Fritz the Cat
DVD cover
Directed by	Ralph Bakshi
Written by	Ralph Bakshi based on characters created by Robert Crumb
Starring	Skip Hinnant, Rosetta LeNoire, John McCurry, Phil Seuling
Produced by	Steve Krantz
Distributed by	American International Pictures
Release date	April 12, 1972
Runtime	78 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$1,000,000
IMDb page

Fritz the Cat is a 1972 Animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. Based on the comic books by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States. Image File history File links Summary DVD cover: Ralph Bakshis 1972 (X-rated) animated film Fritz the Cat. ... Image File history File links Summary DVD cover: Ralph Bakshis 1972 (X-rated) animated film Fritz the Cat. ... Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel) is a director of animation and occasionally live-action films. ... Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel) is a director of animation and occasionally live-action films. ... Robert Crumb (born August 30, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an artist and illustrator who signs his work R. Crumb. Crumb was a founder of the underground comics movement, and is often regarded as the most prominent figure in that movement. ... Skip Hinnant (Born September 12, 1940 in Chincoteague Island, Virginia) is an American actor. ... Rosetta LeNoire (Rosetta Olive Burton) (August 8, 1911 - March 17, 2002) was an African American stage, screen, and television actress ad Broadway producer and casting agent. ... American International Pictures was formed in 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff, dedicated to releasing independently produced, low-budget films, primarily of interest to the teenagers of the 1950s. ... Jump to: navigation, search April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four with the length of 30 days. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ... Animation refers to the process in which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result. ... Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel) is a director of animation and occasionally live-action films. ... Robert Crumb (born August 30, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an artist and illustrator who signs his work R. Crumb. Crumb was a founder of the underground comics movement, and is often regarded as the most prominent figure in that movement. ... X-rated, X certificate, X classification or similar terms are labels for movies implying strong adult content, typically pornography or violence. ...

Shlock producer Steve Krantz saw potential in Bakshi's vision for animated films specifically for adults. Having sold Krantz the production and distribution for what was to become the 1973 Bakshi feature, Heavy Traffic, Krantz told Bakshi to make a film adapted from another author's work before moving on to his original work. Bakshi agreed, and the two searched for the perfect project, eventually settling on Robert Crumb's satirical 1960s comic book Fritz the Cat, a character Crumb partially based on himself. Jump to: navigation, search 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ... Heavy Traffic is an full-length animated film by Ralph Bakshi, released in 1973 by American International Pictures. ... Robert Crumbs Fritz the Cat Ralph Bakshis Fritz the Cat Fritz the Cat is a comic book character created by Robert Crumb during the height of the underground comics movement of the 1960s. ...

Crumb saw the film as a perfect opportunity to immortalize his name in film history, and agreed to give Bakshi and Krantz the film rights to the character, thinking that the film would be promoted as "an R. Crumb film." Unfortunately for Crumb, this was not to be the case. Bakshi took to adapting Robert Crumb's comics the way he did to writing his own screenplays. Bakshi injected the film with various satiric points that had not been in the original comics the film was based on, made the sexual scenes more extreme, and added a heavy dose of violence that became a trademark for Bakshi's later films.

When Crumb saw the final product, he was displeased. Crumb tried to sue the film's distributors to have his name taken off of the credits, but failed. He later claimed in interviews that the project was "an embarrassment to him," and that the film was made without his permission (Crumb claimed that he had refused to give Bakshi and Krantz the rights to his film, but that his first wife Dana Crumb held the rights, so Bakshi and Krantz got her permission).

Still, despite Crumb's objections, Fritz the Cat was a box office smash hit, drawing in audiences as much for its shock value as for its appeal to the "love generation" of the 1960s. It made $25 million in the United States, and $90 million worldwide.

The film was released theatrically by American International Pictures, and later re-released by Orion Pictures Corporation, and is now available on VHS and DVD by MGM Home Entertainment, the current copyright owners of the Orion and AIP film catalogues. American International Pictures was formed in 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff, dedicated to releasing independently produced, low-budget films, primarily of interest to the teenagers of the 1950s. ... Orion Pictures Logo Orion Pictures Corporation was a United States movie production company, formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. ... Jump to: navigation, search Top view VHS cassette with US Quarter for scale Bottom view of VHS cassette with magnetic tape exposed The Video Home System, first released in 1976, better known by its acronym VHS, is a recording and playing standard for video cassette recorders (VCRs), developed by JVC... Jump to: navigation, search DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... MGM Home Entertainment is the home video and DVD distribution arm of MGM. In 1979, MGM joined forces with CBS by establishing MGM/CBS Home Video. ...

Source Stories

Fritz the Cat is adapted from the following R. Crumb stories:

• Fritz Bugs Out--first serialized in the February to October 1968 issues of Cavalier

• Fritz the Cat--first published in R. Crumb's Head Comix, 1968.

• Fritz the No-Good--first published in the September/October issue of Cavalier.

Cavalier has multiple meanings: Cavalier is a male ballet dancer. ...

Plot Overview

Fritz the Cat is a satire on American college life of the 1960s: while Fritz doesn't attend any classes during the movie, he participates in major social upheavals based around the popular college protest movement of the time. Jump to: navigation, search Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. ...

Construction workers

The film begins with a typically Bakshian piece of dialogue: three construction workers talk about how they spend so much money to send their children to college, only to instead find out that the kids instead spend all of their time drinking booze, smoking marijuana, and screwing each other. One construction worker gets up to take a piss off of the scaffold, the urine landing on the head of a hippie with a guitar. Alcoholic beverages are drinks containing ethanol, popularly called alcohol. ... Species Cannabis indica Cannabis ruderalis Cannabis sativa Cannabis is a genus of flowering plant that includes one or more species. ... Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sex positions Francoeur, Robert T. (ed. ...

Fritz; buddies; girls

We switch over to the New York City park, where various hippies are gathered with guitars to sing protest songs. Fritz and his buddies show up in an attempt to get laid. Three girls show up, and walk right past them, instead taking up a conversation with a crow, trying to impress him with their knowledge of black history, but he blows them off. Jump to: navigation, search Species See text The true crows are in the genus Corvus; they are large Passerine birds. ... Jump to: navigation, search An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black), is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ...

Fritz catches their attention by saying his famous speech: "My soul is tormented! I've been up and down the four corners of this big old world! I've seen it all! I've done it all! I've fought many a good man, and laid many a good woman! I've had riches and fame and adventure...I've tasted life to the fullest, and still my heart cries out, yes, cries out in this hungry, tortured, wrecked quest: 'More!'"

Fritz and the girls "seek the truth."

Fritz invites the girls to his "pad" so they can "seek the truth," instead pulling them into an orgy in his buddy's bath tub. Two incredibly dimwitted cops (one of which is voiced by director Ralph Bakshi) show up to raid the place, chasing Fritz all the way down the street into a synagogue. Fritz manages to get out when the various Jews get up to celebrate the United States' decision to send more weapons into Israel. Jump to: navigation, search The term Orgy refers to a group activity involving unrestrained indulgence. ... Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel) is a director of animation and occasionally live-action films. ... A synagogue or synagog (from Greek συναγωγη, transliterated sunagoge, place of assembly literally meeting, assembly) is a Jewish house of prayer and study. ...

Fritz makes it back to his dorm, where his roommates ignore him. He winds up setting all of his notes and books on paper. When he tries to put the fire out with a blanket, the blanket catches on fire. The fire spreads throughout the dorm, finally setting the entire building ablaze.

Duke the Crow dukes it out with a bartender

On the run from the law, Fritz runs into a bar dominated by blacks. He meets Duke the crow, who invites him to "bug out." The duo steal a car, and Fritz winds up driving it off a bridge. Before the car crashes into the waters and rocks below, Duke winds up saving Fritz's life.

Bertha smokes a joint

The two arrive at an apartment owned by Bertha, a former prostitute-turned drug dealer. When Fritz arrives, she shoves several joints into his mouth. His use of marijuana increases his sex drive, and so he rushes off into an alley to have sex with Bertha the crow. While having sex with her, he comes to a supreme realization that he somehow has to help the civil rights movement.

He starts a riot, and winds up being chased by several cops. He hides in an alley where his girlfriend, Winston shows up to find him. She drags him out on a road trip to San Francisco, stopping at a couple of parties along the way. The car runs out of gas in the middle of the desert, and Fritz decides to abandon her. This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ...

Blue the biker

Fritz meets up with a heroin-addicted Nazi biker who tells Fritz that "the revolution could use a man like you." Along with the biker's horse girlfriend, Harriet, they take a ride up to an underground hide-out where several other revolutionaries tell Fritz of their plan to blow up a power plant. When Harriet objects, the other revolutionaries tie her down and beat her. Fritz tries to stop them, but can't. The others wind up raping her. Jump to: navigation, search Heroin or diacetylmorphine (INN) is an alkaloid opioid. ...

The terrorist group's leader drives Fritz to the power plant, where he plants the dynamite. The leader sets the fuse on fire and drives off before Fritz has a change of heart. He tries to get the dynamite out of its tight spot but fails. The explosion sends Fritz to the hospital, where his girlfriends show up to comfort him. He speaks what appear to be his final words before being revived and dragging the girls into another orgy. Look up terrorist in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Several black and white photographs taken by Bakshi appear over the end credits, many of which were used to trace the details onto the film's backgrounds.

External links

• Fritz the Cat at the Internet Movie Database
• Fritz the Cat at Ralph Bakshi.com