Hey Good Lookin' is an animated film by Ralph Bakshi that was released in 1982. It features the voices of Richard Romanus, David Proval, Tina Bowman, Jesse Welles, and Phillip Michael Thomas.
The film takes place in Brooklyn, 1953, and focuses on charismatic hood Vinnie Genzianna, the leader of a greaser gang named "the Stompers", his friend and second-in-command Crazy Shapiro, and their respective girlfriends Roz and Eva, as they get wrapped up in an escalating conflict with the rival black gang, "the Chaplains", lead by Boogaloo Jones.
Originally planned as a live-action/animated movie, it was later changed to a fully animated film. It has been said that its original live-action/animated setting is still around but may be hard to find. A soundtrack of the film was released around 2006.
Hey Good Lookin' provides these tropes:
- Abusive Parents:
- Solly, Crazy's Cowboy Cop father, who's not above using the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on his own son and even occasionally trying to outright murder him.
- Rozzie's dad, who chains her to her bed to keep her from going on a date with Vinnie.
- Ambiguously Jewish: Crazy Shapiro, his father, Rozzie and her father
- Anachronism Stew: Most of the film takes place in The '50s, but a lot of the fashions worn by the characters in those scenes come straight from the late '70s and '80s, when it was actually made. Vinnie and Rozzie in particular stand out, as well as most of the Chaplains.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Roz may be a sweet girl, but she knows how to throw a punch.
- Crazy is a loyal friend, but he definitely lives up to his name.
- Bittersweet Ending: Crazy and most of the Stompers are killed during the rumble, and Vinnie skips town when all is said and done. When Vinnie returns from his self-imposed exile after 30 years, Roz, now a broken woman in an unhappy marriage, has nothing but contempt towards him, even if Vinnie is willing to mend their relationship. In the end, Vinnie decides that the best way to be a man is to stay by his girl's side through thick and thin, and the two lovers reunite.
- Broken Bird: Rozzie didn't fare well after Vinnie's assumed death in the rumble. As a result, she became an overweight lonely woman living in an unhappy marriage.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Crazy Shapiro, who lives up to his name to the point of being a psychopath.
- Deconstruction: Of 1950s nostalgia, whether people think the 1950s were really just like Happy Days or Grease or whatever. The "cool" main character is a Dirty Coward, he and his girlfriend aren't really in love, his Plucky Comic Relief sidekick is mentally disturbed, he and his gang are not True Companions, etc.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: In true Bakshi fashion, there's a lot of racial inequality depicted throughout the film. For example, the beach that Vinnie and Crazy go to about mid-way through the film is segregated. Homophobic slurs also get dropped a few times.
- Dirty Coward: Vinnie constantly ogles Rozzie and gropes her any chance he gets. He also chickens out during the rumble even after he got the rest of the Stompers involved. It's justified though, as he did want to fight the Chaplains at one point, and only wanted to do so because he wanted be a man for Rozzie.
- Disney Acid Sequence: A view through Crazy's eyes gives us one, during his final descent into utter lunacy.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Vinnie, despite being the "cool" main character and leader of the Stompers, is actually a huge coward who skips town rather than help his gang in the rumble, despite being the one who got them into it in the first place.
- Framing Device: The plot is presented as a story being told by an older man to a middle-aged woman, who are revealed to be Vinnie and Roz 30 years later.
- Greaser Delinquents: Vinnie and his gang, complete with black leather jackets.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: The Stompers all wear black motorcycle jackets with "Stompers" painted on the back.
- Impossible Hourglass Figure: Rozzie has one of the curviest appearances of any woman in film.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Vinnie.
- Lighter and Softer: Downplayed. The movie is more of a coming of age hangout movie about young people in the 1950s instead of Bakshi's more political-oriented films like Fritz the Cat or ''Coonskin.
- Ms. Fanservice: Rozzie, big time. Just look at the trope above, and then add the fact that her large boobs constantly get groped and harassed throughout the course of the movie.
- Offing the Offspring: Crazy's father Solly, a violent corrupt cop, constantly tries to kill him.
- Overly Long Gag: Vinnie combing his pompadour and zipping every single zipper on his jacket.
- Nice Girl: Rozzie and Eva.
- No Indoor Voice: Rozzie's father.
- Rotoscoping: Some parts near the end of the film have this, and it isn't hard to tell, either.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: The film started out as this, but it was later reworked as a fully animated feature, although certain parts of the film do have the animated characters over live-action backgrounds.
- Shout-Out: A certain part of the film has animated characters doing Wild Take reactions that look very familiar.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The movie takes place in the '50s, but some of its music is distinctly early '80s.
- Taking You with Me: During the climax, Crazy jumps off a rooftop and lands on Solly, who is about to kill Vinnie, killing both father and son and saving Vinnie's life.
- Torture Always Works: Subverted in that while Solly does manage to beat an answer out of his son, Crazy lies to take the heat off himself and fingers Vinnie for murdering the two Chaplains as a way of telling him what he wants to hear.
- Unusual Euphemism: In one scene, Crazy comes up with a remarkable number of burger-related metaphors for what he's doing as he gets frisky with Rozzie's friend Eva.
