Fritz the Cat - Movie Review (Not for Everyone, Due to Language and Adult Themes)

Cinemation Industries - 1972

Don't look, kids!

As I'm typing this right now, I haven't even started the movie yet. I pulled up a few pages for information on the film, and I can already tell you that this is gonna be another "love-it-or-hate-it" films. Widely regarded as Bakshi's most famous film and based on the work of Robert Crumb, Fritz the Cat is a lot of things. I mean, before we get to the actual movie, it's important that I at least give an introduction to Robert Crumb and the character of Fritz the Cat.

Observe the artist looking at the work of the old masters.

Robert Crumb is almost synonymous with the underground comics movement. Basically, underground comics were created as a counter-culture to the comics code authority larger publishers abided by. If you know anything about the comics code authority...

This thing.

...then you'll understand some of the frustrations of smaller creators and publishers. A lot of underground comics were known for their sex and violence, something mainstream comics wouldn't even touch back then until decades later. I absolutely abhor censorship, ladies and gentlemen. The ones who silence the most are the weakest in spirit, so I give a lot of credit to artistic movements such as the Italian Renaissance and the Underground Comics Movement (Capitalized, because they're that important) for their opposition of the mainstream. However, Robert Crumb has drawn some disturbing, effed-up stuff that I can't show, and even I think it goes a bit... Too far.

I think I'll skip all the racism he's been accused of, because he claims that he was actually parodying racism. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, since he portrayed blacks in his Fritz the Cat comics as crows.

Another example of lesser-known creators taking jabs at Disney's bullcrap.

Seriously. Do you remember those crows from Dumbo?

You do now. Besides charm and likeability, the Dumbo remake is also missing the talking mouse and the racist talking crows. Call me Mr. Tin-Foil Hat, but I like to think that Disney remade their own movie to have the newer one fresh in people's minds, so they think it's the same movie with a fresh coat of paint, but in fact, it's just the same movie without the racist crows. That scene from Fantasia was just a simple edit. The crows, however, are key in a scene where they figure out how to make an elephant fly. It would be way to obvious of an edit if they re-released the movie without the crows, so they remade Dumbo as an ugly CGI mistake that'll keep the kids quiet, and Disney will keep doing it. I just know it.

So, since underground comics really pushed the limits of what was morally possible, what exactly does an innocent little kitty cat like Fritz do in his own comic?

Okay, so Fritz isn't exactly a role-model. Or innocent, for that matter. In the comics, he joins a left-leaning terrorist group-

Whenever that phrase is uttered, Ben Shapiro jizzes in his pants a little.

Ahem. Fritz also rapes two women and has sex with his sister in one of the earlier comics.

I'm not making this up. Hell, if they had a Fritz the Cat animated series on HBO, everyone would call it brilliant, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Fun fact: Robert Crumb hated the movie so much, he killed off Fritz in a comic. Let me rephrase this so you understand my frustrations with R. Crumb. He was paid $50,000 dollars (Which is a little over $300,000 in today's money) for Bakshi to make a Fritz movie. $50-grand out of the $700-grand budget is not small by any stretch of the imagination. Fritz the Cat made $90 million dollars (Almost $550 million in today's money) at the box office. It's the first X-rated animated movie to be shown in theaters, and is widely regarded as a cult classic. This is what made Fritz the Cat a relatively famous character. And Crumb was so displeased with it, he killed Fritz in a comic, never to use him again.

Comic book movies can only dream of doing that well. (I mean, pre-MCU-splosion). When a superhero movie does bad, the creator wouldn't even think of killing their own character off out of spite. You could argue the fact that "Crumb was tired of drawing Fritz in the first place" but if he didn't want to draw Fritz, then why did he draw him just to be murdered? There's a Robert Crumb documentary, and I hope it answers a few questions on what influenced Robert Crumb as a whole. I've heard he's a bit of a creep, and I can only hope that's an exaggeration.

NOW. With all of this said and done, just so you folks have a frame of reference of the source material, how is the movie? Let's dive in.

Bam! Now this image is stuck in your head!

As the movie starts, we have our first taste of crumb-inspired filth with a horse pissing from the top of a skyscraper under construction. Less than 90 seconds into the movie, and we have a golden shower. And you see the guy's junk. Still with me?

Fritz and his two friends are trying to pick up chicks at a hippie get-together in a park. A trio of ladies seem more interested in talking to a crow (You know, the black-coded kind). They kinda suck at flirting with him, and give him the "I know black things" treatment to try and impress him. Now, I'm not black, but I imagine that's a bit condescending. It's a little uncomfortable to hear, even in a comedic and animated form. The crow walks away, all sassy like, giving Fritz the opportunity to pick the girls up. It was the 60s. It must have been easy. He said with heavy sarcasm.

In the most Fritz-like way, he gets the trio of girls to shag him in the bathroom at a stoner party. The cops arrive. Of course, in a world full of animals, the cops are pigs. And stupid. The stoner's bathroom quickly turns into something out of Rainfurrest: Overcrowded, full of sex and drugs. And soon, the authorities get involved. Fritz hides in the toilet, one of the pigs gets pissed on, and then gets pissed off. Fritz, high out of his mind, grabs the pig's gun, shoots the toilet, and causes a flood in the apartment. 

The cops chase Fritz into a synagogue, but Fritz manages to escape when the chosen people go wild over news of the US sending weapons to Israel. No, really. Fritz is tired of his normal boring life, and sets his dorm on fire, which sets the building on fire. No, really.

Fritz heads to a bar full of crows. You could call it... A bar for crows, where we get more clever racial banter.

Fritz: "I studied the race problems, man. I know-"
Duke the Crow: "You don't know anything about the race problems. You gotta be a crow to know about the race problems."

It's as simple as that. Feeling guilty about causing suffering is nothing compared to the pain of suffering.

Fritz and Duke steal a car, and nearly kill one of the pigs from before. Fritz drives like a complete maniac, and drives the car off a bridge. Both of them nearly die. Fritz is an idiot. They head to some drug den owned by a crow named Big Bertha.

Guess where she keeps her drugs. You're wrong. It's the other place.

Fritz smokes a lot of weed, and he and Bertha the Crow begin to shag. You can tell this is a fantasy, because Fritz hallucinates, has the energy to jump around and have sex, and doesn't have the munchies.

In some sort of idiotic revelation, Fritz begins to spout Marxist gibberish. The pigs arrive, and the crows surround them. A fight starts, and in the chaos, Duke the Crow is shot and killed, trying to protect Fritz from gunfire. Really, Duke was one of the more likable and innocent characters, and Fritz is the reason he's dead. He died trying to save Fritz.

More police show up, there's shooting in the streets. Fritz is now responsible for multiple deaths. The airforce shows up, and it's a miracle that Fritz survives. (At least for Fritz. He seems to bring chaos with him wherever he goes.) An old friend of his, Winston the Vixen, finds him in a garbage can, and takes him out of the city.

Fritz, being Fritz, abandons Winston in the desert. He then meets up with a blue, heroin-addicted Nazi biker rabbit, and Harriet, a horse. No, really. Blue, the blue junkie Nazi biker rabbit and Harriet the Horse take Fritz to a secret underground base, home of some evil terrorist organization. Blue, probably strung outta his mind, begins to assault Harriet with a chain. The other terrorists get a kick out of it, and it's implied that they rape her. Fritz does nothing to help. Only after Fritz is told to blow up a power plant does he have a change of heart. I would have stopped with Duke being shot trying to save me.

After failing to stop the dynamite from blowing up, Fritz is hospitalized. He survived an explosion to the face that could potentially level an entire power plant. Fritz is revived by the three girls from the beginning, and they canoodle. The End. Moral of the story: Fritz is a force of chaos and destruction.

This movie is absolutely insane, from beginning to end. It has anthropomorphic characters shagging, drugs, swearing, pissing, and themes of racial inequality. Should you watch it? Hell yes. I mean, there are movies like Coonskin that tried to break the mold, but Fritz the Cat did it years earlier, and with more sex and violence. An insane, one-of-a-kind movie, no doubt.

My Final Rating: 8.5/10. I learned nothing from this movie, but I feel better due to watching it.

This concludes Ralph Bakshi month. By no means were these four films his complete work. When I get to it, I'll make sure to take a look at more of his movies, or at least movies inspired by his work. Until next time, I suppose.