Spicy City (1997) Raven
Ralph Bakshi is an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Beginning his career at the Terrytoons television cartoon studio as a cel polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat, released in 1972. It was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and the most successful independent animated feature of all time.
Over the next eleven years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for such films as Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981) and Fire and Ice (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which ran for two years. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews.
Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy (1994) and the animated series Spicy City (1997). I almost completely forgot about HBO’s run of this adult oriented science fiction anthology. The show lasted for one season, consisting of six episodes. Set in a futuristic film noir-like city, each episode is introduced by Raven, a nightclub femme fatale. Not an outstanding series but it is fun to think of what it could have been.
Source: Ralph Bakshi Films
stepping outside to observe 
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[…] capsule of the art, music and style of the 1960’s. Produced by the ground breaking animator Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat 1972, Wizards 1977, Lord of the Rings 1978), these cartoons have a highly stylized […]
[…] Mighty Heroes was an animated television series created by Ralph Bakshi for the Terrytoons company. The original show debuted on CBS, on October 29, 1966, and ran for 1 […]
[…] Mouse: The New Adventures is a 1987 revival of the Mighty Mouse cartoon character. Produced by Ralph Bakshi and Terrytoons, it aired on CBS on Saturday mornings from fall 1987 through the 1988–89 season. […]
[…] Ralph Bakshi’s career has been all about pushing animation as an art form, overseeing films like the fantasy Wizards – the 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings – and American Pop, which chronicles four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of 20th Century popular music in America; even the first X-Rated animated feature film, Fritz the Cat. Edgy and subversive seem appropriate descriptions for him, even when he was producing a Mighty Mouse animated series for CBS that was unlike any other take on that rodent in a cape we’ve ever seen. He also happens to be the main guy behind the first adaptation of Spider-Man ever. […]