Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Forgotten Sequels: The 9 Lives of Fritz the Cat

Robert Crumb was a very odd man back in the 1970s. He was an artistic icon who managed to get one of his oddest characters his own film. That character- Fritz the Cat. This cat is foul-mouthed, unpleasant and an overall douche-bag. In spite of this, they made a cartoon about him. It was very controversial in its day because people thought of cartoons as solely for kids. Obviously, they never saw Watership Down. In fact, the controversy was so great that people forgot that there was a sequel. Not all of us can be so lucky. Sit down, relax and enjoy my review of...
To begin, this movie has almost no real plot. This is all you need to know: Fritz is in a common-law relationship with another cat, has a kid and has no balls. He sits at home all day and smokes pot. His lady hates him, yelling at him non-stop. The movie never stops to say why she is still with this cat, but I might be a little picky. While she complains (it lasts the whole movie), Fritz drifts off into other dream worlds and realities. Basically, it is all a pretense to show random cartoon ideas that could not last 80 minutes. Let's go into more detail.
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He imagines meeting his Hispanic friend (who is a dog) and farting on him. No, I'm not kidding. He acts like a complete dick for a couple of minutes before relaying a story about screwing the guy's sister. This jumps to a scene of Fritz date-raping a young woman/cat by means of marijuana. She has a pre-requisite freak-out and has mildly-adult sex with Fritz before her boyfriend (a bulldog) shows up and kills Fritz. Well, the movie is not all bad.
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Another one has Fritz imagining himself as an astronaut headed to Mars. As he goes towards the vessel, he hits on a bird reporter who is supposed to be Barbara Walters. He proceeds to have sex with her in the craft to the point where the vessel shakes from it. They fly off into space, screwing all the while. For no apparent reason, the ship explodes. Maybe you should not shake the ship before you launch it.
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A random musical number shows Fritz in fancy clothes as images of the 1930's flash behind him. This is basically just a pointless act break and advertisement for the soundtrack. Pass.
*
One of the more controversial ones has our hero imagining himself as a Nazi in Germany. Well, his name is Fritz. Anyhow, he goes from having an orgy with a pig commander's wife (and another animal lady) to serving as Hitler's assistant. Yeah, they go there. After learning that Hitler has only one ball,- classy, movie- our hero gets raped off-screen by the dictator. I wish I was kidding. After all of that, the Americans roll in and kill Fritz. This guy has really dark dreams.
*
Finally, Fritz is in a dark future where the government is corrupt, people are poor and New Jersey was sold as a new African state. All of the African-Americans are crows because...well, this movie loves Disney, I guess. Our 'hero' is sent as a delivery boy into the 'country' to send a letter to its President. After running past numerous stereotypes and being called a honky about 6,000 times, he gets to his destination. Unfortunately, one of the man's helpers has killed him and pegs it on Fritz. He gets put before a firing squad as the country gets attacked.
*
Yeah, I know there are more of them, but I am done. The movie does not ever try to make any characters interesting or likable. They just talk in oddly overdubbed dialog the whole time. Fritz is a complete asshole and has absolutely no subtlety. He is like every misogynistic character on television (i.e. Laroquette on Night Court, etc) crammed into one, ugly package. How does anyone want to be near this guy or, god forbid, sleep with him. To top it all off, the art ranges from good to shit. It is one of those cartoons where the characters go off-model every time they move, but look good in still shots. If you want to see an animated acid trip, you could do better.
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Let's keep the sequel train a-rolling and cover a film that failed to attract even "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Stay tuned...

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