The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat

Plot synopsis:
It is the 1970s; Fritz the Cat is now married, on welfare, and has a child named Ralphie, who casually masturbates. As his wife screams at him for being an irresponsible father and husband, Fritz sits on the couch, staring off into space, smoking a joint. Tired of listening to his wife nag at him, he fades off into his own little world, imagining what life would be like for him if things were different.
The first character he meets on his stoned journey is Juan, a Puerto Rican. The two talk about Juan's sister Chita. The scene fades to Juan's house where Fritz is seen sitting on the couch smoking a joint next to Chita, while Juan is at the store. Chita complains to Fritz when he blows smoke in her eyes. His reaction is to tell her to loosen up and "embrace her fellow man", then he suddenly shoves a joint into her mouth, taking her off into her own hallucinogenic fantasy. The pot makes her horny. Meanwhile, outside, a pair of crows are about to rob the place, but decide to stay outside and watch what happens inside instead. A car pulls up and out comes Chita's father, who sees Fritz and Chita having sex, and blows Fritz apart with a shotgun. This violent display turns off the two crows, who decide to come back at another time.
In his second life, Fritz meets a drunken bum claiming to be God. In his third life, Fritz imagines that he is a soldier in World War II-era Nazi Germany. After being caught having a ménage à trois with two German girls by a commanding officer (the two girls being the officer's wife and daughter), Fritz escapes, and winds up being an orderly to Adolf Hitler. Fritz takes the form of a therapist, and analyzes Hitler, telling him that his world domination plans were just a way of trying to get attention. In the showers, Hitler "accidentally" drops his soap, and urges Fritz to pick it up, in an attempt to rape him, and ends up getting his single testicle (a reference to the song "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball") blown off. In this segment, Fritz meets his death by way of the US Army.
The film cuts back to 1970s-era New York in Fritz's fourth life, as Fritz attempts to sell a used condom to a liquor store owner, Niki, who bets he knows who Fritz used it on. The two break out laughing as they take turns describing the woman. Fritz at one point blurts out that the woman has got the clap. When Niki asks who her name is, Fritz responds by telling him "Gina". Niki says that that's his wife's name and that she doesn't have the clap. Fritz tells him "she does now," causing Niki to curse and shout at Fritz. As he walks out of the store, Fritz bumps into a pig named Lenny. Fritz tells him that he was an irresistible stud in the 1930s. Fritz's fifth life is a psychedelic montage of old stock film and animation, vaguely illustrating Fritz's downfall in the 1930s (losing everything to excessive partying and drinking).
In his sixth life, Fritz shows up at a pawn shop run by a Jewish crow named Morris, and tries to get a welfare check cashed. Fritz tries to make a deal with Morris: If Morris will cash Fritz's welfare check, then Fritz will give Morris a toilet seat. Morris doesn't like the deal, but suddenly getting diarrhea from the pickles he has been eating, he reluctantly accepts the deal, but instead of cashing Fritz's welfare check, he gives Fritz a space helmet. We then see Fritz in his seventh life, as NASA hires Fritz to go into space on the first mission to Mars. While waiting for the shuttle to take off, Fritz decides to have sex with one of the reporters, a black girl. However, the space shuttle takes off a little early, and, once in space, it explodes.
In Fritz's next life, the film portrays Fritz talking to the ghost of his black crow friend Duke, who was shot to death in the previous film. The film then flash-forwards to a future where New Jersey is a separate country from the rest of the United States, and has been renamed "New Africa", home to all black crows. Fritz is just starting his job as a courier, and he is asked by President Henry Kissinger to deliver a letter to the president of New Africa. In New Africa, Fritz finds a high crime rate, corruption, and violence. Once Fritz is led to "The Black House", he hears the president of New Africa and his vice-president talking about how low his popularity is, and how an assassination attempt would boost his popularity. The president refuses to get shot, but is shot anyway, because the vice president needs his president's popularity to increase so he will not lose the upcoming election. The vice-president blames the assassination on Fritz, because he is the only "white" cat in New Africa. Because of this, America and "New Africa" are at war, and Kissinger eventually admits an unconditional surrender. In the end, Fritz is shot for the crime he did not commit.
In his final life, Fritz finds himself living in the sewers of New York, where he meets an Indian guru, and the devil. However, Fritz is given a rude awakening from his drug-induced reality by his wife, who finally throws him out of the apartment. After a quick look at all of his lives, Fritz sighs and says "This is about the worst life I've ever had."

Tags: pornographic, adult comedy, cult, violence, flashback, psychedelic, humor, satire

Review:
If you know me at all, you'll know that I was not a fan of Ralph Bakshi's FRITZ THE CAT.
Well, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to see THE NINE LIVES OF FRITZ THE CAT.
By some stroke of good luck or divine intervention, it happens to be better than the original.The film,  made without Bakshi's involvement, (who was knee deep in the controversy stemming from COONSKIN) begins by finding our hero in a slum, living on welfare with a wife and child.
The wife is pretty abusive (although she does have a point-you'll understand when you see the film.
Fritz smokes pot to escape and imagines himself in nine other lives (hence the title)It's actually a pretty good film.
The film is less raunchy and vulgar than the first, but I know some people out there will still be offended.
But I applaud THE NINE LIVES OF FRITZ THE CAT for taking chances; it could have been more of the same, but instead strives to be better.
I was fascinated by the idea of an R rated cartoon, and Fritz the cat seemed the obvious choice.
The film begins with Fritz' wife harassing him about the state of his life.
The film ultimately shows that Fritz has no chance to improve his life, as every opportunity he gets he sees as another chance to have sex, smoke, cheat the system, and make an idiot of himself.
I felt like the loser at a game of chicken, daring each scene to be more twisted and vile then the last, and being ultimately pulled down and run over by a movie that actually dared to go farther then me.
This movie has all the things to needed to be great after a bong session including an unfollowable plot, and deja vy.
The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat is a movie, or something like it, that I got to see on night late on a Showtime channel, and when I started watching, it had the material that made me want to change the channel, and maybe not.
There are many weird and surreal scenes, most involving sex and marijuana, some with racism (Hitler cat), some with unique and bizarre characters, and it connected as that while Fritz the cat tries to cash a welfare check he goes over the different deaths in his life, getting blown up, getting blown up in space, getting shot in the batoot, etc.
At times it's too patched together, and makes no sense in the scene where funky 70's music plays while images from the days of black and white flash by and then images pass by like an amateur Kubrick ala 2001, but it oddly works for a mature audience (kids will be freaked out if they should for some chance watch this) on the levels on comedy and of being a all out stoner/druggie flick (most of you out there who watch this will eithe rgo wow or uggh).
The saying "sequels ain't equals" is definitely demonstrated in this completely lackluster follow-up to the earlier brilliantly witty "Fritz the Cat".While both films portray an anthropomorphic view of 70s counterculture using animals, and both use the shock value of drugs, sex and cursing to stir up a reaction; this movie by a totally different production team completely lacks any of the charm, personality, or essential feeling that made the earlier film so appealing.While I am not a member of this counterculture and don't relate to it personally very well, I did try to keep an open mind while watching both movies, and neither one really shocked me that much - maybe because they're getting older and I've witnessed more shock value in recent movies.
With the original FRITZ THE CAT I got the impression that the "naughty" stuff was true to life, and helped make the characters real and interesting.
With NINE LIVES the whole thing just felt like some very bad schoolboy joke that merely shows off the "smutty" bits for their own sake, and doesn't go anywhere with them.
The take on Nazi Germany had a teeny bit of satirical value, but it hardly seemed to be worth the trouble, and the idea has been done a lot more effectively elsewhere.Summing up: don't waste your time with this one, unless you're a fanatical completest.
But go and enjoy the original FRITZ THE CAT, if you feel you can handle it..
Just a couple of thoughts after watching nine lives of fritz the cat.
Second the animators are not the same, the director is not the same, actually quite a lot isn't the same as the first one, which is a bad thing, since this second fritz movie doesn't have a proper story line, or a good script, actually it doesn't have anything of the things that made the first movie so wonderful.
Still it's Fritz the Cat and all is not lost, but all through the film i get the feeling that the director just took all the ingredients of the first fritz movie and mashed them together to a lifeless pile, sticking them in here and there, maybe because that's what he thought the fans wanted (and that would make more money).
Then he managed to portray Fritz as somewhat of a loser, which he may be, in some people's eyes', but i don't think that's the feeling you get from the first one.
So my suggestion is; if you haven't seen any of the fritz movies, watch the first one only, this one isn't quite worth while.
To start this off, I love the original, I think it is brilliant social satire, plus I'm a huge Ralph Bakshi fan.
Well it was pretty bad, instead of making a social comment most of Fritz's Nine Lives just degenerate into dumb slapstick, and gross out gags.
Oh and just a note if you're going to use live action footage as your background, make it less interesting than the animated foreground(something this film does horribly).
While I appreciated the animation, I was left pretty flat by most of the social commentary/satire.
There were images and messages that I of course understood (Hitler, Kissinger, etc.) but the majority of the subject matter was fairly relevant to the present time.Unfortunately, especially during the bizarre psychedelic freak out moments I found myself looking at the clock which is actually kind of sad considering the film was only just over an hour to begin with.
Having said that however, I am glad that I finally saw this film so that I know what it was actually about, and I give the filmmakers a lot more credit for having created something that transcended novelty smut.--Shelly.
It's super to have a change from animals to humans and it is very satirical about how folk in the southern areas of the states react to those of the northern states, and how persecuted one feels if they are just a little bit different from anyone.
I found NINE LIVES OF FRITZ THE CAT on the Showtime FAMILY channel.
I'm no prude, but to imagine a 5 year old tuning into this is horrible.Anyway, I only watched 5 or 10 minutes of this film.
The animation is good for it's era, but the comedy & satire is worn and dated.
A "big mama" cat with huge boobs is yelling at a stoned Fritz cat, telling him he's good for nothing, goes out all night looking for love, and she doesn't know why, 'cause he's bad in bed.
A few seconds later we see some black "thug" cats outside Fritz's house, talking about robbing this house in 'this' (white?) neighborhood.
He's trying to get her high so he can "get with her." She smokes some, and we get a psychedelic menagerie of images that tries to be creative, but really, someone needs to take some lessons from "The Wall"'s animators.
Flashback to the big mama cat yelling at Fritz again.
Now that I read a few other reviews, I suppose the the whole time Fritz is supposed to be listening to big mama yelling at him, but zoning out to these different places while she's yelling.Anyway, my description of this is probably as funny as the cartoon itself.
However, that would be an effort and after seeing this drug induced nonsense I decided that this movie was not worth any further effort on my part.
A lot of people say that this movie is not at all as good as the original first movie.
Well, I would certainly hope not since this movie is BAD and clearly geared towards hippies that survived into the 70's dreaming of a comeback and wannabe drug addicts.
The best thing that can be said about this movie is that it is fairly short, only some 70+ minutes, thank god.I cannot say that I am sorry for watching it since it was a bit of life experience (I have not seen the original and I only knew that Fritz the Cat was a bit of a cult thing when I sat down to watch this one) and, as we all know, a lot of life experiences are not that pleasant.
However I am still in a bit of shock knowing that some people actually liked this depraved trash.Even though the general concensus seems to be that the original movie was better I do not think I will make much of an effort trying to watch it.
An R-rated animated film has Fritz (a cat) being told off endlessly by his wife about his drug habit, being on welfare, being bad in bed etc etc.
The film never stops moving, the animation is very good but there's no real story.
And the racial issues are handled quite offensively (for black and white) and are VERY 70s.Not really worth your time.
"Fritz the Cat" was better..
It is always a good idea to watch something all the way through before writing about it.This film has some excellent sideways kicks at society and anybody who does not have the education to understand or concentration span should switch off after ten minutes.BTW.
To apply that word boob to a woman`s body is sexist and what one would probably expect from a redneck.This film does not have the cutting edge of the original and although some very good moments does tend to lose its way.
However, these two films were landmarks and the satire has not been equaled via cartoon until South Park arrived..
You'd have to be pretty stoned to enjoy the Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat. Besides the dreadful animation, the non-stories and the incredibly dated dialogue, the (arguably?) racist depictions of African Americans are incredibly offensive.
I enjoyed Fritz the Cat and was all for a sequel, and I got a pretty good film.
While I loved the unique look of Fritz the Cat, the animation here is really good here as well, even more colourful and vibrant than before.
The script is witty and funny, the soundtrack is hip and cool, the voice acting is good and Fritz still has both his hypocrisy and likability.
Still, it is a pretty good film.
I really liked the first installment of Fritz, but this one was just mediocre in comparison.
The few pluses I got out of this film is I really like the animation style of all the characters, and the settings.
Obviously effort and time was put into it on that side of the equation, so that is why I give The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat a 4 out of 10..
The Nine Lives of Fritz  the Cat succeeds in being offensive, but that's about all it does.
Unlike the South Park movie, which came out in 99 and had a lot of comparisons to the Fritz the cat serious, Nine lives is neither smart nor funny.
Rated R for Language,Drug Use,Sexuality,Nudity and Some Strong Violence.I had heard about the Fritz The Cat movies and wanted to see them.I haven't read the original comics or seen the first Fritz The Cat film.So I saw this one today and I was a bit disappointed.It was not very funny though there were some funny parts,and it was a bit boring.The animation was pretty good for its time and the storyline is decent.There are some very trippy scenes in this movie and I imagine that this movie would be fun to watch while high.Anyway I heard the first film took place in the 1960's.This one takes place in the 1970's.Fritz now has a wife and kid.His wife yells at him because he does nothing and Fritz just reminisces about his eight lives(eight because Crumb the creator of the comics killed Fritz off in the final comic).In his eight lives he is an astronaut,a nazi,a messenger and just normal "Fritz".The film has some funny scenes and was probably good for its time but I think its dated as of today and I find this film just mediocre..
This movie has some really cool art, cool music and can be very funny at times, but it has the problem of an overuse of sex and sexist jokes (most of them not funny at all).I find this movie like watching a Kevin Smith comedy, with cartoon characters and lots more of raunchy jokes.I'll give it ** out of *****.
I had previously seen the first movie, "Fritz the Cat", but was not impressed.
Growing up in the seventies (I turned eighteen and graduated High School the same year as this release), I was extremely aware of most of the social problems this film attempted to address: bigotry, racism, war, sexuality, drugs, and the "What am I going to do with my life?" syndrome that affected quite a few of us at this time.
It's not all good, and there are those that will find it too basic on the whole, and I'm not going to claim that they're wrong; I don't go for a lot of drawn(by hand or computer) films.
The original Fritz the Cat was a decent adaptation of the infamous art of Robert Crumb; this, however, is like fan fiction-made worse by the fact that neither Crumb or Bakshi, the director of the first, were involved.
The only thing that this film offers that even comes close to good is the music of Tom Scott and the L.A. Express, and to be fair, there's not much of it..
Fritz, you old alley cat you!.
This is the sequel to the 1972 cult classic FRITZ the CAT.
Fritz lights up a joint and thinks back about his wild and swinging life in the 1960's.
He's a literal Schrodinger's Cat. Robert Crumb hated the movie version of "Fritz The Cat" so much he ended the comic by killing Fritz, but they made a sequel anyway.
This movie features Fritz imagining eight other lives while being yelled at by his wife.
In a movie that's only 77 minutes long, that's a big problem.
This is the last ever appearance of Fritz the Cat in any media.
I was always intrigued by the orange cat and tall mouse like woman that appeared on the poster and it turns out neither of them are even in the movie.
The animation wasn't bad, although incredibly cheap as they used greenscreen shots of Fritz dancing as filler.
However, the 1972 Fritz the Cat film was crude and racist because it was making a statement on society at the time, as well as the hippie lifestyle.
It certainly doesn't seem to be reflecting any time period of society, although, if Fritz' new obese wife had a cell phone and lived in a trailer, it could easily pass off as reflecting the jogging pants wearing, Wal-Mart, texting trailer trash people of today.There were some scenes that made absolutely no sense at all, and the only scene I thought was remotely funny was the one where Fritz and the businessman in the space helmet are in the truck.
Duke doesn't even have the same sounding voice as he did in the first one.I wouldn't recommend this film, just stick with the first one, you're probably better off not seeing this..
Crumb and his creation, Fritz, should be beyond getting offended by them.
The film pulls no punches in showing the lives of an oversexed stoner whose only real ambition is to keep the welfare checks coming in and lay as much tail as possible.Layered with social commentary and satire, it still manages to avoid being preach or heavy-handed, since the film makes it clear that everybody's got their own hangups, and nobody's really the best or the worst.I think the best satire in the movie comes from Fritz's flashforward to his life as a messenger boy in a future America where New Jersey has been ceded to the 'crows'.
I'm pretty sure the American president in that episode is supposed to be Kissinger; the accent and face fit, but I never knew him to be a golf fetishist.I loved the scene between Fritz and God (you know: the guy who lives in the trash can).Not a cartoon for the kiddies or the small minds, so you've been warned..
Nine Live of Fritz the Cat is about a Cat named Fritz who is trying to get away from life of being married and having kids.
This movie was definitely ahead of it's time in 1974.
I don't think there were many animated films in the 1970's that were even Rated R.
This movie is pretty trippy.This movie deals with a lot of heavy topics such as racism and drug use.
There is scene where the black people are suppose to be crows and they do use the N word at least 2-3 times.
If you don't like crude humor you probably won't like this movie.I thought this was a pretty good movie.
I liked many of the scenes in the movie.
There are a few parts that I didn't like in the movie.