Ralph Bakshi was tired of the "cute" stuff. He was done with the sugary, safe, and frankly boring world of American animation that had been dominated by Disney for decades. So, he took a character from Robert Crumb—the king of underground comix—and made Fritz the Cat. It was 1972. The world hadn't seen anything like it. It was the first animated feature to ever receive an X rating from the MPAA.
People lost their minds.
If you watch it today, it’s a trip. The movie is a jagged, dirty, and incredibly cynical time capsule of the late 1960s counterculture. It doesn't just push boundaries; it sets them on fire and dances in the ashes. We aren't talking about a "kids' movie with adult jokes" like Shrek. No. This is a film about race riots, police brutality, drug use, and the vapid nature of revolutionary politics. It's messy. It’s loud. Honestly, it’s kind of a miracle it even exists.
The Chaos Behind the Scenes of Fritz the Cat
The production was basically a war zone of creativity. Bakshi was a young guy, barely in his 30s, trying to prove that animation could be a "serious" medium for adults. He didn't have a massive Disney budget. He had grit. He went out into the streets of New York with a tape recorder and interviewed real people—construction workers, protesters, regular folks—and used those actual recordings for the background chatter in the film. That’s why the dialogue feels so lived-in and gritty. It wasn't scripted by a room of Hollywood writers; it was stolen from the sidewalk.
Robert Crumb, the guy who actually created Fritz in the comics, famously hated the movie. Like, really hated it. He hated it so much that he eventually killed off the character in his comics just so nobody could make another movie like it. Crumb felt Bakshi had turned his nuanced, albeit weird, character into a "screaming, loud-mouthed, obnoxious" version of himself. It’s one of the great feuds in art history. On one side, you have the visionary director who made the film a massive box-office hit ($90 million on a tiny budget). On the other, the creator who felt his soul had been sold to the devil.
The X rating was actually a marketing gift. Warner Bros. originally had a hand in it, but they got cold feet because of the adult content. When they dropped it, Cinemation Industries picked it up. They leaned into the controversy. They used the tagline: "He’s X-rated and animated!" It worked. People lined up around the block because they were told they weren't allowed to see it.
💡 You might also like: Not the Nine O'Clock News: Why the Satirical Giant Still Matters
Why the Animation Style Still Hits Different
You’ve got to look at the backgrounds. They are incredible. Bakshi used a lot of watercolor and grimy, detailed cityscapes that look nothing like the flat, primary-color worlds of the 1970s TV cartoons. The New York of Fritz the Cat feels sticky. You can almost smell the trash and the exhaust.
The character designs are bouncy and "rubbery," which creates this jarring contrast. You have these cartoon animals—cats, crows, pigs—acting out scenes of extreme violence or sexual encounters. It’s a visual dissonance that forces you to pay attention. It wasn't just shock value for the sake of shock value, though some critics back then definitely thought so. Bakshi was using the medium to satirize the very idea of the "innocent" cartoon.
- The Crows: Representing the Black community in the film, the crows are some of the most controversial elements today.
- The Pigs: Used to represent the NYPD (a common slang of the era).
- Fritz himself: A NYU dropout, a wannabe revolutionary, and a total narcissist.
The film moves at a breakneck pace. One minute Fritz is in a bathtub at a party, the next he’s leading a riot in Harlem, and then he’s out in the desert with a group of biker terrorists. It’s episodic. It feels like a fever dream because that’s exactly what the late 60s felt like to the people living through them.
The Political Minefield of 1972
You can't talk about Fritz the Cat without talking about race. The film is deeply steeped in the racial tensions of the era. Bakshi, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, grew up in diverse neighborhoods and felt that the Disney-fied version of America was a lie. He wanted to show the friction.
The Harlem sequence is the heart of the movie. Fritz goes there thinking he’s some kind of enlightened liberal ally, but he’s really just a tourist looking for "authenticity." He ends up inciting a riot that gets people killed, and then he just... leaves. It’s a brutal critique of white radicalism. The movie suggests that these college-aged "revolutionaries" were mostly full of it. They wanted the excitement of the struggle without any of the actual consequences.
📖 Related: New Movies in Theatre: What Most People Get Wrong About This Month's Picks
Critics like Roger Ebert gave it praise at the time, noting that it was a "very funny" and "skilfully made" film, but others were horrified. They didn't know how to categorize it. Was it pornography? Was it art? Was it just garbage? The reality is that it was a bit of all three. That’s what makes it a cult classic. It refuses to be one thing.
Fritz’s Lasting Impact on Adult Animation
Without Fritz, we don't get The Simpsons. We don't get South Park. We definitely don't get BoJack Horseman.
Bakshi proved that you could make money—lots of it—by targeting adults with animation. He broke the "animation is for kids" barrier in the United States. Before 1972, the industry was stagnant. Fritz was the crowbar that pried the door open. It showed that the medium could handle heavy themes:
- Existential dread and the search for "meaning" in a chaotic world.
- The failure of political movements.
- The raw, unpolished reality of urban life.
Even though there was a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, Bakshi wasn't involved, and it shows. It lacks the bite and the visual flair of the original. The first film remains the definitive statement. It’s a dirty, mean-spirited, hilarious, and visually inventive piece of cinema that captures a specific moment in American history better than almost any live-action film of the time.
How to Watch It Now (and What to Look For)
If you’re going to dive into Fritz the Cat today, you need to watch it with a historical lens. Some of the caricatures are uncomfortable. Some of the pacing is weird. But if you look past the shock value, you’ll see a masterclass in independent filmmaking.
👉 See also: A Simple Favor Blake Lively: Why Emily Nelson Is Still the Ultimate Screen Mystery
Look at the way Bakshi uses color to set the mood of a scene. Notice the way the sound design incorporates the ambient noise of the city. Pay attention to the soundtrack, which features heavy hitters like Charles Mingus and Cal Tjader. It’s a jazz-soaked, whiskey-breathed journey through the underbelly of New York.
Practical Steps for Film History Buffs:
- Compare the Source Material: Pick up a copy of Robert Crumb’s original Fritz comics. Notice how much more cynical Crumb is compared to Bakshi.
- Check Out the Soundtrack: The funk and jazz score is genuinely one of the best of the 70s. It stands alone as a great listening experience.
- Watch 'Heavy Traffic': If you like Fritz, Bakshi’s follow-up, Heavy Traffic, is often considered his actual masterpiece. It’s even more personal and visually daring.
- Research the "X" Rating: Look into the history of the MPAA in the early 70s. Understanding why this film was rated X (and how that differed from today's NC-17) adds a lot of context to the "scandal."
The film isn't just a relic. It’s a reminder that animation can be dangerous. In a world of polished, corporate-approved CGI, there’s something incredibly refreshing about a movie that’s this rough around the edges. It’s a movie that doesn't care if you like it. It’s a movie that has something to say, even if it has to scream it in your face while tripping over its own feet.
If you want to understand where adult animation started, you have to start with the cat. Just don't expect him to be nice. He’s a jerk, the world he lives in is a mess, and that’s exactly why the film works. It’s honest in a way that very few films—animated or otherwise—ever manage to be.