Product Description

Maverick writer-director Ralph Bakshi (Heavy Traffic) made his feature-length film debut with this "startling and audacious" (The Hollywood Reporter) foray into adult-content animation,creating the first X-rated cartoon and one of the most successful animated features of its time! Based on a legendary character created by underground comic book artist-writer R. Crumb, Fritz the Cat is a brilliant commentary on '60s life and a "snarling satire that stubbornly refusesto curl up in anyone's lap" (Playboy). It's the age of awakening and Fritz, one way-cool cat and NYU student, loves to embrace every experimental experience that crosses his path. Embarking on a fantastic journey of self-discovery, he indulges in everything from multiple bedroom follies to a wild joy ride through a dangerous Harlem. But when Fritz joins a group of radically aggressive hippies, he finds himself holding the dynamite that will detonate the ultimate '60s statement one that could cost him his life!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10623 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-12-11
• Rating: X (Mature Audiences Only)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 78 minutes

Amazon.com
Advertised as "X-rated and Animated," Fritz the Cat earned an impressive $25 million in 1972. Screenwriter-director Ralph Bakshi based the film on three of Robert Crumb's stories about a superficial college student who tried to seduce anything in a skirt. The gritty, often gross film shocked U.S. audiences accustomed to innocent flirtations and slapstick comedy in cartoons. Thirty years later, Fritz looks less shocking than puerile. The violence grafted onto Crumb's innocent stories feels gratuitous, and the racial imagery tasteless. As dated as a Nehru jacket, the film will interest students of animation history and American pop culture. Crumb detested the film: he drew Fritz as a decadent Hollywood star, who was exploited by caricatures of Bakshi and producer Steve Krantz--and murdered by a bitter ex-girlfriend. "Another casualty of the '60s..." --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews

He fought many a good man....
Although Fritz's creator Robert Crumb supposedly wasn't so crazy about this film, I gotta say this is definitely the masterpiece its rumored to be... What's so wild about it (besides the incredibly funky Hammond organ laden Jazz soundtrack featuring the likes of Charles Earland and Merle Saunders) is that although it was made on the '70s and was a saracastic and twisted take on the '60s the film is anything but dated, even with all the student revolutionary, free love and pot smoking in it... In fact, I think its gotten even funnier with time... and if you're old enough to remember some of the "types" in this film... its even more funnier (or perhaps scarier.)... What freaked me out was when I realized that even BLUE the meth addict neo-nazi motorcycle gang biker and his *literally* fat cow girlfriend reminded me of some real people - - Though there aren't a lot of extra features, the trailer for the film is pretty wild and cool itself...Overall, Fritz the Cat, being one of those films who's scenes you watch over and over and over again is DEFINITELY worth getting... especially on DVD... The kicks never wear off...

Classic Animated Feature
Now this film isn't for every one. The orgie scene alone will probably offend half of Americans out there, but if you can look beyond all of it you can enjoy one of the most classic American animated films of all time. And yes, I dare call it that.

Fritz the Cat is not only a classic for bringing Ralph Bakshi into the Hollywood fray, but it also does some thing few American animated films accomplish: it presents a time in America and the founding ideologies and feelings of that period. Drugs, free love, government, the Middle East, racism...its all there. "Oliver and Company" may have some nice shots of New York City, but Fritz the Cat captures the look and feel of the city and its people better than that film ever could.

Ralph Bakshi is one of my idol animators, and I believe this is one of his landmark films. It will remain a classic, whether some people want it to or not.

'Fritz The Cat' (MGM Studios) Running time: 79 minutes
Originally released in 1972.I,personally remember seeing this cult classic in a drive-in as well as at a midnight movie(sure miss those anymore;guess since everyone has a DVD player,there's so little call for such).There's STILL something to be said for viewing a movie on a twenty-five foot silver screen.Anyway,'Fritz The Cat' has to be one of the best ever counter-culture flicks ever made.Liked it better than any of the Cheech&Chong movies,except for maybe 'Up In Smoke'.Takes place in New York in the late '60's where good-for-nothing feline Fritz is on a full time search for the sex,drugs and rock&roll lifestyle.The voices in this movie fit right in.Before the likes of Beavis&Butthead,South Park and Family Man,there was this satire.Great animation,I thought.Well worth repeated views.One should enjoy many plays in future years to come.Highly recommended.Ideal humor for aging hippies,former bikers,acid heads and late nighters who don't work at a regular job.