Hey Good Lookin'

My review was written in August 1982 after a Times Square screening.

Ralph Bakshi's "Hey, Good Lookin'" is an adult-themed animated feature that successfully demonstrates the ability of the cartoon format to handle subjects generally thought of as live-action material, in this case a slice-of-life humorous character study of young people in Brooklyn, circa 1953. Shelved by Warner Bros. In 1975 while nearly completed, the final product (finished in the interim) evidences its stop-and-start history with awkward transitions and variable sound quality, but is well worth a platformed release at this time to tap the young adult audience that supports uninhibited comedy-drama.

While echoing Bakshi's own successful "Heavy Traffic", "Good Lookin'" really takes as its point of departure another WB picture, Martin Scorsese's 1973 "Mean Streets". The filmmaker even uses two of "Mean Streets"'s leading players, Richard Romanus and David Proval, to voice his main animated characters, Vinnie and Crazy, whose adventures in womanizing and gang brawling form the core of this period piece.

Bookended by an awkward flashback structure (which makes for an anticlimactic coda to the film), "Good Lookin'" succeeds in counteracting the ongoing nostalgia craze by portraying the good old days of the 1950s in New York as a violent, generally ugly time. The familiar Bakshi style uses painted backgrounds which emphasize a trash-laden, tenement look to the metropolis. In the foreground are beautifully animated grotesque characters, lampooning assorted ethnic and youth stereotypes, to the beat of unobtrusive "doo-wop" music written in the style of the early 1950s.

What makes this different from other Bakshi films (and other animated pictures as well) is the absence of fantasy or anthropomorphic animals: a down-to-earth story told strictly via animation. Though he reportedly had some live-action featured early on in the project (a la "Heavy Traffic" and "Coonskin") final version of film is strictly animated. The only fantasy segments involve (typically), garbage cans coming to life and Crazy's strange nightmare of being devoured by giant, distorted women.

What Bakshi uses his animation for is to exaggerate, giving the odd personages and their antics (familiar from subsequent vulgar exercises such as the recent hit "Porky's"), an appropriate absurity not possible in live-action. Also, the sex and profanity, abundant enough to earn an R rating, avoid the documentary representation problems (i.e., exploitative nudity in teen pics) by virtue of being animated.

Funny most of the way, "Good Lookin'" is hurt by a segue into melodrama in the later reels. Crazy lives up to his name by going nuts and shooting several members of the Black Chaplains gang. Audiences hooked up until this point will have to swallow an abrupt change of tone, but given the film's abbreviated running time this is not a fatal flaw.

Four lead characters are wonderfully etched. Vinnie, the definitive greaser, his nutty Jewish pal Crazy, the buxom neighborhood sex symbol Roz and her endlessly knoshing girlfriend Eva. The actors' vocal performances are solid, as is a pleasant musical score highlighted by the title cut. Other than some variable sound recording of the voice tracks, tech credits are good.

Often compared to GREASE being that the main character, a suave/strutting New York City hood, resembles John Travolta, animation icon Ralph Bashki's HEY GOOD LOOKIN' is more Martin Scorsese's MEAN STREETS as an adult-oriented cartoon, and for two good reasons...

The first is that the script and some of the artwork were created in the mid-70's, right after STREETS came out and where Bashki was to originally combine animated and live-action characters... leaving only a few genuine locations, from a dingy poolhall to Coney Island...

But the main similarity to the Scorsese proto-mob classic is that Richard Romanus and David Proval, who played Michael and Tony, voice the main characters Vinnie... a suave, bragging lady's man... and his psychotic sidekick Crazy, resembling a circus clown on acid...

While the visual animation is terrifically bright yet urban gritty... combining the director's COONSKIN and HEAVY TRAFFIC... it simply doesn't feel like a throwback to the 1950's, where the flashbacked story takes place...

Instead centering more on the two buddies basically just hanging around, mostly with two girls, while the violent gang aspect is less than peripheral (attempting traits from THE WARRIORS to THE WANDERERS)... and a musical singing-group side-story feels out of place...

So overall, Ralph Bashki's HEY GOOD LOOKIN' would have probably worked better as an animated short since... while there's plenty of noisy action... not much literal ground's really covered.

This movie has some of the best dialogue I've seen in an animated movie in a long time. It feels very natural and the terrible mic quality actually adds a special feel to the movie. Both the main two voice actors do such a good job at voicing a couple friends that I am convinced they shot their lines together in a studio

The animation and tone of the film is very dirty, like most 70s/80s adult animated films so that's to be expected. But this really works on the darker aspects of the grease style film. There are many aspects of Italian/black gang life strewn in an the characters that would be associated and I really think it pulled together a lot of the 50s new york scene in an intersecting way

I personally think it does a great job at romanticizing and vilifying the era.

I became a Bashki film from the first time I saw American Pop. It was the most amazing cartoon I'd ever seen and since then, I'd been on the look out for more Bashki cartoons.

Hey Good Lookin' is my second round of Bashki. And, though I didn't like it as much as American Pop, I did like it. It was a darkish cartoon look at rumble life of a couple of 1950s hoods. But, unlike American Pop, which also had the bazaar stlyistic drawings of dark alley life, Hey Good Lookin' has a lot of cartoonish humor like a guy being caught up in a basketball game and chucked in a basketball hoop. I liked it all except for the ending, which got me a little confused, getting wrapped up in Crazy's hypnotic dreaming sequence dancing around and shooting antennea's and stuff. I wasn't sure when it ended. But nonetheless, I did like this movie, and I'd definitely check out more Bashki films.

You either love, loathe or simply don't understand Bakshi's films. I personally fall into the first category and this was the film that started it all for me at the tender age of 12. It still remains my favourite 15 years later. Me and a friend of mine were obsessed with it and would quote it to each other (and others who must have wondered what the hell we were on about) constantly.

I love Bakshi's animation, it maybe rough and sketchy at times but this is part of the appeal. It's far more organic than some pristine computer generated Disney schmaltz or his rotoscoped films. He has a wonderfully unique way of capturing characters in his art. 98% of people in his world are ugly. Though usually with a couple of exceptions. The love interest Rozzie, for example may well be the very ideal of a red blooded males fantasy, forget Jessica Rabbit! The dialogue (as in all his earlier pics) is wonderfully un-coached and at times sounds very improvised. It's drops a lot of the psycadelic and pseudo 60's philosophy that inhabited "Fritz the cat" and "Heavy traffic". There is also less of his trademark mixing of animation over live action backgrounds although it's still present to good effect in certain scenes. In a sense, it's perhaps more streamlined and consequently more accessible to new comers to the world of Bakshi than his previous works. What really makes the film for me though is Ric Sandlers superb soundtrack which (probably due to the films lack of anything beyond extreme cult success) has never been released. I implore those of you who feel the same to email him and tell so because I personally know (from experience) this music does still exist. And with enough interest it could see a release.

Playin' To Win

9 Out of 10