I recently wrote about the amazing American animator Don Bluth and the impact his films have had on American animation. However, there is also another animator who contributed greatly to the development of American animation and that is the incredibly important Ralph Bakshi, a pioneer of independent, generally adult animation throughout the 70s and 80s.
Born in the city of Haifa in modern day Israel, then the British Mandate of Palestine, in 1938, he and his family emigrated to America in 1939. When Ralph was 15 years old, he discovered Gene Byrnes’ “Complete Guide to Cartooning” and studied the book intensely, learning the techniques associated with cartooning. By the age of 18, he was hired at the New York animation studio Terrytoons to clean animation cels. He worked on a variety of Terrytoons shows such as Heckle and Jeckle, Deputy Dawg and eventually created his own animation series for them, The Mighty Heroes. However, he was unhappy with the quality of the show due to limitations by the studio and left to create his own animation studio. He eventually came across the Fritz the Cat comic strip and became determined to produce a film based on it.
