History Creator / RalphBakshi

The book ''Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi'' provides much information on the life, influences and work. His next work, ''WesternAnimation/TheLastDaysOfConeyIsland'', lingered in DevelopmentHell for years, until he [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ralphbakshi/last-days-of-coney-island-0?ref=recently_launched started a Kickstarter campaign]] to fund it, and, as of March 1, 2013, successfully made its goal. It was released exclusively on Vimeo in late 2015.

* DerangedAnimation: In most everything he's touched, save for ''WesternAnimation/TheLordOfTheRings'', ''WesternAnimation/AmericanPop'', and ''WesternAnimation/FireAndIce'', which were realistic, rotoscoped animation. [[note]]But that's not saying their anywhere near normal either.]]

* DerangedAnimation: In most everything he's touched, save for ''WesternAnimation/TheLordOfTheRings'', ''WesternAnimation/AmericanPop'', and ''WesternAnimation/FireAndIce'', which were realistic, rotoscoped animation.

->''"Ralph Bakshi is a force of nature. He saved the [[WesternAnimation TV animation]] industry -- the creative part of it -- by giving back the art to the artists."''

->''"Baby, I'm the world's most [[FollowTheLeader ripped-off]] cartoonist in the history of the world, and that's all I'm gonna say."''

* ''WesternAnimation/ChristmasInTattertown'' (1989, ChristmasSpecial produced for {{Nickelodeon}} loosely based on "Junktown")

* RogerRabbitEffect: ''Heavy Traffic'', ''Coonskin'' and ''CoolWorld''

* DeathByCameo: He himself makes a cameo in each of his films where he gets killed with the exceptions of ''WesternAnimation/TheLordOfTheRings'', ''WesternAnimation/FireAndIce'', ''WesternAnimation/AmericanPop'', and ''CoolWorld''.

* LighterAndSofter: ''Wizards'' is a rather dark film, but its a much lighter film than his first three animated features. Obviously, his [[Creator/DrSeuss Butter Battle Book]] TV special and two ''WesternAnimation/WhatACartoonShow'' shorts weren't as adult as most of his theatrical films.

* ''Film/CoolAndTheCrazy'' (1994)

Bakshi was born in Haifa (then part of the British mandate of Palestine) in 1937. When he was one year old, he traveled with his family to America and settled in Brownsville, New York, the seedy lower-income community that became the inspiration for the [[DarkerAndEdgier dark and gritty]] urban setting of many of his cartoons. UsefulNotes/WorldWarII was about to break out; in fact, when traveling past the Mediterranean, the ship on which the Bakshis were sailing was boarded by Nazi troopers, but the ship's American affiliations prevented the incident from becoming hostile.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLastDaysOfConeyIsland'' (2015): Was in DevelopmentHell for years, but Bakshi has now crowdfunded it via a successful [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ralphbakshi/last-days-of-coney-island-0?ref=recently_launched Kickstarter campaign.]] It was released on Vimeo on Demand on October 29, 2015, just in time for Bakshi's 77th birthday.

As of October 7, 2016, he has [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ralphbakshi/bakshis-short-thoughts launched a Kickstarter]] for another animated project, three one-minute shorts called "Short Thoughts", two of which are follow-ups to his previous films ''Wizards'' and ''Coonskin'', with the third one being a surprise.

* ''Short Thoughts'' (TBA): His latest project, which are three animated shorts, two of which are follow ups to ''Wizards'' and ''Coonskin'' respectively, with the third one being a surprise. He also plans to fund all three shorts with a Kickstarter campaign.

The book ''Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi'' provides much information on the life, influences and work. His next work, ''WesternAnimation/TheLastDaysOfConeyIsland'', lingered in DevelopmentHell for years, until he [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ralphbakshi/last-days-of-coney-island-0?ref=recently_launched started a Kickstarter campaign]] to fund it, and, as of March 1, 2013, successfully made its goal.

As of October 7, 2016, he has [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ralphbakshi/bakshis-short-thoughts launched a Kickstarter]] for another animated project, three shorts called "Short Thoughts", two of which are follow-ups to his previous films ''Wizards'' and ''Coonskin'', with the third one being a surprise.

* ''Wizards II'' (TBA): Ralph has stated that this is going to be his next project, if The Last Days of Coney Island does well in sales.

He got his start working for famed [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation golden-age]] American cartoonist [[Creator/{{Terrytoons}} Paul Terry]], a man who regarded cartoons as all business and no art. Bakshi's inventiveness, disregard for the rules, and all-around moxie eventually earned him a certain degree of prestige. He created the obscure [[NewspaperComics comic strips]] ''Bonefoot & Fudge'' and ''Junktown'', and launched some larger-scale animation projects like his animated film ''{{WesternAnimation/Wizards}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheMightyHeroes'', which he pitched on the spot to Creator/{{CBS}} execs, making up the show as he went along.

* ''WesternAnimation/HeyGoodLookin' '' (1982)

* DoingItForTheArt: He made his films very personal and gritty to contrast to Disney's obsessiveness with slickness and escapist entertainment and to combat tired, dumb cliches and perceptions of what cartoons are in general. He believes animation is a tool that can handle any kind of story, idea, technique or genre, and stresses the importance of content in films, and doesn't remotely care if his animation "works" or not, as long as he tries or has something new to say with the medium. He also adamantly stresses that polish and perfectionism only robs a film of raw energy and vitality, seeing it as a crutch to hide weak, stale ideas (he sees this as a flaw of Disney films and their followers, which he thinks are so overworked, over refined until they're perfect, that he finds them impersonal and boring).\\
\\
He discarded pencil tests and retakes not only for money reasons, but because he trusted the veteran animators to know he expected creativity and professionalism in their animation rather than perfection. And one time, when one artist came up to him pointing out a minor continuity mistake between two layout drawings (specifically, a key switching hands between the drawings), Ralph proceeded to chew him out in front of the whole studio, basically telling him he was wasting his time on irrelevant details, instead of what's really important to the film.
** There have been some projects he's done just to keep money flowing, but that was just so he would be able to make the projects he ''really'' wanted to do, rather than just make a quick buck for its own sake.
* ExecutiveMeddling: He's a frequent victim of this, particularly with ''CoolWorld'' and his TV series ''Spicy City'' (which led to the latter being cancelled despite decent ratings).

* SavedFromDevelopmentHell: His film ''The Last Days of Coney Island''.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Since Bakshi's brushes with ExecutiveMeddling are legion, his resumé could be this trope incarnate.
** Sometime during the 1980's when Ralph was working on ''Mighty Mouse'', he had recognized John K's talent. Ralph and John were planning on teaming up to do an animated film called "Bobby's girl". [[TeenDrama Which was set to be a parody of the teen comedies during the time]]. However Tri-Star [[ExecutiveMeddling canceled the project]]. But artwork of this proposed project can be seen in the [[http://www.amazon.com/Unfiltered-Complete-Bakshi-Behind-Mighty/dp/0789316846 Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi]] book. One can wonder what would have happened if this film had been made.
** "Christmas in Tattertown" was actually the pilot for what would've been Nickelodeon's first animated series. It didn't get picked up, but was successful enough to convince Nick to [[WesternAnimation/{{Doug}} produce]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}} their own]] [[WesternAnimation/TheRenandStimpyShow animated shows]]
** Ralph had an interest of doing a film of ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye''. He intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. J.D. Salinger rejected this offer (as well as the other offers that were made beforehand to adapt the book).
** Originally, Ralph Bakshi envisioned ''CoolWorld'' as an animated erotic horror film about a cartoonist who has sex with his hot female creation and spawns a half-human, half-cartoon daughter who sets out to kill her parents for being born a freak. Sadly, due to ExecutiveMeddling, the premise was changed into a wannabe ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' with nothing (except for the taboo of humans and animated characters having sex) from his original vision.
** One of the ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' supplement books contains a couple of character sketches done by Bakshi with commentary and pointers from artist Wendy Pini (since his elves and Pini's elves have a measure of similarity) as part of an (ultimately fruitless) project to create an ''[=ElfQuest=]'' animated series.
** Bakshi's plan for ''The Lord of the Rings'' was to make two films, one of which would cover as much of ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' as he could and ''The Two Towers'' up to the end of the battle of Helm's Deep, and the second film would cover the rest. The studio, however, would not greenlight two films at once, and then released the first film without the "Part One" that Bakshi wanted in the title, since they did not believe anyone would pay for "half a movie". The film didn't sell as well as they expected, mostly due to audiences realizing only after they had bought a ticket and sat through the whole thing that it wasn't the full story, and thus, the studio ruled against greenlighting the "sequel".

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Sometime during the 1980's when Ralph was working on ''Mighty Mouse'', he had recognized John K's talent. Ralph and John were planning on teaming up to do an animated film called "Bobby's girl". [[TeenDrama Which was set to be a parody of the teen comedies during the time]]. However Tri-Star [[ExecutiveMeddling canceled the project]]. But artwork of this proposed project can be seen in the [[http://www.amazon.com/Unfiltered-Complete-Bakshi-Behind-Mighty/dp/0789316846 Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi]] book. One can wonder what would have happened if this film had been made.

He got his start working for famed [[TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation golden-age]] American cartoonist [[Creator/{{Terrytoons}} Paul Terry]], a man who regarded cartoons as all business and no art. Bakshi's inventiveness, disregard for the rules, and all-around moxie eventually earned him a certain degree of prestige. He created the obscure [[NewspaperComics comic strips]] ''Bonefoot & Fudge'' and ''Junktown'', and launched some larger-scale animation projects like his animated film ''{{WesternAnimation/Wizards}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheMightyHeroes'', which he pitched on the spot to Creator/{{CBS}} execs, making up the show as he went along.

** Bakshi's plan for ''The Lord of the Rings'' was to make two films, one of which would cover as much of ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' as he could and ''The Two Towers'' up to the end of the battle of Helm's Deep, and the second film would cover the rest. The studio, however, would not greenlight two films at once, and then released the first film without the "Part One" that Bakshi wanted in the title, since they did not believe anyone would pay for "half a movie". The film didn't sell was well as expected, mostly due to audiences realizing only after they had bought a ticket and sat through the whole thing that it wasn't the full story, and thus, the studio ruled against greenlighting the "sequel".

Nowadays, Ralph Bakshi may be best remembered for his work on a film adaptation of RobertCrumb's risqué underground comic strip ''ComicBook/FritzTheCat'', which became [[WesternAnimation/FritzTheCat the first American cartoon to be rated X by the MPAA]], much to Bakshi's chagrin. He worked for the [[TheEighties 1980s]] revival of the classic "Franchise/{{Superman}} [[XMeetsY meets]] MickeyMouse" cartoon, ''WesternAnimation/MightyMouse'', which was later canned for [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar getting too much crap past the radar]] (one of which was a scene of alleged cocaine use that freaked out the MoralGuardians). Despite the content and censor interference, the show was extremely influential on pretty much every animated series that followed it over the next decade, specifically ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow''.

Nowadays, Ralph Bakshi may be best remembered for his work on a film adaptation of RobertCrumb's risqué underground comic strip ''ComicBook/FritzTheCat'', which became [[WesternAnimation/FritzTheCat the first American cartoon to be rated X by the MPAA]], much to Bakshi's chagrin. He worked for the [[TheEighties 1980s]] revival of the classic "Franchise/{{Superman}} [[XMeetsY meets]] MickeyMouse" cartoon, ''WesternAnimation/MightyMouse'', which was later canned for [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar getting too much crap past the radar]] (one of which was a scene of alleged cocaine use that freaked out the MoralGuardians). Despite the content and censor interference, the show was extremely influential on pretty much every animated series that followed it over the next decade, specifically ''TheRenAndStimpyShow''.

** "Christmas in Tattertown" was actually the pilot for what would've been Nickelodeon's first animated series. It didn't get picked up, but was successful enough to convince Nick to [[{{Doug}} produce]] [[{{Rugrats}} their own]] [[TheRenandStimpyShow animated shows]]

->''"Baby, I'm the world's most [[FollowTheLeader ripped-off]] cartoonist, and that's all I'm gonna say."''

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLastDaysOfConeyIsland'' (2015): Was in DevelopmentHell for years, but Bakshi has now crowdfunded it via a successful [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ralphbakshi/last-days-of-coney-island-0?ref=recently_launched Kickstarter campaign.]] It is due for release on Vimeo on Demand on October 29, 2015, just in time for Bakshi's 77th birthday.