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.
Direction
Bakshi's rotoscope/live-action fusion creates fever-dream NYC.
Writing
Meta-narrative about creation itself, with zero filter.
Director
Ralph Bakshi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Paramount executives were so horrified they shelved it for two years, demanding cuts; Bakshi snuck a workprint to critics who championed its release.
This and 'Fritz' essentially created the R-rated animation market—without them, no 'South Park,' no 'Rick and Morty,' no 'Arcane' pushing boundaries.
US
