Early career (1956–1967) When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio
Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a
cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban
New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, so he promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped 10 cels that he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he received help and advice from established animators, including
Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella. Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew
Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a
comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director,
Gene Deitch. Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips
Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and
Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Other animation studios, such as
Hanna-Barbera, were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As
Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called
The Mighty Heroes on the spot. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could, and the villains were stupider than they were." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi would serve as its creative director and to oversee the entire project. Bakshi enlisted comic-book and pulp-fiction artists and writers
Harvey Kurtzman,
Lin Carter,
Gray Morrow,
Archie Goodwin,
Wally Wood, and
Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote, and designed four short films at Paramount:
The Fuz,
Mini-Squirts,
Marvin Digs, and
Mouse Trek.
Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "
flower child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian
Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust". Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to
Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard, who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours. The studio began work on
Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the
Spider-Man television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed
Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience, and would likely consider it if his first film was an adaptation; luckily, he would find a comic that would become his first animated feature. While browsing the East Side Book Store on
St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of
Robert Crumb's
Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference. Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. Despite receiving financing from other sources, including
Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute
the soundtrack album on his
Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude
pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the
Lower East Side,
Washington Square Park,
Chinatown, and
Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a
Rapidograph, the
technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of
Ashcan School painters such as
George Luks and
John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and
fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured
documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue; this, too, would become a signature of Bakshi's.
Variety called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book
Masters of Animation that
Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of
Heavy Traffic in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from
penny arcades, where Bakshi often played
pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched
Heavy Traffic to
Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured
underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on
Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of
Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new
BMW and a mansion in
Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including
Martin Scorsese,
Francis Ford Coppola, and
Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied. As he continued to work on
Heavy Traffic, Bakshi began pitching his next project,
Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the
Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer
Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of
The Godfather. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about
Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including
Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later. Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to
ad lib during the recording sessions. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence,
Heavy Traffic was rated X.
Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics.
Newsweek applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie, and peculiar raw beauty."
Coonskin (1973–1975) In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of
Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While
Fritz the Cat and
Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs, and profanity. Bakshi cast
Scatman Crothers,
Philip Michael Thomas,
Barry White, and
Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two media could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to
Coonskin No More..., and finally to
Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on
Coonskin, Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators.
Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative;
Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." ''
Hey Good Lookin''' is set in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro, and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based on Bakshi's high-school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973.
Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. Animation historian
Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in
Coonskin,
Heavy Traffic, and
Fritz the Cat."
Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978) In 1976, Bakshi pitched
War Wizards to
20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator
Ian Miller and comic book artist
Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president
Alan Ladd Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on
George Lucas's
Star Wars. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and
back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves. In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's
Cheech Wizard character." In late 1976, Bakshi learned that
John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of
The Lord of the Rings, in which
J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with
Mike Medavoy,
United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on
Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for
The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded
John Hurt, who performed the role of
Aragorn. The project's prominence brought heavy
trade journal coverage, and fans such as
Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action Aragorn costume, which he wore while animating. Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive".
David Denby of
New York felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million.
American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983) Following the production struggles of
The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal.
American Pop follows four generations of a
Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American
pop and starred actor
Ron Thompson in a dual lead role. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on
home video until 1998. In February 2025, Bakshi would release the
The Cigarette and the Weed in full via his social media accounts. By 1982, fantasy films such as
The Beastmaster and
Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator
Frank Frazetta.
Fire and Ice was financed by some of
American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of
Filmation's
He-Man series. [...]
Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of
Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as
Conan."
Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986) After production of
Fire and Ice wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of
Hunter S. Thompson's
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,
William Kotzwinkle's
The Fan Man,
E. R. Eddison's
The Worm Ouroboros,
Stephen Crane's
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,
Mickey Spillane's
Mike Hammer novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of
Sherlock Holmes. He turned down offers to direct
Ray Bradbury's
Something Wicked This Way Comes and
Philip K. Dick's
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. He passed the latter to
Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film
Blade Runner (although he was planning a TV version of said film). In 1983, he was set to direct a
film adaptation of the
Robert E. Howard character
Red Sonya of Rogatino, but after production was pushed back a year, Bakshi was replaced with
Richard Fleischer, who also directed the previous Robert E. Howard adaptation
Conan the Destroyer (1984). During this period, Bakshi reread
J. D. Salinger's
The Catcher in the Rye, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist,
Holden Caulfield. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form. Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay ''Bobby's Girl'' as a take on the
teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at
TriStar Pictures, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about
Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. ''Bobby's Girl
was reworked as a potential primetime series called Suzy's in Love'', but attracted no serious interest. They would try again in 2003 over at
Spümcø, but nothing came from this either.
Return to television (1987–1989) In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of
CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor,
Tom Minton,
Eddie Fitzgerald and
Jim Reardon met to brainstorm. Bakshi remembers, "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to
Mighty Mouse, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!" During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled
cocaine use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the cut, insisting that the action was harmless and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the CBS
standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy. The same year, he began production on a series pilot loosely adapted from his
Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have
Duke Ellington and
Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack."
Nickelodeon was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of
Junktown. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot
Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit". Besides Bakshi, sitcom alumnus Rob Sternin and Prudence Fraser wrote and produced the project.
Cool World, continued television projects and semi-retirement (1990–1997) In 1990, Bakshi pitched
Cool World to
Paramount Pictures as a partially animated
horror film. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. The live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of
Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor
Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace
Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with
Kim Basinger, a bigger box office draw at the time. on July 26, 2008 Designer
Milton Knight recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier
Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting. In 1993,
Lou Arkoff, the son of
Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for
Showtime's
Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for ''If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her
, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy''. In 1995,
Hanna-Barbera producer
Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for
Cartoon Network's
What a Cartoon!:
Malcom and Melvin and
Babe, He Calls Me, focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. He later became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the
Sci Fi Channel, In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to
New Mexico, where he became more productive than ever in his painting and began development on the Last Days of Coney Island film. In 2012, Bakshi began producing the short film series
Bakshi Blues. The first of these shorts,
Trickle Dickle Down, contains reused animation from
Coonskin and criticizes 2012 Republican presidential candidate
Mitt Romney. The shorts were to focus on "old and new characters" and comment on modern-day America. In February 2013, Bakshi launched a successful
Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for his latest film,
Last Days of Coney Island. Actor
Matthew Modine was cast in the film in February 2013 after Modine, a longtime Bakshi fan, came across the film's Kickstarter campaign online.
Last Days of Coney Island was released on
Vimeo in 2015. Bakshi released the film for free on
YouTube on 13 October 2016.
Post-animation (2016–present) After he quit the animation industry, Bakshi did multiple interviews with the media and on podcasts. He continues to sell art on
eBay and his website, both run by the Bakshi family. He currently sells an art series called Little Guys and Gals, which are fictional portraits of cartoon people. The series originated in November 2020 as random character sketches and officially began in January 2021, originally calling the series Little Gals and Little Guys. Bakshi appeared as a guest at a Canadian film festival which celebrates animation, SPARK Animation, which was held virtually, from October 28 to November 7, 2021. ==Accolades==