Fritz the Cat c. 1972 : Animation takes an interesting turn

3 years ago
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Furries themselves often point to Disney’s 1973 version of Robin Hood as a shared, foundational text in furry culture. Arguing against a subculture’s own idea of its history might be anathema, but here, they are wrong to evade the key touchstone of horny anthropomorphic cinema: 1972’s Fritz the Cat. A few short years after the Western auteurist revolution of films like Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy came a cast of characters that could have been mistaken for Jay Ward kiddie cartoons — until they opened their potty mouths or shed their hippy togs to reveal full feline tits and ass.

Based on Robert Crumb’s underground comix character, Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat was the first film to score the X rating, and it pulsates with a sophomoric “Can you believe we’re getting away with this?” attitude that presages the naughtiness and cynicism of South Park decades later. In what is perhaps the most memorable of many memorable scenes, you see everything that earned Fritz the Cat its reputation: campus feminists being lured into a dirty bathtub orgy, plenty of drug use, and bumbling cops who in this universe are, of course, pigs. Nearly 50 years later, it still evokes the fresh, rebellious excitement of a kid doodling a wang on a bathroom stall for the first time, giddily sordid.

https://www.vulture.com/article/most-influential-best-scenes-animation-history.html

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