| One of the best and most underappreciated American animators. His filmography includes Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, Wizards, Lord of The Rings, Hey Good Lookin', American Pop, This Ain't bebop, The cool and the crazy, Cool World, Fire and Ice and we definitely must not forget The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse
"Ralph Bakshi was born in October, 1938. He grew up in Brooklyn, and went to the High School of Industrial Arts, now called High School of Art and Design. After graduation, armed with a cartooning diploma, he went to work at Terrytoons Animation Studio in New Rochelle, where he started as a cell painter. He quickly became an animator, working on all the major characters like Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Deputy Dog. He became the director on these shows when he was 25; and then was made Creative Director of the studio by CBS when he created and wrote The Mighty Heroes. He was offered the position of producer and director of Paramount Cartoon Studios, which had been the old Max Fleicher Studio, in 1967. There he did four theatricals: Marvin Digs, Mini Squirts, Super Basher and Bop, and the Fiendish Five. He hired, and worked with, Mort Drucker, Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Joe Kubit, Jim Steranko, Grey Morrow, Roy Krinkle. He was asked by Steve Krantz Productions to take over direction and production of Rocket Robin Hood, and then, the Spiderman series. At that point, he moved into animated features with Fritz the Cat which he wrote and directed in 1971. Heavy Traffic was created, written, and directed by Ralph and released in 1973. In the same year, he established Bakshi Productions, Inc. There he enjoyed working with key names from the history of animation: Jim Tyer, Virgil Ross, Irv Spense, John Sparey, Manny Perez, Bob Carlson, Jonny Vita, and Ed Barge. He created, wrote and directed Coonskin(Streetfight) with Producer Al Ruddy (Godfather1, Longest Yard). It was released in 1975. Wizards was created, written, directed and produced by him and released in 1977. Then, he directed Lord of the Rings, using rotoscoping technique, which was the Disney method for animating realistic characters. It was released at the end of 1978. At this point, he started painting seriously, and getting ready for a show at the Ulrica Cantor Gallery in Los Angeles. Hey Good Looking was also created, written and directed by Ralph, and released in 1980 . Then American Pop, written, directed and produced for release in 1981; and Fire and Ice which was created, directed, and co-produced in 1983 with world renown fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta."
The stuff in quotes was taken from the Ralph Baskhi web site. |
