By 1965, Terrytoons was nearing its final days. The studio would cease to exist a mere three years later. Creative director Gene Deitch’s last-ditch effort to reinvigorate its moribund cartoons led to deep animosity between him and Studio head William Weiss, who fired Deitch in 1958. Terrytoons continued to plod along under deteriorating conditions where cartoon production occurred without actual “directors.” Story departments ceased to function in any meaningful definition. Storyboard artists controlled the production of the cartoons.
Aging Terrytoons veterans like Eli Bauer, Art Bartch, Jim Tyer, and Connie Rasinski teamed with Dave Tendlar, whose credits date back to the days of black-and-white rubber-hose animation, to keep the studio alive. In 1956, young Ralph Bakshi, fresh out of the Manhattan School of Industrial Arts, joined the studio. An insane desire to animate drove Bakshi. When things didn’t move fast enough, the would-be animator (in defiance of established union rules) essentially promoted himself in 1959, taking up unauthorized residence in the animation department.
Two factors worked in Bakshi’s favor: the first was the protection accorded to Ralph by his “patron saint,” Connie Rasinski. Rasinski defended Bakshi from having his animator’s position questioned by Production Manager Frank Schudde and Studio Head Weiss. The indifference of the moribund Terry studio management, whose biggest concern was getting cartoons into the theaters as quickly as possible, worked in Bakshi’s favor. The second and most crucial factor was Bakshi’s undeniable talent.
Under the haphazard Terrytoons system, Bakshi “directed” a few cartoons (including a Deputy Dawg episode). However, he found an idea worth developing further—a cartoon character of his creation named Sad Cat. Sad Cat harkened to when Bakshi wanted to author a comic strip earlier. He created several, but the origins of Sad Cat arose in his abortive strip Bonefoot and Fudge. Bonefoot is a bipedal feline who is a recognizable predecessor to Sad Cat. Bakshi got the green light to begin animating and directing theatrical Sad Cat shorts for Terrytoons in 1965.
Sad Cat is a blue (appropriately) feline appearing perpetually depressed; in a Cinderella scenario, he is under the thumbs of his brothers, a green cat named Fenimore and an orange cat called Letimore (a.k.a. Mean Brother Number One and Mean Brother Number Two). There is no backstory as to how this came about. The trio lives in the quasi-medieval town of Imagination (depicted by background artist Bill Focht).
Also on hand was Gadmouse, an apprentice good fairy trying for the final good deed that will earn him a wand. All four suffer from ugly character designs and sketchy drawings resembling drafts for better cartoons.
Sad Cat’s facial ruff resembles bat wings, centering a bulbous pink nose and droopy eyes. His brothers, shorter than Sad Cat, rarely display facial expressions other than anger or contempt. Gadmouse sports an oversized head consisting of three triangular shapes topped by a conical hat. No female characters appeared in the Bakshi series.
The only glimmer of Bakshi’s strengths is evident in his character’s expressive poses. Fluid animation is rare in these cartoons until the next to last entry, and the characters tend to snap from pose to pose in a kinetic simulation of movement. Bob Mc Fadden provided the voices for every character in the shorts, including that of the narrator. His mealy-mouthed voice for Sad Cat was reflective of the dreary dialogue. Sad Cat’s very first line in his debut cartoon Gadmouse the Apprentice Good Fairy:
Limited merchandise was created to cash-in on Sad Cat – including this glass tumbler.
Other inspiring monologues from later cartoons included:
“Oh me, another day, another nothing. No hope indeed. I’ve hoped so much that my new hopes are old hopes. I’ll never be anything but a third-rate nobody. And I’m not even good at that.”
Chuckles for the kids? Perhaps Bakshi drew on his Jewish background and intended Sad Cat to be an incurable schlemiel, but even that comic appeal was lacking.
Bakshi ultimately directed five Sad Cat cartoons from 1965-66, all plagued by the same rough animation and singular lack of humor. Bakshi, even at his most proficient, was never a gagman. Except for brief slapstick gags, the ambitious director tended to focus on the downbeat, depressing aspects of life, and Sad Cat was no exception. Gadmouse’s tinkering resulted in backfires and failures for all involved, making the shorts even more heartbreaking. Although storymen Eli Bauer and Al Kouzel pitched in, the cartoons were not remotely upbeat until Art Bartch inherited the series in 1967 after Bakshi departed Terrytoons.
It’s difficult to reconcile the Sad Cat cartoons with Bakshi’s later work, except for the emphasis on the lawless cruelties of life and his characters’ general inability to deal with them. One is not surprised to learn that Bakshi is longtime friends with Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino (although Tarantino has a more developed sense of humor). Still, Bakshi owns rightful recognition as the grandfather of adult animation, and his audacity and fearlessness more than offset his crude impulses.
In his defense, Bakshi had little training and few paths to development at Terrytoons, so the deficits evident in Sad Cat are, to a degree, excusable. While Bakshi never had much to say about Sad Cat, when I interviewed him for TOON Magazine in 2001, he related that:
“At Terrytoons, it was the worst time in the world. All the shorts studios were closing, and all the quality animation studios were out in California. The West Coast people looked down on Terrytoons; it was seen as a hack studio.”
In retrospect, it is a testament to Bakshi’s talent that he overcame his early animation experiences. And he did it without an apprentice good fairy.
Martin Goodman is a veteran writer specializing in stories about animation. He has written for AWN and Animation Scoop – and lives in Anderson, Indiana.
From “Sad cat“ to “Fritz the cat“ – That’s a long and interesting jump! This man’s early days are always worth exploring again and again. I’d always liked “heavy traffic“ and “Coonskin”. I guess you could say that those two films represented his love of underground comics! I wish that somebody would fully restore those two films and release them on Blu-ray. I have a copy of the latter film on DVD, but it comes from film stock, not negative or full restoration. Maybe that’s going to happen? I don’t know. At any rate, I did like his work on the “Deputy Dawg“ cartoons.
Personally I don’t mind the Sad Cat cartoons — at least Bakshi’s early ones, before Art Bartch took over and replaced Gadmouse with the Super Ego character who sounded like a bad imitation of Daffy Duck. As theatrical cartoons of the mid-1960s went, the Sad Cat ones were far from abysmal, and I can tolerate them much better than, say, the Warner Bros./Seven Arts cartoons of the same period. Maybe that’s faint praise, but it’s praise nonetheless.
The Bakshi-directed cartoons had some fine musical scores by Jim Timmens. The contrapuntal, faux-Baroque opening theme in the woodwinds nicely evokes the fairy tale setting, and the musical gestures effectively highlight the action and gags, such as they are. Whereas in the later Sad Cat cartoons, Timmens seems content to let his jazz combo jam irrespective of whatever is happening onscreen.
There is one bit in “Gadmouse the Apprentice Good Fairy” that presages Bakshi’s later work: when the camera zooms in on Sad Cat’s gyrating buttocks as he dances in drag. Carlo Vinci wouldn’t have gone there.
Before there was Sad Cat, there was “Cat Happy”, one of the better Little Roquefort cartoons, in which Percy gets high on catnip and starts talking like Hugh Herbert.
The name Sad Cat rings a bell. I’m sure I must have seen these when I was a kid. They must have gotten run on television at some point.
It’s a very clever cartoon. Not only a sendup of the Cinderella story but also of the traditional cat and mouse chase. When Sad Cat is holding Gadmouse in his grip it’s already clear the intent is not to capture and possibly eat, but rather to avail himself of the good fortune the mouse promises to bring. So right away we see that conventions are being broken. Maybe not laugh out loud funny, but it has its moments. The animation may be on a budget but there is enough movement to make it seem like a cartoon. And it definitely sets up a premise for a series. A worthy footnote to Bakshi’s resume.
Does not speak highly of American adult animation that Ralph Bakshi is even an important or influential figure at all
I’ve never watched the Sad Cats but I’m curious what kind of work Bakshi did before he was the world’s most-loved flop artist.
I’ve avoided most of Bakshi’s feature films up to this time, simply because that kind of excessive sex and violence is not my cup of tea. I sat (suffered) through LOTR, and that was enough for at least 100 lifetimes. His TV stuff was good in the 80s and 90s.
Not to mention his on again/off again relationship with his apprentice animator, the curmudgeonous John Kricfalusi, who learned a lot from Ralph in being extremely cynical in animation. Their relationship can be best/worst described as being toxic, ’nuff said.
I haven’t seen Sad Cat as much as a kid on TV, since it’s one of Terrytoon’s more rarely rerun cartoon series, but it is interesting, if depressing. and Bob McFaddn sounds more like he enjoys doing this voice than his most famous/infamous character, Snarf from “Thundercats”. Of course, I always liked McFadden’s “Mummy” records from 1959. They are good for a couple of chuckles, and includes a young Rod McKuen for a supporting role before he turned serious in the 1960’s with his poetry.
Sad Cat always depressed me. As much as I enjoy Bob McFadden in other toons, I just couldn’t watch it.
Ralph Bakshi will always be a “hero” to me for creating and directing The Mighty Heroes, my favorite late period Terrytoons series. Fun good guys, colorful, wacky villains, and fine voice work from Lionel Wilson and Hershel Bernardi.
From Wikipedia:
David , when I interviewed Bakshi in TOON, he told me a detailed story about the origin of the Mighty Heroes and said that he loved the cartoon dearly. If you can round up a copy of TOON Magazine #24 (Spring 2001) you can read all about the Mighty Heroes. Bakshi always remained fond of them and even brought them back in an episode of his Mighty Mouse TV series called “Heroes and Zeros”.
Thanks, Martin! I will search that out. I’m a lifelong Mighty Heroes fan, drawing them from grade school on up (even creating my own scripts with villains like The Zookeeper, The Swami, and The Bat). Online sources and books usually claim Lionel Wilson voiced Cuckoo Man and Rope Man, while Hershel Bernardi was Diaper Man, Strong Man and Tornado Man. However, I’m 99.9 per cent sure Wilson voiced all but Diaper Man, since Strong Man sounds like his Possible Possum character and Tornado Man sounds like Owloysious Owl (Possible’s buddy).
I like the dry pose-to-pose cuts in this one, appealing and energetic. Limited animation done right.