Cheap Fritz the Cat (DVD) (Ralph Bakshi) Price

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Customer Reviews of Fritz the Cat

from Fringe Video Fanzine Issue #005
Hailed as being the first animated cartoon for adults, an idea that should be re-born. Fritz the Cat was made during a time when audiences where demanding radical change, yet the motion picture industry still was trying to hold on to its more conservative values. The movie was given a controversial X rating during it's initial release in 1972, which actually helped the film generate a larger ticket buying audience, and made the cartoon "...one of the most successful animated features of its time..." Based on characters created by sixties icon cartoonist Robert 'Keep On Truckin' Crumb, the movie took two and a half years to produce, costing close to a million dollars. Shocking audiences throughout North America with it's constant references to sex, drugs, and rock-'n'-roll, Fritz is actually quite tame by today's standards. The story consists of a cool cat, and NYU student named Fritz who encounters, and embraces adventures as they come. Indulging in life's pleasures, such as "...everything from multiple bedroom follies to a wild joy ride through a dangerous Harlem..." He starts a full scale riot, and later goes on a road trip to San Francisco. His multiple run in's with the law continue as he meets up with a sadistic biker rabbit and his donkey mama [who Fritz watches being brutally beaten]. The cool cat's adventures take a turn for the worst when he meets up with some radical revolutionary types, and he get talked into blowing up a power plant for the sake of the psychedelic revolution.

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A landmark Film
Fritz the cat is a great satire on american culture in the late 60'es and early 70'es very few film's would show the subjects that fritz the cat does and his a cartoon. It is a story about a cat who has one big adventure in the city this film is landmark not just for its content but for how courges the people where for making a film/cartoon like this. I loved the movie and the DVD is ok just has the movie and trailer but for a film like this thats all you need. A word of warning this is a adults only film it is still rated NC-17 and NC-17 means what X ment back in the 70'es and 80'es so its still just as bad as it was back then.

Warning: This film is rated NC-17 for graphic violence,extrem adult thems,graphic sex scenes,nudity,and strong graphic language. This is a cartoon but is a cartoon for adults only.

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Fritz the Cat
Ah, "Fritz The Cat" one of the most beloved Adult Cartoons there is, in fact "Fritz The Cat" influenced the adult
cartoons we have today to an extent, showcasing violence and sex and in between commenting on society where it is, where it has been, and where it's going to.

First I should say, that this is the first animated movie that was given an "X"
by MPAA. After looking at the film I'd say it has more of an "R" rating at best.

I also I am glad to finally write a review on it, because the cartoon has been dismissed as trash by critics, but
it's not trash, there are a couple of interesting bits in the movie, but if you watch the movie with "head up your butt, politically correct" mentality, then
you wont see the points the movie is trying to make.

Now "Fritz the Cat" was done by Legendary Ralph Bakshi who has brought classics like "Spiderman" and
"The Hulk" cartoons to tv, but as a director he has matured over the news

and has use his medium and power to include bigger cartoon movies that showcase societal messages like in his "Wizards" cartoon movie with Mark Hamill (from Star Wars) to comment on WWII and Nazi party.

Now the film was also made from writer Robert Crumb who created the characters. Now if you watch any of Crumb's cartoons you catch several of his trademark "movies" like "Heavy Traffic" a good movie about out work artists with commentary on society , capitalism and the movie industry itself. The movie also has a very dark imagination often putting in live action with animation and mingling the two successfully too .
Now it has been released on DvD, but the DVD is very poor offering no extras, so dont waste any money on it,
the vhs version is much cheaper to get.

The films plot revolves around a young adolescent cat name Fritz who wants to experience everything that life has to offer: women, sex, drugs and rock and roll. Fritz is an independent free spirit, someone who hates authority and basically does whatever he wants to do when he wants to do it. He in a way
reminds me of that character Dustin Hoffman played in "Midnight Cowboy" having fun, but also ridiculing those idiots around him including a couple of protesters who he says "should get
a real job"....speaking of which, "Fritz The Cat" has a couple of references to the 60's and hippies, and its pretty funny. One of which is as many
of the characters in the movie point out, that 1960's hippies have turned fat and never amounted to anything...except for smoking alot of pot. It's not very flattering, but it is part realistic, because
I am sure people know a couple of their hippie friends who "freeloaded" back in the 1960's and who despite saying that were for the peace movement were only there for free food and sex and by 1970's became fat and never amounted to anything.

So Fritz is a freespirited, but selfimposing invididual who at first has no ambitions other than, having sex with many girls and he achieves his goal
....having an orgy with a couple of easy woman in his friends place luring them in with words of poetry...lol.

However the orgy is interrupted when cops (portrayed as talking pigs...yeah you heard the cops are pigs...
a term that is now used to refer to real cops) bust in..but these cops are so stupid it's funny and well everyone they tried to arrest (with really no evidence) get away.

Fritz escapes but hides in a Jewish Synagogue and from there laughs and mayhem ensues as Fritz once
again makes fools of the cops and escapes back to his friends place egging him to quit studying for exams
and party. Howevever, being ruled by emotions, Fritz accidently burns down his friends place and his own
notes. Fritz has a couple of Entertaining Dream sequences that gives a glimpse into his personality and Crumb's use of great camera work blending in
inaminate objects with animation.

So then after this bit of carnage the movie tones a bit though and gets serious when Fritz encounters
Racism, violence, anarchy and state of capitalism and power which control every living thing and person
in this world. So this is when Crumb through Fritz, shows us these messages both graphically and in subtle
fashion, it's very well done and despite the fact that by the end of the film, nothing really changes, Fritz and the audience do become aware of the world that Fritz lives in and why he is the character he is after being in this environment. That is really the best way to describe it and to say but that wouldn't be giving the movie to much credit.

The voice of Fritz was done by Skp Hinnant, but taking a look at his resume, he unfornately didn't
have a rewarding acting career which is too bad.

"Fritz The Cat" spawned a sequel "Nine Lives of Fritz Cat" (which I had
the pleasure of seeing couple of months ago ). Commercially too the film did allright, there was a comic strip of "Fritz The Cat" by Robert Crumb ,soundtracks, and a couple of other memorabilia.

Anyhow, I very much recommend "Fritz The Cat", it will have you laughing and entertained throughout, but
look closer and you will a couple of messages that Crumb and Bakshi were trying to make at that time.