Bad Cat

Is Ralph Bakshi one of Our People, or has the Movement at last found its level in self-parody? Bakshi wrote, directed and designed Fritz the Cat, which claims to be the first X-rated animated film. Based on Robert Crumb’s cartoon character (Crumb has repudiated the flick), Fritz puts it all together, it being every Kidcult cliché about a malevolent culture in which the hero swims like a cat in a revolutionary sea.

Beginning with a grumble of hardhats going on about the foibles of the young, the film moves to Washington Square where some of the local fauna lurk. Chicks heave into view. Fritz and friends break into a rock song, but this fails to win fair ladies. Fritz, never faint-hearted, splits; he finds the chicks mooning over a crow, a big, bad black dude who puts them down. Clever Fritz makes like Bunthorne, shines in the high aesthetic line, and, after a chorus of Wows, Far-outs, Cools and Groovys, all are sporting in a bathtub. Various aardvarks and alligators join the fun.

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John C. Smith

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Is Ralph Bakshi one of Our People, or has the Movement at last found its level in self-parody? Bakshi wrote, directed and designed Fritz the Cat, which claims to be the first X-rated animated film. Based on Robert Crumb’s cartoon character (Crumb has repudiated the flick), Fritz puts it all together, it being every Kidcult cliché about a malevolent culture in which the hero swims like a cat in a revolutionary sea.

Beginning with a grumble of hardhats going on about the foibles of the young, the film moves to Washington Square where some of the local fauna lurk. Chicks heave into view. Fritz and friends break into a rock song, but this fails to win fair ladies. Fritz, never faint-hearted, splits; he finds the chicks mooning over a crow, a big, bad black dude who puts them down. Clever Fritz makes like Bunthorne, shines in the high aesthetic line, and, after a chorus of Wows, Far-outs, Cools and Groovys, all are sporting in a bathtub. Various aardvarks and alligators join the fun.