Saturday, October 20, 2007

How mighty is this mouse?

In the late '80s, Ralph Bakshi, famous for helming adult animated features throughout the '70s (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, the execrable Lord of the Rings), was invited to revive the Mighty Mouse franchise for Saturday morning cartoons. Many media watchdogs watched the show like hawks (mix that metaphor!), pouncing on footage of Mighty Mouse sniffing a ground-up flower and insisting that he was actually sniffing cocaine, and what about our children, and yammer yammer yammer. This wild fuss combined with poor ratings to result in the show being canceled after a mere two seasons.

Its influence has lasted, though, in no small part because it was clearly aimed at adults and not children. Also, many of the writers and animators would go on to fame and fortune of their own, most notably John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren & Stimpy.

Here's one of their efforts - "Don't Touch That Dial," where they repeatedly bite, chew, and spit out the hand that feeds them. If you like this, go to YouTube and type "mighty mouse bakshi" for more.

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