed in a world surrounded by drugs and sex, Fritz participates in mad orgies, brings about a revolution, incites mass urban riots, and crosses paths with drug-addled Nazi bikers.

Fritz the Cat

1972
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
7.2

No description available.

Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures

1987
Fire and Ice
6.7

The villainous Nekron and his mother, Queen Juliana, plot against the human race from their frigid fortress. Creating mass destruction with huge glaciers, mother and son incur the wrath of Larn, a warrior whose entire village was destroyed by ice. When Nekron's underlings kidnap the beautiful Princess Teegra, Larn sets out to rescue her, assisted by the fierce and enigmatic Darkwolf.

Fire and Ice

1983
Wizards
6.2

After the death of his mother, evil mutant wizard Blackwolf discovers long-lost military technologies. Full of ego and ambition, Blackwolf claims his mother's throne, assembles an army, and sets out to brainwash and conquer Earth. Meanwhile, Blackwolf's gentle twin brother, the bearded sage Avatar, calls upon his own magical abilities to foil Blackwolf's plans for world domination — even if it means eliminating his own flesh and blood.

Wizards

1977
Heavy Traffic
6.5

A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.

Heavy Traffic

1973
Coonskin
6.1

A multi-layered satire of race relations in America. Live-action sequences of a prison break bracket the animated tale of Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox, who rise to the top of the crime ranks in Harlem by going up against a con-man, a racist cop, and the Mafia.

Coonskin

1975
American Pop
6.9

The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.

American Pop

1981
Hey Good Lookin'
5.6

In 1953 Brooklyn, charismatic hood and The Stompers leader Vinnie Genzianna, his friend and second-in-command Crazy Shapiro, and their respective girlfriends Roz and Eva get wrapped up in an escalating conflict with the rival Black gang, The Chaplains, lead by Boogaloo Jones.

Hey Good Lookin'

1982
No image
2.0

A documentary film about Oscar-nominated animator Bill Plympton. This is a portrait piece that includes interviews with family, friends, colleagues, critics, and fans.

Adventures in Plymptoons!

2011
Cool and the Crazy
4.4

High school sweethearts Roslyn and Michael, now in their twenties, co-exist in a deeply unfulfilling marriage with kids. Both embark on extramarital affairs, unaware of the violent repercussions that await.

Cool and the Crazy

1994
Midwest
N/A

A new Bakshi joint. A poem about the American Midwest. One from a series of new work by Ralph and his grandson, Miles Bakshi.

Midwest

2023
Hound Town
5.0

The misadventures of a small mutt named Rusty and his human family and canine friends.

Hound Town

1989