Coonskin
Tags: comedy, cult, violence, absurd, psychedelic, satire, humor, blaxploitation

Plot synopsis:
In the South, Sampson and the local Preacherman plan to bust out their friend Randy from prison. As they rush to the prison, the two are stopped by a roadblock and have a shootout with the police. Meanwhile, Randy and another cellmate named Pappy escape from inside the prison and wait for Sampson and the Preacherman to help them get out. While waiting for them, Randy unwillingly listens to Pappy tell a story about three guys that resemble Randy and his friends. Pappy's story is told in animation set against live-action background photos and footage.
Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox are forced to pack up and leave their Southern settings after the bank mortgages their home and sells it to a man who turns it into a brothel. The trio moves to Harlem, "home to every black man". When they arrive, Rabbit, Bear, and Fox find that it is not all that it is made out to be. They encounter a con man named Simple Savior, a phony revolutionary leader who claims to be the cousin of "Black Jesus", and that he gives his followers "the strength to kill whites". In a flashy stage performance in his "church", Savior acts out being brutalized by symbols of black oppression—represented by images of John Wayne, Elvis Presley, and Richard Nixon, before asking his parishioners for "donations". Rabbit and his friends quickly realize Savior's "revolution" is merely a money making scam. Rabbit openly steals a large portion of the donation money, prompting Savior to try to have him killed. After Rabbit tricks his would-be murderers (in a paraphrasing of the story of Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch), he and Bear kill Savior. This allows Rabbit to take over Savior's racket, putting him in line to become the head of all organized crime in Harlem. Rabbit lays out his plan to keep all organized crime money in Harlem. But first, he has to get rid of a few other opponents. Savior's former partners tell Rabbit they will join him but only if he can kill his opponents, otherwise they will kill him instead.
Rabbit first goes up against Madigan, a virulently racist and homophobic white police officer and bagman for the Mafia, who demonstrates his contempt for African Americans in various ways, including a refusal to bathe before an anticipated encounter with them (he believes they're not worth it). When Madigan finds out that Rabbit has been taking his payoffs, he and his cohorts, Ruby and Bobby, are led to a nightclub called "The Cottontail". A black stripper distracts him while an LSD sugar cube is dropped into his drink. Madigan, while under the influence of his spiked drink, is then maneuvered into a sexual liaison with a stereotypically effeminate gay man, and then shoved into women's clothing representative of the mammy archetype, adorned in blackface, and shoved out the back of the club where he discovers that Ruby and Bobby are dead. While recovering from being drugged, he fires his gun randomly, and is shot to death by the police after shooting one of them.
Rabbit's final target is the Godfather who lives in the subway with his wife and his cross-dressing, gay (and possibly incestuous) sons. The contract for killing Rabbit is given to his only straight son Sonny. Arriving outside Rabbit's nightclub in blackface and clothing representative of minstrel show stereotypes, Sonny is shot multiple times by Rabbit before dying in an explosion caused by a car crash. His body is cremated and taken back home, where his mother weeps over his ashes. Also during the shootout with Sonny, Bear defends Rabbit and is shot several times. Rabbit helps an injured Bear to safety. During his recovery, Bear becomes torn between staying with Rabbit or starting a new crime-free life. Bear decides to look for Fox in order to seek his advice. Upon arriving at Fox's newly acquired brothel, Bear is "married" to a girl he, Fox, and Rabbit met during the fight with Savior's men. Under the advisement of Fox, Bear becomes a boxer for the Mafia. During one of Bear's fights, Rabbit sets up a melting imitation of himself made out of tar. As the Mafiosos take turns stabbing at the "tar rabbit", they become stuck together. Rabbit leaves a bomb next to them and then he, Bear, Fox, and the opponent boxer rush out of the boxing arena as it blows up.
The live-action story ends with Randy and Pappy escaping from the prison while being shot at by various white cops, but managing to make it out alive.
The main plot of the film is interspersed with animated vignettes depicting a white, blond, large-breasted Miss America who serves as a personification of the United States. In each of these short scenes, she seduces a black man (meant to depict the African-American populace), only to instead beat or kill him.

Review: This is a movie you watch when you need food for thought.To dismiss this film as simply racist is to miss the point entirely.
I had watched this film from Ralph Bakshi (Wizards, Hey Good Lookin', etc.), one night ago on www.afrovideo.org, and I didn't see anything racial.
Well, I do admit the character designs are a bit crude and unaccpectable today, but I think it's a satire and a very, very urban retelling of the old Uncle Remus stories that the Black American culture, created right down to the main characters and the blatant nod to "The Tar Baby" and "The Briar Patch." These aren't bigoted stories, mind you, but cultural icons created by Black Americans, and me being a white woman read and love those stories.
And I also found it an interesting time-capsule view on the black culture in Harlem, New York in the 70's.Well to get to the nitty-gritty of this film: This film is a live-action/animated film, which begins in live-action with a fellow named Sampson and the Preacherman rush to help their friend, Randy escape from prison, but are stopped by a roadblock and wind up in a shootout with the police.
While waiting for them, Randy unwillingly listens to fellow escapee Pappy, as he begins to tell Randy the animated story of Brother Rabbit, a young newcomer to the big city who quickly rises from obscurity to rule over all of Harlem.
An abstract juxtaposition of stylized animation and live action footage, the film is a graphic and condemnatory satire of stereotypes prevalent in the 70s — racial, ethnic, and otherwise.So anyway, it is another good Bakshi movie.
One of the most interesting movies to be classified as "blaxploitation," Bakshi's "Coonskin" is a rich text full of wonderful insight.
If he had stated that he had made it merely as a sarcastic and mean racist statement against African Americans, especially since I am proud to say that I am one of the only two white members of a wonderful all-black church filled with beautiful and kind people who have shown me nothing but the most wonderful love and respect I have ever known, I would ***NEVER*** have watched it.I was familiar with all of Bakshi's other works by then, many which I found unsettling, to say the least.
The only thing I knew for certain about THIS film was that it had CAUSED a scream of its own, being picketed and disowned by Paramount almost immediately.So what was my personal reaction to it?Well, first let me start by saying that this is easily the angriest animated film I have ever seen in my entire life.And believe me, I've seen hundreds of them from all over the world.
I guarantee you right now that if you should ever choose to do what I finally did-- to prepare yourself the best you can emotionally and watch this film--I hereby guarantee you that you will never forget the experience.It's very rare that a movie has the power to affect us so strongly.
When I first saw "Heavy Traffic" in 1991, I found myself shrinking in my chair shaking because of all the powerful suggestions that Bakshi was showing me--all of his convincing arguments of what it can really be like to live in today's world for those less fortunate than myself.
While watching "Coonskin", I was shrinking in my chair shaking even worse--but this time it wasn't from the convincing arguments Bakshi was showing me, it was from the raw, ugly, horrifying attack that my senses were being assaulted with.
In other words, NOBODY gets out of this film in one piece--but the MOST horrifying design of all here, one so hideous that he singlehandedly makes all the others in this movie look gentle and affectionate in his shadow, is the ITALIAN GODFATHER!
Even the most "normally designed" character, Miss America, is so obviously a symbol of ugliness that has haunted the USA that she comes across as disgusting and a plague to our country.The main three though (Rabbit, Fox and Bear) gave me a different reaction: Rabbit I thought looked cool except for those awful exaggerated lips (but I wish to state that he looks absolutely tame compared to other characters you encounter later on), Fox looked alright although I kept wondering where his tail and ears were, and Bear...I liked his appearance the most.
Charles Gordone is a natural match for Fox and sounds like he had a lot of fun voicing his part in quite a few scenes, and Bear is voiced by one of my all-time favorite talents, Barry White!
In a way, it was good for me personally that White was in the film as one of the "heroes" here because his familiar deep voice which has always sounded so gentle in his wonderful music gave me a comforting little something from my own life--a mental "security blanket" to hold on to during the movie, if you will--that helped a bit to cushion the concussive force of this film.And that was a good thing for me.
Bakshi obviously never intended for his film to be yelling at an audience already on his side concerning this issue.But even though this is a movie I would never personally buy or want to watch again, I have to tell you: for what it's created to be, this is an excellent movie.
Streetfight (aka Coonskin) is a very unique film directed by animation pioneer Ralph Bakshi.
They are stuck at a police roadblock, and Crothers tells Thomas a story about a black rabbit, a bear, and a fox who move from the South to Harlem in order to find a more peaceful existence.
Like all of Bakshi's films, most will be annoyed and will dislike the animation.
Whatever the answer to that, Coonskin/Streetfight is still very much worth watching for animation aficionados as well as cult movie fans.
by Dane Youssef "Coonskin" is film, by the one and only Ralph Bakshi, is reportedly a satirical indictment of blaxploitation films and negative black stereotypes, as well as a look at life black in modern America (modern for the day, I mean--1975).
Anyone who knows the name knows that if HE made a movie, he has something big to say...Although it's roots are based in cheap blaxploitation, "Coonskin" isn't just another campy knock-off of mainstream white film or any kind of throwaway flick.
Nor does it just indict black people, but actually seems to show love, beauty and heart in the strangest places."Coonskin" tells a story out of some convicts awaiting a jail-break.
The fact that it's even possible to break out of a prison in the "Coonskin" world alone makes it old-fashioned.One of the inmates tells a story about a trio of black brothers in Harlem named Brother Bear, Brother Rabbit, Preacher Fox who want respect and a piece of the action and are willing to get it by any means necessary.
From an angry, hip, deep, soulful black man with a hate in his heart and a gun in his hand.Bakshi's films never know the meaning of the word "sublety." This one looks like it's never even heard of the word.
Here, unlike in Spike Lee's "Bamboozled," he seems to be using it to try and really say something.Like 99.9% of all of Bakshi's films, this one incorporates animation and live-action.
Anyone who's really seen the movies, the state of things and has been in company of the people know what I'm talking about.Even some of the of the black characters are a bunny (junglebunny), a big ol' bear and a fox.
Randy (Philip Michael Thomas) and Pappy (Scatman Crothers) escape from prison and await a pick-up from their friends Sampson (Barry White) and Preacherman (Charles Gordone).
Pappy begins to tell a strange story about three crooks, Brother Rabbit (voiced by Thomas), Brother Bear (White) and Preacher Fox (Gordone), who rise up throughout the Harlem crime ring.
They come up against an evangelistic maniac who teaches his followers to kill whites, a crooked white cop with a hatred of Brother Rabbit, and a fat, Italian-American, Godfather-type who put out a contract on the trio.Ralph Bakshi, one of the most revolutionary cartoonists in recent times, had a long history with the making of Coonskin.
If you don't get satire or if you completely miss the point of Coonskin, then this is possibly the most offensive film ever made.The animation is crude and dirty-looking, but I believe this was Bakshi's intention.
The film is also quite strange, jumping between different styles and tones, and the result is as often confusing as it is mesmerising.They are some truly inspired moments, such as the scene when our animated trio enter Harlem (the "home to every black man") to be greeted by a wailing saxophone in the street, as well as Scatman Crothers' rendition of Ah'm a N****r Man over the opening credits.
Coonskin might be my favorite Ralph Bakshi film.
The most normal looking creation in looking drawn "real" is, in fact, a naked woman painted red, white and blue.In mocking these stereotypes and conventions and horrible forms of racism (i.e. the "tar-rabbit, baby" joke, yes joke, plus black-face), we're looking at abstraction to a grand degree.
This is why, for the most part, Coonskin is a hilarious piece of work, where some of the images and things done and sudden twists and, of course, scenes of awkward behavior (I loved the scene where the three animated characters are being talked at by the real-life white couple in tux and dress as looking "colorful" and the like), are just too much not to laugh at.
It's not just the imagery, which is in and of itself incredibly "over"-stylized, but that the screenplay is sharp and, this is key for Bakshi this time considering, it's got a fairly cohesive narrative to string along the improvisations and madness.Using at first live-action, then animation, and then an extremely clever matching of the two (ironically, what Bakshi later went for in commercial form with Cool World is done here to a T with less money and a rougher edge), Pappy and Randy are waiting outside a prison wall for a buddy to escape, and Pappy tells of the story of Brother Rabbit, who with Brother Bear and Preacher Fox go to Harlem and become big-time hoodlums, with Rabbit in direct opposition to a Jabba-the-Hut-esquire Godfather character.
This is obviously a take off on Song of the South with its intentionally happy-go-lucky plot and animation, here taken apart and shown for how rotten and offensive it really is.Yet Bakshi goes for broke in combining forms; animated characters stand behind and move along with live-action backgrounds; when violence and gunshots and fights occurs it's as bloody as it can get for 1975; when a dirty cop is at a bar and is drugged and put in black-face and a dress, he trips in a manner of which not even Disney could reach with Dumbo; a boxing match with Brother Bear and an opponent as the climax is filmed in wild slow-motion; archive footage comes on from time to time of old movies, some and some from the 20s that are just tasteless.Like Mel Brooks or Kubrick or, more recently, South Park, Bakshi's Coonskin functions as entertainment first and then thought-provocation second.
It's also audacious film-making on an independent scale; everything from the long takes to the montage and the endlessly warped designs for the characters (however all based on the theme of the piece) all serve the thought in the script, where its B-movie plot opens up much more for interpretation.
Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin is indeed a movie that would "offend EVERYBODY".
After finally watching Walt Disney's Song of the South on myspace, I decided to watch Ralph Bakshi's response to that movie-Coonskin-on Afro Video which I linked from Google Video.
In this one, during the live-action sequences, Preacherman (Charles Gordone) takes his friend Sampson (Barry White) with him to pick up Pappy (Scatman Crothers) and Randy (Philip Thomas, years before he added Michael for his middle name professionally) as the latter two escape from prison.
During their attempt, Pappy tells Randy a tale of Brother Rabbit (voice of Thomas), Brother Bear (White), and Preacher Fox (Gordone) and their adventures in Harlem.
As expected in many of these Bakshi efforts, there's a mix of animation and live-action that provides a unique point-of-view from the writer/director that is sure to offend some people.
Another fascinating animated character is Miss America who's a big-as in gigantic in every way-white blonde woman dressed in skin-tight red, white, and blue stars and stripes who has a hold on a little black man and has him shot in one of the most sexually violent ways that was shockingly funny to me!
That said, I definitely recommend Coonskin to fans of Bakshi and of every form of animation..
Ralph Bakshi's half animated, half live-action flick is actually a memorable one.
An alright film but I preferred Fritz The Cat. MPAA:Rated R for Violence,Language,Nudity and Brief Drug Use. Quebec Rating:13+ Canadian Home Video Rating:18AI saw Coonskin today.This film is also known as Bustin Out and Street Fight.After watching Fritz The Cat,I wanted to see more of Bashki's films.I saw Cool World and thought it was mediocre and I saw this.When it was first released, the film was very controversial.It was considered racist and Al Sharpton wanted the film banned, he even led protests outside the theatre where the film was playing.The film was only released on VHS under the title "Street Fight".It is now considered a cult-classic film and African-American celebrities such as comedian Richard Pryor,director Spike Lee and the rap group The Wu-Tang Clan are said to have enjoyed this film.I personally thought Fritz The Cat was a much better film but this is very enjoyable as well.Worth watching for Bashki or Blaxploitation film fans.The film mixes live action and animation sort of like the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.I would have preferred it in full animation but whatever.The film starts off with a reverend and another man racing to rescue two of their friends from prison.While the prisoners wait,the older one tells a story of three men he knew.The film then switches into animation format, we see three black men who sold their house to this man.They decide to make names for themselves in Harlem.So the leader, a black rabbit, kills a big player in Harlem and he basically becomes a big shot.The film moves on as the Italian mafia want him out.The mafia involves the godfather,his three sons who are homosexual and an Italian clown.Coonskin is an entertaining animated film that's worth checking out, if you can find it..
Seeing this film, I can see why Coonskin won't appeal to all, due to its very gritty subject matter(racism) and the fact it is stereotypical.
However, I loved this movie surprisingly and consider it one of Bakshi's better films alongside American Pop and Heavy Traffic.
The satire really does bite and hit you hard, while the story is rich and multi-layered with lots of insight(correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Bakshi has done anything as ambitious as Coonskin before).
The movie begins where we see Preacher (Gordone) talking to God, then go meets up with Samson (White, R.I.P.), as they head out to go break their friends, Randy (Thomas) and Pappy (Crothers) out of prison.
While they're waiting outside the prison walls for Samson and Preacher to come, Pappy tells Randy the story of Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox, about how they got runned out of the South and into Harlem.
Often times sex in a movie deepens the characters, or provides story development, or even a good love scene.
Just seeing this 1975 blacksploitation film in 2016, it still holds up to its jab at stereotypes of black, whites, gays and, mostly, Disney's "Song of the South".
(I, however, don't find that kind of ironic racism clever, but instead as an excuse to draw offensive cartoons.)There was one scene in the film that came remotely close to explaining the real underlying cause of problems in the black community, and that was the scene of the single Harlem mother with her child, whose husband left her for no good reason.
After watching Bakshi's personal drama/comedy Heavy Traffic, I was pleasantly surprised at how one could blend animation and real life together (both figuratively and literally) to make a gritty and vulgar, yet still poignant film.
The only thing keeping them from rising to the top is the Godfather and his associates.What makes this movie better than Heavy Traffic is that it actually has a ground in plot, unlike the former, which more pretended like it had a plot.
The movie takes place in Harlem Nights (No, duh, it was a working title.) but with a twist that becomes a lampoon of a Disney movie, Song of the South.It's about Sampson (Barry White) and the Preacherman (Charles Gordone) rush to help their friend, Randy (Philip Michael Thomas) escape from prison, but are stopped by a roadblock and wind up in a shootout with the police.
Pappy's story is told in animation set against live-action background photos and footage.Brother Rabbit (voice of Thomas), Brother Bear (voice of White), and Preacher Fox (voice of Gordone) decide to pack up and leave their Southern settings after the bank mortgages their home and sells it to a man who turns it into a brothel.
The live-action story ends with Randy and Pappy escaping while being shot at by various white cops, but managing to make it out alive.This movie was controversial at that time of release, and was re-edited by the director several times under the title, Street Fight, which is obvious, since Street Fight is a 2005 documentary about racism in the streets.
The film's plot follows along the traditional black men facing white bigotry gambit of so many of the pure live action efforts.