- Acting for Two:
- Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger respectively play Frank Harris and Holli Would in their doodle and noid forms.
- Joey Camen voices the first interrogator, Slash and Holli's door.
- Maurice LaMarche voices the second interrogator, Mash, Jack's super form and Dr. Vincent Whiskers.
- Candi Milo plays Bob and Lonette.
- Box Office Bomb: Budget, $28 million. Box office, $14,110,589.
- Breakaway Pop Hit: Despite the film bombing at the box office and being critically maligned, "Disappointed" by Electronic became a Top 10 hit on the Alternative Airplay and dance charts in the US (though missing the mainline Hot 100), reaching No. 6 on the UK Singles chart as well.
- Cast the Runner-Up: Ralph Bakshi originally wanted Brad Pitt to play Jack. Brad said he wanted the same, but Paramount Pictures disagreed and he was instead cast as Frank.
- Creator Backlash: David Kcenich, who worked on the film as an effects assistant animator, doesn't think too highly of the film, and blames the film's failure on its Troubled Production."I actually worked on it. Sure it was bad and had a ton of problems with the story but there are so many behind the scene problems that lead to it being so bad. Despite all the negative comments about Ralph Bakshi he gave a lot of artists their first break into an industry that was in a state of flux in the 90's. There were story issues and so many changes and budget problems that it's a surprising it even got released. There was so much really good animation cut out from the original version after the rating change. The working conditions were horrible. I actually worked in a closet for most of the film. Half the crew was gone when the whole Super Hero guy was added to the ending. Sure Ralph had issues and studio conflicts but he gave an unemployed artist a job when he was about to give up his dream of being an animator. Sure it was difficult explaining the plot to my family and I did tell them not to see it but before you tear into a film just remember there might be some behind the scene shit that lead to it being the way it is. It is hard to sit through I agree but there is some really good animation in it. It's really bad but it isn't the worst."
- Creator Killer:
- Ralph Bakshi had already moved onto television and only returned to filmmaking to do this film. Its failure and Troubled Production simply reiterated his desire to stay out of movies for twenty more years before returning to his indie roots with the crowd-funded The Last Days of Coney Island.
- Michael Grais and Mark Victor secretly rewrote the film on Mancuso Jr.'s orders, without Bakshi's input. The end result - both the nature of the film itself and the fallout with the Writer's Guild over essentially scabbing - effectively obliterated their writing careers entirely (the next time they got a writing credit was on the 2015 remake of Poltergeist, and that was for their original script). They also did not work on another film until the end of the decade.
- Executive Meddling: The movie was intended to be an erotic horror flick about a cartoonist who had sex with a sexy cartoon woman he created named Debbie Dallas and is now the father of a half-real, half-cartoon girl who considers herself a freak and goes on a rampage against the man who spawned her. However, Frank Mancuso Jr. had spent most of The '80s producing in some form or another on almost all of the Friday the 13th movies that were made during that time, other horror flicks like April Fools' Day and Body Parts, as well as horror-themed shows like Friday's Curse aka Friday the 13th: The Series, and The War Of The Worlds 1988, so he was understandably tired of doing horror films and wanted to do something different. Kim Basinger was also uninterested in doing a horror movie and was much more intrigued with the idea of doing a film that could be shown to sick children in hospitals and was put off by how adult the original script was, so as filming went on the movie was changed to be more family-friendly (though it really doesn't come off that way) and into the complete and total bomb we know it as. The film hurt both of their careers as a result.
- Fake American: Walkinstown, Dublin-born Irish actor Gabriel Byrne as the American Jack.
- Follow the Leader: Followed on the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Another comedy/crime parody film centering around live-action characters entering a world of cartoons.
- Genre-Killer: Though there were a few other PG-13 rated animated features in the interim (most of which were based on TV shows, such as The Simpsons Movie), this film put a severe halter on wide-release animated features for adults until Sausage Party, reinforcing the Animation Age Ghetto for over two decades.
- Hostility on the Set: Needless to say, Ralph wasn't very happy with the revision of the script that he wrote, which led to a heated argument between him and Mancuso Jr. (though writer Michael Grais denied to both How Did This Get Made? and Slashfilm the widespread story that Bakshi punched Mancuso in the face)
- Mid-Development Genre Shift: This was originally intended to be an erotic horror film, but Frank Mancuso Jr. didn't want to make a horror movie, and Kim Basinger wanted something more family-friendly.
- Money, Dear Boy: Ralph Bakshi decided to return to the film business for financial reasons (though he actually liked the idea of an "animated horror film" of the original pitch, before Executive Meddling disfigured it beyond recognition):
- No Dub for You: In Japan, the film was released on DVD subtitled-only.
- Permanent Placeholder: Originally, Candi Milo wasn't supposed to be the voice of Lonette. She was only there as a line-feeder for the other actors, but she was put in after the producers saw that she was great with doing voiceovers and acting.
- Playing Against Type: It was Ralph Bakshi's only attempt at a big-budget Hollywood film.
- Star-Derailing Role: Cool World was of five films in the early '90s (the others being The Marrying Man, Final Analysis, The Real McCoy, and The Getaway) that ended Kim Basinger's status as an A-list actress after a great stint in the '80s. Getting sued into bankruptcy for backing out of Boxing Helena ensured that she wouldn't get another role until L.A. Confidential.
- Troubled Production: The script was rewritten behind Ralph Bakshi's back (producer Frank Mancuso Jr. delivered him the new screenplay just as production was ready to begin), Kim Basinger ordered further changes, and the animators were given sort of carte blanche given Bakshi ultimately had no idea on what the film was going to be.
- Wag the Director: Mancuso Jr. is responsible for the movie being toned down to a PG-13 knock-off of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as he didn't like the original idea for an R-rated animated horror film since he'd spent the entire previous decade producing horror films (most notable the Friday the 13th series). He wanted to do something different and had a completely new screenplay written. It was Frank who insisted on casting Kim Basinger, who wanted to make a movie that she could show in hospitals to sick children. Bakshi responded to that with, "Kim, that's real nice, but I'm the wrong person for that."
- What Could Have Been:
- The original horror concept in which Jack has sex with Holli Would - who was actually named Debbie Dallas, after the infamous 1970s porno, Debbie Does Dallas - and Holli has a half-cartoon, half-real daughter who sees herself as a freak and plots to kill her parents. Whether or not it would have been actually better is up for debate, though fans agree it would have been at least been more unique than the final movie.
- Ralph Bakshi originally wanted Drew Barrymore for Holli Would.
- At one point
, Willem Dafoe was originally going to play Jack. - The film originally contained a locale called "Sweet Place", where the more family-friendly, Disney-esque toons lived, that played the trope straight. The only remaining references to it are one of Harris' nicknames for Holli and a brief scene in the comic adaptation.
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