Ralph Bakshi, who boldly went no animator had gone before in the 1970's, settled into a long slump after the excellent 'Wizards' (1977), which included the awful 'Lord of the Rings', and his last feature in almost a decade, the equally awful 'Fire and Ice' (1983). After that, apart from doing what I'm told is some excellent TV work (particularly 'Mighty Mouse'), he wasn't heard from again by wider audiences until 'Cool World', which turned out to be an improvement, but still basically a dud. Then another hiatus, until these videos pop up with episodes of the Bakshi TV series 'Spicy City'. Well, I must say that although this is nowhere near in the same league as his best 70's stuff, it's undoubtedly the best stuff I've seen from him since then. It's all set in a sleazy Bladerunner meets Cyberpunk sort of future world, and whereas a lot of it is not particularly clever or funny, there are enough flashes of inspiration to make it worth watching, and make one hope that the guy maybe is still capable of delivering on the promise of his groundbreaking early work. You kind of doubt it, and doubt that he even would really want to, but this is the first think I've seen from him in 20 years that takes a step back from the mainstream/family market and dares to be a bit cheeky again.
Not great, but good to see there's still a spark there.
I suppose I can see how it might remind some people of 'Heavy Metal', but it never struck me that way (incidentally I thought 'Heavy Metal' was awful, even when I was 22 and wasted.)
