What Cool World meant to be

Remember Cool World (1992) that everyone compared to Who Framed Roger Rabbit (question mark not part of the title but this sentence)? Having being released three years later, it was still compared to it but unfortunately it was nowhere close. When it came out, I was ten and did think it would be like Who, (I was intrigued about the idea of about a cartoon becoming a real woman) thankfully my parents didn't let me see it. I saw it later when on VHS and was dissapointed by it. Brad Pitt gave such a dry performance. I did like some elements. This was another movie done by Ralph Bakshi, mentioned in the last post about Coonskin. Happens to be that the studio changed it a lot and he had to go with the script because he was already committed. He had a completely different idea.

Here are storyboards of the original script. What Bakshi intended was an animated horror film with Drew Berrymore in the Kim Bassinger role that was originally called Debbie Dallas going to be bed with a cartoonist and having a bastardized mixed child. The child was going to kill the irresponsible father in the real world. "They bought the idea in ten seconds! I told my wife, 'You don't understand this – they finally bought the first animated horror film. We're going to go through the roof again... I'm going to do the greatest movie in the world.' I felt it. The first animated horror film, sex, violence – everything I love! Little did I know."

Pitt was suppose to be the animator Jack Deebs but was cast as Detective Harris instead. He did end up in the cartoon world in the final picture but at the end. Also, Bakashi didn't have high expectations about Gabriel Byrne who basically brought the movie down. The VHS version I saw came with a disclaimer with some lame digression about unprotected sex. Another similar movie that has the same polarizing feeling this movie gives off is Monkey Bone, which the beginning is depressing and the end gives a completely different feeling.

More here in Wikipedia.

Ralph Bakshi's controversial animation

Ralph Bakshi is an animation director who has also done live-action (This Aint' Bebop, Babe, he calls me) has done controversial and somewhat stale for my taste/somewhat amazing animated films such as The Lord of the Rings (1978), Wizards (1977), CBS' Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures (1987), Cool World (1992) and the infamous Fritz the Cat (1972). In his movies he used retroscoping live-action to save costs.

In fact, the Simpsons episode 'The Day the Violence Died' where an Itchy and Scratchy festival was held and Comic book guy showed a video Bart had never seen called "Itchy and Scratchy Meets Fritz the Cat" [I always thought the bird had a pilot cap, but it was her hair] was a parody on Bakshi's movie based on Fritz (the only animated movie evered granted an X rating) that went against the creator Robert Crumb's intention of the original comic book.

He ended up he killing off the character and never working on it again.

But the one I want to talk about is the rarely spoken about Coonskin, a film Al Sharpton fought against back in 1975. It was re-released on VHS under the title Street Fight, and on laserdisc under Bustin' Out. In Sweden it was under the title Rabbit: The Killer. It starred Barry White, Charles Gordone and Phillip Michael Thomas as inmates attempting to escape and a told a story about their cartoon counterparts.


It has some elements of Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris, which was also adapted by Walt Disney in Song of the South (which I will cover next). So this one had a rabbit, fox and bear like the other one. The film was given limited distribution, advertised as a blaxploitation film. The NAACP had written a letter describing the film as a difficult satire, but supported it. Information from Wikipedia. The DVD is now bootlegged but Bakshi Productions has recently announced it will on official DVD. I found it interesting because of the mix of animation and live-action but they weren't incoropated together.

The movie remained in obscurity for many years because of poor distribution, eventually developing a cult following through film festivals and home video. Even the Wu-Tang Clan, Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino expressed interest in producing a sequel during the Cannes Film Festival . In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the 97th greatest animated film of all time.