NinetyForChill: The #Podcast - An Explict Podcast for Ralph Bashki's "Fritz the Cat"

 NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 85: An Explict Podcast for Ralph Bashki's "Fritz the Cat" (Featuring Gregory Carl's live reaction to NWA 74: Night 2).

An Explicit Podcast for ”Fritz the Cat”.

September 13, 2022

Gregory Carl blesses "NinetyForChill: The #Podcast" with his presence again to discuss Ralph Bashki's "Fritz the Cat", the "first" X-Rated animated feature and the most successful independent animated film of all time. This is a movie that discusses a lot of issues that are still extremely sensitive today in regards to race relations while being as explicit as narratively possible, It is a film that needs to be chatted about, but not around the kiddies.

Allow me to get out of third-person. Happy Prof. Shurtleff of Illinois Central College? I (CM Darth) will try not to make so much light of violent death in this summation. This is my declaration of changing perspective. 

It was a bit inconvenient that Gregory agreed to the scheduled Zoom meeting while forgetting it was the NWA's 74th anniversary weekend, but when we are discussing a film that should not be shown to kids, his language is forgivable. As a budget-strung wrestling fan, the updates were nice. If anything, this podcast could serve as an advertisement for Motorola phones. They hear everything. We spend the first 10 minutes of our conversation about wrestling based on the audio that I was hearing.

Because I suspect that not all of my listeners are wrestling fans, those 10 minutes are placed at the end of the episode. Trust me. There are cues telling you when the movie chatter ends.

If I recall correctly, Gregory suggested this feature as a podcast subject on the ""They Live". We Podcast with Gregory Carl" episode. It has been a film that I have always wanted to get around to, but the reputation still seemed a bit much. How can you sexualize cats? (I guess that says I am responsible cat owner/servant.) I knew that the creator of the comic, the legendary Robert Crumb, disowned the feature, but I did not know it was about race relation issues.

As a fan of "American Pop" and who is appreciative of "The Lord of the Rings" and "Fire and Ice", I was surprised and impressed to see Bashki tackle such topics, but is he the person that should be addressing them?

Of course the issues was, were there any black voices in animation to direct such a feature? I bring up that my father's favorite feature is "Putney Swope", a film directed by Robert Downey Sr. It addresses how white men just ignore the voice of African Americans, when in truth, they may have a better understanding about the struggles of the marginalized. Because of this, why do we sell to solely rich white people when there are plenty of middle and lesser classes who want to feel included?

But again, the director is a white man. Could that movie be made today? At least Mel Brooks had Richard Pryor to write "Blazing Saddles" with.

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.