Palestine native Ralph Bakshi was raised in a rough-and-tumble section of Brooklyn. A talented artist virtually from the time he could read and write, Bakshi was eighteen years old when he was hired as an opaquer at the Terrytoons animation studio. Recently purchased by the CBS television network, Terrytoons was going through a period of reorganization and restructuring, thus the time was ripe for a young man full of fresh ideas to make an impression. By his early 20s, Bakshi was directing episodes of the Terrytoons TVer Deputy Dawg and the theatrical series James Hound; he also worked on the popular cartoons Hekyll and Jekyll and Mighty Mouse. Ordered by CBS to put together a "superhero" TV cartoon series in 1965, Bakshi, now in charge of Terrytoons, demonstrated his disdain for this assignment by coming up with some of the most ridiculous, least prepossessing superguys in history: Tornado Man, Cuckooman, Ropeman, Strongman, and Diaper Baby. Incredibly, CBS loved it, and thus was born the short-lived but energetic series The Mighty Heroes. When Terrytoons folded, Bakshi moved on to Paramount's cartoon division, a job that lasted until 1967, when Paramount also threw in the towel. During this period, Bakshi's staff had worked on producer Steve Krantz' Spiderman series. Again aligned with Krantz, Bakshi produced his first theatrical animated feature, a down-and-dirty X-rated adaptation of Robert Crumb's "underground" comic strip Fritz the Cat (1972). While Crumb hated the finished product, Fritz…  » Read more