User Reviews

When watching this film it is very important to consider the time it was made in. If you aren't willing to consider the youth revolution and the hippie movement of the 60s then this film isn't for you. You will just be confused and offended. This film is simply a commentary and criticism of the 'flower power' movement of the 1960s. This film compares humans to the animal kingdom. White people are cats, dogs and rabbits; the police are pigs; and the black people are depicted as crows, oppressed by everyone over years. To me the most prominent theme of the film is criticising white middle class students and the flower power movement. The young people who are anti-establishment, but when they get 30+ years old will become the establishment they are rebelling against.

First off, I love how New York City is depicted in this. It depicts it as a grimy metropolis full of drugs, murder, racism, robbery, segregation, sex and police brutality. Regardless of the characters being animals and some of the violence being animated It is all so in your face that sometimes it can get too much. It is a depiction which many can argue is realistic to this date.

Fritz himself is a character who is simply confused about what he actually stands for, but is disillusioned with academia and believes that real life experience is more valuable and rewarding. This quote from the film really sums up his character and the young people being criticised:

"You think learning is a really big thing an' you become this big *** intellectual and sit around trying to out-intellectual all the other big ***intellectuals…"

One thing Fritz definitely knows he wants is as much sex and drugs as possible. Fritz indeed does live a really hedonistic lifestyle. The film is full of animated sex. The film opens with Fritz trying to get girls by playing his guitar, but then managing to 'pull' a group of them by pretending to be an intellectual. What then proceeds is an orgy in the bathtub. This definitely isn't a movie to watch with kids.

Fritz really does also believe that he understands the black (crow) struggle and problems in the black (crow) community, but when his adventures take him to a black (crow) neighbourhood, Duke (a crow who befriends him) rightfully tells him that he will never fully understand the problem of racism from a black (crow) perspective as he himself is not black (a crow). Indeed Fritz is himself a criticism of white young people of the flower power movement as in the film he also starts a riot screaming 'we shall overcome' but at the end runs away when things get heated and doesn't even get involved, while his crow buddies get all the violence from police. What a douche.

I reckon after this the film kinda looses its impact and gets less interesting and exciting. It's a pity they killed off Duke so quick as well, as the character had so much potential. There are also so many ideas in this film, that as a result the end product is messy and unorganised, like an overstuffed sandwich. They should have stuck to one theme and explored this in detail, though I read this film was like this due to budgetary restraints.

This film as said can be argued to be as offencive as ever, especially as many who watch this probably won't 'get it'. Issues of sexuality and race are still relevant issues today, but Fritz the Cat, like many in its era explains these in a different way. I think this movie is good and historically significant, but cartoons like South Park and The Boondocks really have outdone this film now. I say this film is an important watch for anyone who is really interested and passionate about cartoons, anime, etc and wants to see a piece of history, but for regular members of the Joe public, I can't say the same.

I think unless you're willing to suspend your work-a-day life for a couple hours and get into the mindset of a 60's stoner/revolutionary/"intellectual", you should NOT bother watching this movie. You'll just find it at best boring, and at worst, offensive.

Now, I wasn't born in the 60's but I WAS a dedicated stoner, and thus first viewed this film amid a "purple haze" with some college buddies. And while many of the 60's references were completely lost on me and just left me going..."whoah...bizarre..." the stoner comedy and psychedelic adventures of horny feline Fritz spoke to me well enough to ensure this was one heck of an enjoyable "trip" of a movie. I loved the crows as black dudes and pigs as cops - that would NEVER make it through these days. In fact, I draw a lot of enjoyment from this film and others like it, simply because they are "shocking" to my generation, who are supposedly so sexually enlightened and all that, when in fact most people my age are conservative in the extreme and the worst part is they don't even know it! Ah, whatever, I'll dispense with the politics.

Fritz begins with our feline hero hangin in Central Park with his stoner buds playing guitar to impress the chicks and the "phonies". When they fail to impress some cool chicks (a cat, a bunny, one appears to be a dog...) who prefer the "jive-talkin" negro crow nearby, Fritz ditches the guys and persuades the girls to accompany him to a party, with the promise of "finding truth and enlightenment", but all Fritz wants to do is bang the pretty little things, and who could blame him? They go to this green guy's house (I can never figure out what he is - at first he looks like a lizard, but he's got a fluffy tail and a snout...so i have no idea...the fact that he's green doesn't help) but he explains that they are in the middle of a session (a pot-smoking term meaning a round of smoking sort of) so Fritz must use the bathroom for his "truth seeking" with the girls. Well, kudos to Fritz he gets the girls naked and giggly in about 3 seconds and proceeds to have his wicked way, before he's rudely interrupted by the other guys in the apartment who want in on this "truth and elightenment" as well! My fave line in this bit is the blue dude: "You ever make it with a aardvark? We're endangered y'know..." The second act sees Fritz encounter Duke, a Harlem crow, in a bar, who quite rightly tells Fritz understanding the "racial crisis" from the black perspective is impossible for a "cat" like him, because he is NOT black (or in this case, he is NOT a crow).

Anyway, in a particularly bizarre sequence Fritz trips out after having about 8 joints stuffed into his mouth at once, then has sex with a big crow chick, during which he suddenly exclaims that everything is clear to him now and he must tell people about "the revolution". O...kay. His ravings on top of a parked car start a riot (not a difficult thing to do apparently if you lived in Harlem in the late 60's, according to some sources) during which his friend Duke is killed, and he is forced to go into hiding coz the fuzz are now looking for him. Duke's death scene is hypnotic and one of the more effective bits in the movie, with the pool-balls bouncing to the sound of a beating heart...really inspired little bit of animation, I thought.

Fritz is found by his girlfriend Winston, who persuades him to go with her out into the desert and head for Frisco. Fritz digs the idea and they hit the road.

No sooner have they run out of gas, Fritz ditches Winston to head off into the desert on his own, hooking up with my favourite character - the heroin-addled, psychotic, harley-riding blue bunny revolutionary, who ends almost every sentence with a deadpan "ha ha" and his horse-girlfriend, who takes a liking to Fritz. These are crazy fundamentalist hippies who want to blow stuff up fighting "the establishment" etc, and they quickly rope Fritz into a scheme to blow up a power station. Suffice it to say Fritz reaches an epiphany (albeit at a pretty late stage) and, well, I wont give away the ending...but it's pretty cool, weird and funny.

I don't know how successful as satire Fritz the Cat is, because I didn't live through the decade it is set in, but I can say it is a great little snapshot of New York, circa late 60's early 70's, especially the slideshow of pictures over the end credits. It is also a reminder that although we have come far in things like IT technology and medicine, etc, our "morals" and "values" have, if anything, gone BACKWARDS since 1972. So roll a big fat one, get some of your hippie friends over, and "seek some truth". 79 minutes well spent.

Saw this for the first time in 2020, even though I was 14 when it came out. This movie is more than terrible. The plot, which is very difficult to discern (except for cats who are constantly looking for a piece...oh, that's the plot!...and a bunch of horny cartoon farm animals porking each other at every chance) is as shallow as shallow can get. Fritz, the college drop-out decided to experience the 60's himself, with all the police brutality, weed, and orgies one would want. This movie is not porn, nor does it deserve an X-Rating. Its just a poorly animated zoophilia cartoon. Based on what I had heard my entire life, I was expecting a hilarious romp in cartoon animation. What I got was a piece of trash that was not funny, was not entertaining, and did not pass the test of time, even if it was "groundbreaking" during its original run. I am glad I didn't pay anything to see it. This movie is a don't bother cartoon that belongs in a college "how not to make a film 101" class or the cellophane trash heap. i can't decide which.

I just re watched this movie after reading the complete Robert Crump's Fritz the Cat comic book.

At first I was skeptical – It's never a good way to start the movie with showing a character pee an a person even in a raunchy one but I guess it was the creators way of saying "No, this is not for kids", since an animated movie NOT for children was something new back then… Actually I must give the movie some credit for being the first one to do it. I guess it's easy to criticize this movie today since we all scene stuff like this in "South Par", "Family Guy" or "Drawn Together" so there is nothing shocking about this kind of stuff anymore.

Any way after first five minutes I was actually starting to like the movie. While all the raunchy humor was done much better in the books (more tasteful in a way) the movie had still some good, unique atmosphere to it and I like the way it mixed different Fritz the Cat stories. Yhe, the sex stuff was over the top, I didn't care much for the two pig police man who try way to hard to be funny and I would prefer if some of the action scenes where more like in the book - simple. Still the movie had some great mod and abstract atmosphere, some of the new humor made me chuckle (for example the scene of three student girls talking with the African-American crow and trying to impress him how much liberal they are while he just stand their silent) and while not the best of Ralph Bakshi films I was still growing to like it…

Then we got to the last third and the Fuzz Bunny character was re- introduce. Here I will start with the SPOILERS for both the book and the movie. Well, in the book the whole point was – students are idiots! They do nothing but smoke path, drink, have sex all the time and talk pseudo- philosophical stuff that have no impact on the world whatsoever… In the book there is a point where Fritz meet his friend Fuzz who join some sort of a liberal anarchist movement who is planning to blowup the bridge. It's not some scary, sinister organization. It's just four idiots sitting in a room and talk how their hate rich people and want to rebel. Fritz and Fuzz attempt to blow-up the bridge but they screw it up acting completely clues about the situation. This was one of my favorite part of the book and comedy came out from the way those guys where nonchalant abut their whole terrorist plot. While Craps book satires liberal students it didn't picture them as evil, simply as misguided and full of ambitions that lead nowhere. But sadly, while the first 3/4 of the movie is pretty faithful to events in the book, when it get to this part if becomes the flip side of the coin. Fuzz is no longer an streetwise guy, now he's some psychotic, sadistic drug user named Blue. The group of pseudo-philosophical students lead by some insane hippy guy turns into a dark religious cult located on a cemetery with sinister looking members and even use some Fascist symbolism. Fritz is no longer suppose to blow-up the bridge with his buddy but instead is meant to blow-up the nuclear power plant with an female lizard character who turn out to be truly evil and In the end Fritz changes his mind about the whole thing. Not only it takes a very comedic story and turn it into something scary and violent, but it demonize the radical left wing students. Maybe Bakshis point was to make the whole thing more dramatic to provide an exiting climax but for me not only it's completely ruins the spirit of the book but it feels to be out-of character for the movie as well.

Overall I enjoy parts of it and I still find this movie to be an interesting , unique and artistic interesting experience but if you're fan of the book you maybe strongly disappointed by the ending. It was just way off-character for Fritz universe...

I have mixed feelings about Bakshi and Krantz's 1972 film adaptation of the Fritz the Cat books. Robert Crumb is one of my favourite underground cartoonists and satirists, and it's more than a little frustrating to see the liberties the director and producer take with his priceless characters. When the screenplay sticks closely to Crumb's original comic strips, it's fine, but every time it deviates from the source material, it falls as flat as a pancake. Bakshi, who constructed the screenplay from various Fritz stories written and drawn by Crumb between 1964 and 1968, proves himself to be rather incompetent, piecing and patching together the diverse elements with tiresome experimental sequences, dull musical interludes and downright crude sex and violence - Crumb certainly never steered clear of putting down his darkest fears and fantasies on paper, but Bakshi's scenes of a horse-woman being whipped with a motorcycle chain and Fritz chasing after a buxom female crow are embarrassingly wide of the mark. For all his excesses, Crumb knew when to exercise restraint, and Bakshi's refusal to do so is what ultimately sinks this film. There are, however, some very good scenes and the animation is occasionally brilliant, which is why the chapter select button on your DVD remote control will certainly come in useful should you decide to check this one out. The film is also remarkably truthful in its depiction of the New York City of the late sixties as it really was, with bad vibes, segregation, drugs, rape, murder and squalor as far as the eye could see. Sharp-eyed Crumb enthusiasts will also spot Av 'n' Gar (or is it the Simp and the Gimp?) and Angelfood McSpade in a couple of scenes.

I was curious as to whether or not this adult animated film would live up to it's notoriety..it's a resounding yes. Although, perhaps this particular period of time doesn't exactly resonate with me since I didn't live through this turbulent era in America, it certainly left an impression. Fritz the Cat gets involved with revolutionaries who wish to blow up a power plant to send a message, drugs(..you see a lot of grass smoking by Fritz and others), sex(..he's known as a ladies' man), while also causing a riot between black crows and police pigs, and questioning the idea of devoting so much time and effort to studying for college exams instead of living life to the fullest. As is often mentioned when the film is discussed, there's a ton of animated nudity and sexual situations, where we see tits, ass, and penis, despite being prepared for this, it was still pretty eye-popping. Also, director Ralph Bakshi features some potent shocking violence, as the riot erupts(..caused by none other than Fritz who motivates the blacks to revolt again the police, proclaiming the pigs as soldiers for "the man"). There's also some poking fun at Jews, along with a lot of political satire thrown in for good measure. Bakshi's Fritz the Cat is quite unrestrained and provocative, dealing with a wide range of topics, and evokes a New York City with animals in place of various lampooned stereotypes, with everyone fair game. Very profane dialogue throughout. The sexual conquest sequence between Fritz and a giant black crow who toys with him as he pursues her in a junk yard is simply bizarre as is a giant orgy in a bathroom as all involved are caught in a major high from some seriously strong weed while rolling around in a frenzy inside the bathtub(..ruining Fritz' foursome).

Fritz the Cat

This film is an underrated animated film that was very popular during the 1970s but went unnoticed after the release of Cool World, when Bakshi stopped making animated films. Some kids may think this a kids' film because it involves cats and is animated. No, that's Felix the Cat. Fritz the Cat is an animated film reserved for adults. In fact, this film is the first animated film to ever receive an X rating. By today's standards, this film would definitely receive an R rating. But this film was released in the 1970s, and this is before the MPAA introduced the NC-17 rating. Despite this film being an X-rated film, Fritz the Cat is not a porn. However, this film has a lot of sex scenes, violence and drugs.

Fritz the Cat is based on the R. Crumb comics of the same name. Bakshi spent many days mimicking Crumb's style and their drawing style is quite similar. Bakshi made the characters animated, with the background being water colored photographs. What I could infer from this is that Bakshi wasn't intending this animated film to be cartoony, but rather go for a more realistic approach.

The voice acting is also good. Rather than recording the dialogue in a studio, Bakshi recorded the dialogue on the street; making the voices of the characters sound more natural. In fact, Bakshi voices one of the pigs and does a terrific job at it. Bakshi also went to a bar in Harlem and interviewed African Americans and used their responses as the dialogue of the crows. And the voice of Fritz is surprisingly Skip Hinnant from the Electric Company. This means that Skip Hinnant is doing the voice for a children's show AND an animated film for adults!

The film doesn't really have much of a story, it just revolves around the main character Fritz. A bunch of different events occur and Fritz experiences a bunch of them in order to find a cause for himself. This film is pretty much a political satire that pokes fun of the 60s culture; where Fritz explores the hippie movement, race relations and the free love movement.

There are things I like about this film but also things I dislike about this film.

I really like how Fritz seems like he's an intellectual but is also very stupid at the same time. Fritz seems to be interested in sophisticated subjects such as existentialism; but starts complaining about how his friends prefer studying over living life to the fullest. I also love the scene featuring the two pig cops. This by far is my favorite scene in the film. When the pigs hear a lot of noise in the apartment, they try and stop Fritz's shenanigans. The pigs constantly quarrel with each other and eventually catch Fritz; but end up in a synagogue. They get distracted by a bunch of rabbis dancing after being informed about weapons being deployed to the US from Israel.

I also love the character Duke. Duke is a crow who represents an African American. Most of the characters in the film are jerks, but Duke is the only one who has a bit of sanity. Duke serves as Fritz's guardian; saving his life and protecting him after he starts a riot. Unfortunately, Duke gets killed during the riot. It's a pretty dramatic scene, but the death scene of Duke and his final heartbeats coordinate perfectly with pool balls bouncing into their pockets. This summarizes Duke's debut in the film, where we first see him playing billiards in a Harlem bar.

There are also things I dislike about the film. There are a bunch of violent scenes in the film. Some scenes can be too violent, such as the scene where Blue, the heroin-addicted Nazi rabbit beats his cow girlfriend Harriet. There are also a bunch of filler scenes that serve as vignettes and don't pertain to the story of the film. The most obvious example is after Fritz's fussing in his dorm, where we cut to an establishing shot of Harlem being zoomed in, with a crow snapping his finger and "Bo Diddley" being played in the background. I also dislike how some of the characters are introduced during the strangest times. Winston Schwarz, Fritz's girlfriend who takes him to San Francisco, wasn't introduced, but just shows up unexpectedly. At the start of the picture, when Fritz has lured three girls into a bathtub, we hear Fritz mention the name "Winston," even though there is little similarity in voice, personality or even appearance to tie the two "Winstons" together. To make matters worse, the bathtub "Winston" reappears at the end of the film, when the orgy is replayed in a hospital bed.

Crumb strongly hated the film, thinking Skip Hinnant was the wrong voice for Fritz. Crumb also found the film to be racy, but the Crumb comics were originally racy. This film inspired animators to draw influence from Fritz the Cat to create adult cartoon sitcoms, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park. The film was so popular it spawned a sequel; but without Bakshi's involvement.

Sometimes it is REWARDING to dive into your past just to check if back then you had the right perceptions. This evaluation of the cartoon picture Fritz the Cat is such a moment. When the film was first released I was still a student. I remember seeing a trailer of it in the picture theater. It was clear, that Fritz the Cat is not just entertainment. No Flintstones here (Wilmaaaaa!). In fact it thrives with sadistic violence and soft pornography. It transcended the range of what I then was willing to accept. I never watched it, even though it beamed excitement. For even back then its cultural and intellectual aspirations were plain to see. Many decades later, when the amazing sixties had sunk in, the time had come to make a mature judgment. I wondered how the makers had portrayed the moral questions of the time. It always pays to engage in a debate about artistic quality, doesn't it? So I bought and watched the film (its sequel The nine lives came free with the pack). Actually the plot is indeed interesting. Fritz gets bored with his study at the University of New York. Following the naive spirit of the sixties he suspects that experiences in real life may be more valuable than studying books. As a first step he pays his respects to the black community. However, he soon discovers that the great rewards do not emerge in the black slums and ghettos. So his next step is a career as a political activist and agitator. It is pay back time. And he is indeed gifted. When the riots become life-threatening, he goes into hiding. Together with a girl friend, Winston, he travels to the east coast, first of all to San Francisco. Alas, no flowers between his ears. Instead he gets acquainted with motor devils, Nazis and terrorists. Meanies wanting to pay out liberalism. During an effort to sabotage a chemical plant, Fritz is critically injured. Amazing, there must be some symbolism in this. In his hospital bed he repents. Fortunately, Winston and some other girl friends visit him, which more or less revives him - that is to say, the material parts. This slot scene is peaceful with yet another orgy. So, how should we value the thing? Let is not be niggardly: it surely is cult. The makers tried to grasp the essence of what they probably read in the head lines of the media. And undoubtedly hippies and flower power were at times accompanied by excessive and even dangerous phenomena and symptoms. But unfortunately the film and the plot degenerate into a bizarre caricature. The innocent attempts of young people and idealists to probe new boundaries are rudely ridiculed. As such its message is essentially hostile and reactionary. So was I right, many decades ago? Yes - the film IS mean and ugly, an ensemble of violence and instrumental intercourse. Amazing, my gut feeling paid off. Even today, frankly, I prefer Garfield. Should you avoid it? I did not say so. For the drawings are creative and the plot is fast and stirring. Judge for yourself. Just don't count on a moral or even intellectual re-compensation. That won't work.

50 years ago, animation pioneer Ralph Bakshi made headwaves by bringing one of if not the first X rated animated feature to the mainstream, Fritz the Cat. Based on the comic strip by underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, the film has maintained cult status as both a controversial sleaze fest and a groundbreaking hit. While it has often been met with a polarized reception from Crumb fans and even newcomers alike, its status has remained culturally significant for showcasing what else animation could do outside of the poor state it was in during the 1970s. So, as of today, does it age like fine wine or kitty litter?

Set in New York City in the mid to late 1960s, Fritz the Cat is an upper class womanizing college dropout who goes from hitting on girls to interacting with inner city African American crows, albeit by unintentionally starting a race riot and becoming a leftist revolutionary. Now despite the film being centered around its title character, the main narrative is fairly episodic. Given that the film's three acts take from different comic serials by Crumb himself, the narrative feels unfocused even by episodic feature standards. As a satire targeting young adults of its specific era, there are also themes of race relations, countercultural revolution and dishonest political activists. Perhaps it may have worked better to have Fritz go across America more and more in the feature, which does happen albeit with disturbing results, but when the first two acts center on NYC dilemmas, it's hard to get attached to other social constructs nationwide. Not to mention, while the satire works well on its own, it can often feel like the movie is trying to bite off more than it can chew.

However, where the film's narrative feels unfocused and even somewhat broken, the character of Fritz himself is a remarkable portrayal of the pros and cons of upper class youth. In going from a sleeze bag wannabe artist to a left leaning radical, the film is arguably at its strongest in showcasing the rise and fall of one's intent going haywire. Arguably the best character in the whole movie that Fritz encounters is Duke, an African American zoot crow who acts as somewhat of a guide for the foul minded feline, despite his life ending in tragedy on account of Fritz's ignorance. Other characters throughout range from hysterically funny like the bumbling pig cops and Fritz's ex girlfriend Winston Schwartz, to mere plot fodder like the ladies Fritz tricks in the first act to downright messed up like the far right radicals Fritz encounters towards the end. Every character is unique in their own right, but since their presence is merely reduced to an 80 minute run time, one wonders if they could've starred in their own features (that is at least if Crumb wasn't so stingy about the movie in general).

As far as art direction is concerned, the movie captures the look of Crumb's gritty graphic comic style into animation beautifully, especially on a shoestring budget. Most of the backgrounds were taken from photographs of New York and then translated into watercolor, giving off a rough edgy aesthetic not often seen in most movies. Even the more original backdrops feel like something out of a comic strip, down to scratchy ink outlines and traditionally painted landscapes. The character designs are also very fitting for the comic strip production design, albeit with more of an animated punch to allow free range for the animators. Given that the production crew couldn't afford pencil tests, the timing often feels all over the place, but never does it become a burden to the wonderful character animation. In addition, the score by Ed Bogas and Ray Shanklin combines a healthy mix of blues, funk and rock & roll, along with a dynamite soundtrack from the likes of Bo Diddley, Billie Holiday and Charles Earland. It's amazing when a soundtrack can feel timelessly dated in the best way.

So in the end, Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat remains a fascinating mixed bag of a feature with enough juvenile smut and controversial material to suffice. As a film that has stood the test of time for offending as many people as it has inspired, it works well enough on its own despite its narrative shortcomings and jumbled statements. I would absolutely recommend this both for curiosity's sake and to newcomers to both Bakshi and Crumb's artwork (Crumb enthusiasts not included). The film wasn't X rated for nothing, and as of today, it's said more about its time period than most feature length cartoons did so back then.

I bought FRITZ THE CAT on DVD because I have read so much about how influential this movie has been, being an animated feature intended for mature audiences, plus, I've always had a weak spot for Bakshi's subsequent animated features like American POP. I'm sorry to say that the only redeeming value I found in FRITZ THE CAT was the fact that I was watching animated cats, pigs and crows getting it "on" with each other and then killing each other off. I actually found it rather cool! But the movie is devoid of any plot or logical story. Sure: it satirizes late 60's youth culture and stereotypes, but what could have been a landmark in animation was rendered incomprehensible. For starters, the animation isn't that happening. I much prefer Bakshi's "rotoscoping" style that so many people find annoying over this primitive cartoon. Yeah, it's fun to watch cartoons doing obscene stuff! Had it been a short feature FRITZ THE CAT would have been a more memorable affair. I'm sorry to say this is just a bloated, overrated (and dated!) adult cartoon!