Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi **(born October 29, 1938)** is an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 2015, he directed ten theatrically released feature films, most notably the animated version of *The Lord of the Rings*, six of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer and animator.

Bakshi is also known for being one of the producers, directors, additional voice actors, animators, and script consultant on Paul Winchell's Nickelodeon shows, those of which being *Rocko's Modern Life* (starting mostly with season 2), *The Loud House* (which is his personal favorite), and the most famous of them all, *SpongeBob SquarePants*. Though he didn’t direct any of the films for those shows, he *did* produce, write, and help animate those films, as well as still being the script consultant. Ever since September of 2020, he and Joe Murray have been in charge of not just Nickelodeon, but Paramount Global as a whole, succeeding the position of Winchell in the former company after Brian Robbins was exposed for exploiting the talent of some of the employees.

In *The Loud House*, he voiced the exterminator in "Along Came a Sister," which he wrote and directed. Bakshi went on to say that the exterminator was one of his favorite characters he ever voiced; not only because the character was basically a sadistic version of him, but also because he once had a spider problem and used that experience as the basis for both the character and episode.

## Biography

**Disclaimer: Some of the things in this biography are not suitable for a young audience.**

### Early Life

Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), to a Krymchak Jewish family. In 1939, his family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to find them.

According to an interview in 2009, Ralph said he was very poor and the walls of his neighborhood were constantly repainted. He liked the feeling when he looked out the window and saw the sun as a little boy, and whenever he would walk out in the streets, someone would break the wooden crates, that were filled with food, in the push carts open. Ralph says this in the interview, "And the push carts were wood, and most of the buildings were made out of old wood, going back to the turn of the century, and they were repainted a lot but the paint was faded by, you know the hundred years of snow and rain, repainted and faded again." Bakshi loved the faded colors, the nails, the wooden crates, and he would build his own toys from the wood. Ralph recalls, "I had a great feeling with wood, cement, and nails".

In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, DC, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!"

The racial segregation of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, but a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white, let alone Jewish, student was attending a black school, the police removed Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events.

At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes' *Complete Guide to Cartooning* at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenaged years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning.

### Career

#### Early career (1956–1968)

When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels.

After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, so promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped 10 cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella.

Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew *Dum Dum and Dee Dee*, a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl".

As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch. Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips *Bonefoot and Fudge*, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and *Junktown*, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals".

Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes - a hat floating on water and a running Deputy Dawg, the lead character of a Terrytoons' series then being shown on CBS. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor.

At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series *Sad Cat*. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own."

Other animation studios, such as Hanna-Barbera, were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey".

As Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called *The Mighty Heroes*. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could, and the villains were stupider than they were."

The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director. It would appear as a segment of *Mighty Mouse Playhouse* on the network's 1966–67 Saturday-morning schedule; the series was renamed *Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes* in recognition of the new segment.

Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over *The Mighty Heroes*, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing, and voice acting. Although the series' first 20 segments were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called *Tee-Witt*, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago, and Bill Foucht.

On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane.

Bakshi enlisted comic-book and pulp-fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood, and Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote, and designed four short films at Paramount: *The Fuz*, *Mini-Squirts*, *Marvin Digs*, and *Mouse Trek*.

Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have everything animated projects at the time did not. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust" Production of *Mighty Heroes* ended when Bakshi left Terrytoons.

Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract.

Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science-fiction series Rocket Robin Hood. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States.

Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard, who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours.

Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on *Rocket Robin Hood*, and later took over the *Spider-Man* television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970.

#### *Fritz the Cat* (1969–1972)

In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed *Heavy Traffic*, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience, and would likely consider it if his first film was an adaptation. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb's *Fritz the Cat*. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference.

Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodē warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract. Crumb was subsequently hostile both to the film and Bakshi. Krantz produced a sequel, *The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat* (1974), to which Bakshi was mixed on. On one hand, he wanted to avoid further movies; on the other, he very much enjoyed doing Fritz's voice, and both he and Kranz agreed that this would be the last film based on the character.

After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators with whom he had worked in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti, and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was, in Bakshi's words, "the most wild junkyard revolution you would see in the world of animation". Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate.

Despite receiving financing from other sources, including Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown, and Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School painters such as George Luks and John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue; this, too, would become a signature of Bakshi's. As a last-minute decision, Bakshi took it upon himself to provide the voice of Fritz himself and many other characters, in fact voicing the second-most, an aspect Crumb would say was "the only good thing about the movie". Bakshi also hired actor Frank Welker and newcomers Fred Newman and Billy West to provide all of the special vocal effects, making the former the first experienced voice actor to appear in one of Bakshi's films.

In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe, and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi and felt that *Fritz the Cat* would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in *The Hollywood Reporter*, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released *Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song* to considerable success, despite the X rating it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Bakshi's film an X rating, as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising *Fritz the Cat* as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" *Variety* called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book *Masters of Animation* that *Fritz the Cat* was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." *Fritz the Cat* was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The film wasn't out of the realm of controversy, though, as Terry Jones of *Monty Python's Flying Circus* called it "the most revolting piece of shit with very few redeeming qualities"; it got banned in the states of Oklahoma, Florida, New Jersey and West Virginia until 2002; Church organizations protested against Bakshi and Kranz for allowing the content to be shown in local cinemas; the United Kingdom, Portugal and South Africa refused to show the movie anywhere until 1997; and Crumb detested the movie to no end, even killing off his character in a later issue by an ex-girlfriend. Ralph said in an interview later on "We knew it was going to happen. Whether it was the movie or the comic, Fritz was going to die at some point; there isn't any fucking way he would be allowed in today's culture." The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born.

#### *Heavy Traffic* (1972–1973)

By the time *Fritz the Cat* was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of *Heavy Traffic* in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi often played pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched *Heavy Traffic* to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on *Fritz the Cat*, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied.

As he continued to work on *Heavy Traffic*, Bakshi began pitching his next project, *Harlem Nights*, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later.

Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, *Heavy Traffic* was rated X. Due to the success of *Fritz the Cat*, though, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. *Heavy Traffic* was very well received by critics. *Newsweek* applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie, and peculiar raw beauty." *The Hollywood Reporter* called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby of *The New York Times* ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada.

#### *Coonskin* (1973–1975)

In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of *Harlem Nights*, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While *Fritz the Cat* and *Heavy Traffic* proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs, and profanity. *Harlem Nights*, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White, and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two media could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a N\*\*german". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation - slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap".

Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from *The Wind in the Willows* were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of *The Godfather*." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to *Coonskin No More...*, and finally to *Coonskin*. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on *Coonskin*, including Brenda Banks, the first African-American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount cancelled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, *The American Chronicles*.

*Coonskin*, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; *Playboy* commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in *The Hollywood Reporter*, *New York Amsterdam News* (an African-American newspaper), and elsewhere. *The New York Times*' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined-to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". *Variety* called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the *Los Angeles Herald-Examiner* wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box-office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called *Coonskin* his best film.

#### Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978)

In 1976, Bakshi pitched *War Wizards* to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas's *Star Wars*. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves.

Patent drawing for the rotoscoping technique, which is used extensively in *Wizards* and *The Lord of the Rings*

Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's *Alexander Nevsky*, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy.

As *War Wizards* neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to *Wizards* to avoid conflict with *Star Wars*; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from *Star Wars* to record a voice for *Wizards*. Although *Wizards* received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr of *The Chicago Reader* saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character."

In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of *The Lord of the Rings*, in which J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy, United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to *The Lord of the Rings*. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt and agreed to fund the $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film.

Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints.

After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on *Wizards*, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for *The Lord of the Rings*, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt, who performed the role of Aragorn. The project's prominence brought heavy trade journal coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action Aragorn costume, which he wore while animating.

Viewing *The Lord of the Rings* as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, *The Lord of the Rings* was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". *Newsday*'s Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby of *New York* felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. *The Lord of the Rings* won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival.

#### *American Pop* and *Fire and Ice* (1979–1983)

Following the production struggles of *The Lord of the Rings*, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched *American Pop* to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. *American Pop* follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop and starred actor Ron Thompson in a dual lead role. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, and Louis Prima—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. *The New York Times*' Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video until 1998.

By 1982, fantasy films such as *The Beastmaster* and *Conan the Barbarian* had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. *Fire and Ice* was financed by some of *American Pop*'s investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. *Fire and Ice* was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's *He-Man* series. [...] *Fire and Ice* essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan."