Fritz the Cat

Ralph Bakshi’s (Wizards/Lord of the Rings) 1972 adaptation of Robert Crumb’s underground comic was the first X-rated animated feature released in America…and boy did it earn that distinction. The film follows Fritz, a hedonistic, politically restless college student who dives headfirst into New York’s counterculture, drifting through sex, drugs, revolutionary fantasies, and chaotic misadventures with a mix of satire and shock.

Exploding onto the scene as both a box-office hit and a cultural lightning rod, Fritz the Cat pushed American animation into unapologetically adult territory. The film’s audacious barrage of profanity, extreme violence, nudity, anti-religious sentiment, and protest politics, as well as accusations of racial stereotyping, sparked major controversy especially when Crumb publicly disowned the film. Today, it stands as a provocative milestone that opened the door for adult animation as we know it.

Grossing over 90 million dollars on its $700,000 budget, the film exploded into the cultural zeitgeist and still stands today—almost 55-years after it was released—as flashpoint for debate in the evolution of independent animation.

_{1972, 78 minutes, USA, Directed by Ralph Bakshi, Rated X}