RALPH BAKSHI BLAXPLOITATION-ANIMATION OF 'COONSKIN'

Title: COONSKIN aka STREET FIGHT Director: Ralph Bakshi Year: 1975 Rating: **1/2

After HEAVY TRAFFIC where cult director Ralph Bakshi inserted cartoon characters with actual urban backdrops, he went to the next level, combining character-driven live-action in what begins a super-low-budget blaxploitation prison-break that just might've been something on its own...

As hidden escapees Philip Michael Thomas and the narrating Scatman Crothers await friends Barry White and Charles Gordone to pick them up, Crothers tells a story based on SONG OF THE SOUTH: transforming into a symbolic cartoon with Thomas as a skinny/slinky Rabbit; Barry White a gigantic Bear; and Gordone a preaching Fox...

Scatman Crothers and Philip Michael Thomas in COONSKIN

At one point, halfway through... after an intentionally-racist barrage of black-stereotypes... ranging from pimps to hookers to mafia killers... we return to that escaping duo, who have learned about as much as the audience... and still have nowhere to go...

So while Bashki fully succeeds in the controversial, fantastic-looking visuals, his combination of real and drawn doesn't do complete justice to either... faring better with HEAVY TRAFFIC (and later HEY GOOD LOOKIN'): using reality as a sporadic crutch instead of an active partner...

Barry White in a live-action sequence COONSKIN

But where COONSKIN (later titled STREET FIGHT) mainly fails is it that it's simply all over the place to where, overall, Ralph Bakshi's got a whole lot to show but with nowhere really to go...

A shame since his live-action blaxploitation-genre criminals are ready and primed for some real action before the surrealistic 90-minute bedtime story that they don't seem entirely immersed (or even interested) in.

Charles Gordone, Philip Michael Thomas and Barry White voice COONSKIN

Philip Michael Thomas and Barry White voice COONSKIN

Charles Gordone, Philip Michael Thomas and Barry White voice COONSKIN

Philip Michael Thomas voices COONSKIN