Ralph Bakshi Dec. 1988 intvw, "Basing cartoons on toys is bad for kids" 

Bakshi's a legend.

Mighty Mouse is like the power of ren and stimpy

I'm a huge Ralph Bakshi fan. I watched his "Mighty Mouse" every saturday morning in 1988 because he was involved. He did the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, in which he used water color skies, which became his trademark. He provided the water color skies in Vanilla Sky. I saw the movie at a theater and wanted to see who the fellow Ralph Bakshi fan was in the end credits and it was him. I had a friend who was roommates with his son at NYU. I had a customer at Suncoast looking for Vanilla Sky. She said that her art teacher at NYU did the matte painting of the sky. I freaked. I said "Ralph Bakshi was your teacher?". She replied ,"You've heard of him?". If you don't know of Ralph Bakshi you don't know Cult Cinema or Animated Cinema.

This was very ahead of it’s time.

A man with such a funny voice, but with such amazing insight. (I cannot believe his voice actually sounds like that)

For once, animators and politicians agreed on something.

still so relevant today

Heck yeah, Ralph. You're why I make art.

Mighty Mouse was A LOT older than "15 years" in 1988. THAT statement (3:24) must've been an error.

Extremely relevant in the context of Scorcese’s comments about superhero movies.

Man, I miss those creator driven cartoons back 1990s and 2000s that Ralph Bakshi created mighty mouse: the new adventure created design for meansteam audience ispride creative world cartoon ispride by golden age of animantion.

John Kricfalusi moves on to the Beany & Cecil revival, after he work with Ralph Bakshi on the first season of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.

Beavis and Butt-Head is the best creator driven cartoon to me, real cartoonists with real talent making real and artistic cartoons, Mike Judge is an artistic genius

I knew there was a reason that I never gave a shit about shows like G.I. Joe, The Transformers and He-Man when I was a kid.

fritz the cat plushie would be nice

1:47-2:27 Yakko: (smooch at Matt Buskett)G’night ev’rybody!

Teenage mutant ninja turtles is based off a comic book though

Bakshi is right. I grew up in the 80's and worshipped He-man, G.I Joe, Transformers etc. I watch them now and blatantly see what they were. Half- Hour commercials directed at selling merchandise. I watch a Looney Tunes cartoon from the 50's and laugh my ass off.

We’ve still learned nothing and there are many cartoons made based on toys AND designed to sell toys

I see a lot of comments bringing up the fact that 80’s commercial cartoons kept studios afloat like that completely invalidates the points of artists in this video. Yeah, that’s cool that they did that, but artists still literally had no say in the cartoon, toy manufacturers did. Animators were treated worse than dogs while working on these shows & there was no room to experiment or make what was happening on screen interesting. And guess what? That got incredibly boring and it fucking died, giving rise to networks like Nickelodeon who advertised their shows as “creator-driven” which is now primarily the standard to this day. However, a point raised by the artists side in this video is primarily untrue. Artistically these shows lack a soul, but writing wise they are still enjoyed today (example: Transformers); that cheese has even become nostalgic for better or worse. There’s definitely an argument to be had regarding the rise and decline of 80’s animation, but I am pretty satisfied in where we are right now with creators in the directors chair.

IMDb trivia says bakshi is the basis for comic book guy in the Simpsons. I don't see it

He is half right. Making a cartoon to sell toys is diabolical but many hit cartoons then and now often sell merch/toys. There is even a demand for the merch once a series is popular.

Holy hell, Dr DeSoto hit something I had forgotten

Mighty Mouse is the first cartoon I remember seeing on tv. It was really weird.

Matt from Mattell is such a tool

I wore out the VHS tape of Bakshi's lord of the rings. I still know it line by line.

based bakshi

80's was all about the cartoon selling the toy. But what's the difference between a Seasame Street Toy than a GI Joe, HeMan, Volltron, Transformers, Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, etc toys? Maybe the toy industry with cartoons selling the product did become overwhelming with merchandising. But then on the other hand parents could've simply said "no" not today or meaning any other day like mine was famous for.

Wow interesting. I don't see how it is actually harmful but never the less something interesting to consider.

Way to get some free might mouse plugz

So back then they pushed toy sales in cartoons and today they push woke politics. Glad I grew up in the 80s. Great memories. No complaints. Love Bakshi, but this is much ado about nothing. There is no reason to look back on what we all loved with shame or embarrassment.

Ralph Bakshi is the only reasonable person in this, since he was an innovator of his time, he presented something you couldn't get anywhere and thus his films were immensively popular in the 70s while Disney, still trying to do the same schtick over and over again, almost died in the 80s. and honestly that would've been too good to be true. All I see is old people not only not being able to keep up with the times or respect the children's intelligence/freedom and use the GOVERNMENT to chastise the animation industry, say what you will about the vapid consumerism, these toys were keeping HUNDREDS of animation studios going, who would then do their own projects. The animation industry in the 1980's had actual variety to it, studios like Toei and TMS paved the way for high quality outsourced animation outside the Disney system and gave the world masterpieces of animation like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, so on. I don't even like anime that much but take one look at what children are drawing in their notebooks these days and you'll see who won the battle style-wise. The real consequence of curbing animation studios from doing stuff like this was the eventual murder of 2D animation, which didn't even need to wait 10 years to take effect, but it makes sense, people with money hire animators to do a show for them, and if the show sells then then the toys sells, if the show sucks then the toys won't sell, there is a reason why Transformers lost a great deal of its audience after the 1986 Movie, the show's animation quality dropped, and the toys sucked. I'm pretty sure all this was a plot by Disney to eliminate the competition who was absolutely destroying them in the 80s, Don Bluth was making films with an edge and soul and human identity they never dared put in their films and Transformers and GI Joe were capturing the imagination of the kids who would grow up to become Men, all this ''moralism'' and ''nice guy''-ry inlater kids shows ruined an entire generation, where their anchor for being good isn't God or Christianity, but motherfucking Disney movies, and now garbage like Steven Universe.

Those cartoons didn't have any real violence esp heman, gimme a break

All very interesting to see but they're not telling you that as kids you never would have had these shows without the toy lines to make them commercially viable to produce in the 1st place. For Bakshi to lay the claim in this that those cartoons were inherently made without love is just untrue if you've seen any sort of documentary material on the creation of almost any of the series mentioned. Also funny to hear from the guy who prided himself on working cheap. Then to point towards Disney who's trying to win ratings and fill theme parks as some altruistic entity. None of the points make any sense here for the most part in hindsight but it's an interesting time capsule.

And this, children, is why Cars is a terrible film franchise.

They were against shows that say "buy, buy, buy" but defend religions that say "pay, pay, pay "... Hypocrites.

He sounds like Jello Biafra if you put his voice through a pitch shifter

Does Ralph Bakshi know "anime"?

Bakshi sounds like Randy Newman