ralph bakshi (born october 29, 1938) started at the terrytoons studio in new rochelle, new york, at 18, hired on the recommendation of his friend cosmo anzilotti. he worked as a cel polisher and cel painter, then as an animator; at 25 he was promoted to director, his first series being sad cat. in 1966 he pitched the mighty heroes to cbs, which ran it as a segment of mighty mouse playhouse under the title mighty mouse and the mighty heroes. he left terrytoons in 1967 to head paramount pictures' animation division, where he directed four shorts — the fuz, mini-squirts, marvin digs and mouse trek — before paramount closed the unit on december 1, 1967.
he founded bakshi productions in manhattan in 1968; the studio worked on rocket robin hood and the spider-man television series and ran a commercials division, ralph's spot. fritz the cat (1972), adapted from robert crumb's comic strip and produced with steve krantz, was the first animated feature to receive an x rating from the motion picture association of america. heavy traffic (1973) followed, then coonskin (1975), which mixed live action with animation and was given only limited distribution.
wizards (1977) grew out of fantasy drawings bakshi had made in high school and built its battle scenes from enlarged copies of film frames. the lord of the rings (1978), produced by saul zaentz for united artists, adapted the fellowship of the ring and part of the two towers and rotoscoped live-action footage shot in spain. american pop (1981) traced four generations of a russian jewish immigrant family of musicians. fire and ice (1983), a collaboration with the fantasy illustrator frank frazetta, was financed by some of american pop's investors and distributed by 20th century fox.
in 1987 he returned to television, producing mighty mouse: the new adventures for cbs with john kricfalusi as senior director; it ran for two seasons. cool world (1992) was released by paramount after its screenplay was rewritten during production, and it was his last theatrical feature as director. he made the live-action film cool and the crazy for showtime in 1994 and the animated anthology series spicy city for hbo in 1997, then concentrated on painting; his short last days of coney island was released in 2015.
related profiles; John Kricfalusi, Paul Terry, Bill Melendez
sources; wikipedia: ralph bakshi, wikipedia: terrytoons, wikipedia: fritz the cat, wikipedia: the lord of the rings (1978), wikipedia: fire and ice, wikipedia: mighty mouse: the new adventures
hope this page was useful;
the guy who maintains these pages
makes films that can be seen on youtube
and software that can be used by artists
if you want to help the operation, support here