American Pop

American Pop

American Pop (1981)

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For 17 years, it was one of the most requested films in America. You could not legally buy it or rent it. It played on television, people taped it, dubs got passed around, but no store ever stocked it, because the studio that made it could not afford to release it.

AMERICAN POP (1981) is Ralph Bakshi's animated history of a century of American music told through four generations of one Russian Jewish family. It opens with a boy fleeing a Cossack raid that kills his father, a rabbi, and follows the bloodline through vaudeville, Prohibition, jazz, the beats, psychedelia, and finally punk, each generation inheriting the same musical gift and the same capacity for ruin.

It features music from Dylan, Hendrix, The Doors, Lou Reed, Bob Seger, Pat Benatar, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elvis, Heart, and more.

When the songs were cleared around 1980, home video barely existed, so contracts covered theaters only. The rock stars had licensed their songs cheaply because they thought Bakshi was cool, the man who made cartoons for adults.

When video exploded, re-clearing dozens of the most expensive songs in the catalog cost more than anyone would pay. So the film sat, stranded by its own soundtrack, until 1998.

Bakshi has long expressed disdain for the Hollywood machine. Summing up his frustration with the studio system, Bakshi said this: "My good films were independent and my bad films were not."

About the Film

All those years, all those dreams, all those sons... one of them is going to be a star.

Directed By
Ralph Bakshi
Runtime
96 minutes
Released
February 13, 1981
Certification
R
Country
United States of America, Netherlands, South Korea, United Kingdom
Starring
Ron Thompson, Lisa Jane Persky, Jeffrey Lippa, Frank De Kova, Roz Kelly
More Credits
Genres
Animation, Music, Drama, History
Language
English, Hebrew, Russian, Yiddish
Origin
US
Studios
Bakshi Productions, Aspen Productions, Columbia Pictures
Written By
Ronni Kern
Produced By
Richard R. St. Johns, Maggie Abbott, Ralph Bakshi, Martin Ransohoff
Music
Lee Holdridge
Also Starring
Mews Small, Elsa Raven, Vincent Schiavelli, Richard Moll, Lynda Wiesmeier
Budget
$1,500,000
Box Office
$6,000,000

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      3. Jeff Cohen it actually predates streaming. Shows like that, Miami Vice, SCTV, and SNL didn’t come out on DVD for years because of clearance issues. They were able to clear most of what they needed for SNL and SCTV, but for WKRP, the first DVD volume had all that substitute music. They later released the entire series on DVD with most of the music restored.

      5. Tom Erdahl WKRP and Miami Vice both went through that for their first releases. The music license holders loosened up a little for the second releases; feeling like they made most of the money they were going to make for the first releases.
        Shout Factory did a rerelease of WKRP with 80-85% of the original music and Miami Vice with more of the original music than the Universal original release.
        Ally McBeal was considered pretty much impossible to get all the music rights for a full series release so they settled for a “best of” release. After 7 years of negotiations they finally got all the rights for a full series release.

    2. Brian Combs, the Mexican Government ‘silently’ proscribed Rock Music all through the 1970’s, and well until 1985. It created a whole star-system to make the population shun it as Unintelligible Music for Drug Addicts and Criminals (euphemism for Sedicious), by promoting other genres. Why? Because Rock was the fuel of Social Movements in the late 1960’s. As any other social ‘thing’, the best idea however, was to assimilate and commercialize it. Yet the message prevails. Music is Art, and Art is political. And I think is evident, through revent developments, that it really doesn’t take much to brainwash those who WANT to be brainwashed, don’t you think?

  6. I saw it once but I never figured out if what I saw was an authentic version. What I remember most is that when the Sex Pistols song Pretty Vacant was heard, it was not the original recording but some sort of cover version or counterfeit approximation of the song. I did not know if it once originally included the real version or if it never did.

  7. It’s a fun, interesting movie. I’m tickled at the idea that the entire American pop-musical tradition was building towards its ultimate realization in the form of Bob Seger’s “Night Moves”.

      1. Anywhere But Hollywood the scene using night moves is not a lyrical or soundsense metaphore. It was more visual – it served to show how the Talent and the ‘machine ‘ had reached an uneasy coexistence.

      2. Robert Mazerolle Roger Ebert thought using Night Moves was a bad choice because it had nothing to do with the character in the film. It’s like Bryan Adams’ Summer of 69 in that context because it’s not true to his own timeline.

      3. Tim Kubit I think musically some other triumphant sound could have sent a kind of finality message. I struggled with it for a bit but thought afterwards that the scene was really about the A&R guy in the upper sound booth cast as an ‘eminence grise’. We are no longer in the folkloric creator/ trad world, we are evolved into the ‘pop’ world of manufacturing radio hits. I think a sequel covering the next 35 yrs would surely end on Taylor Swift in a context of mega shows. But we would get there via costumes metal band, Garth Brookes, Beyoncé , Michael Jackson, The Boss, Lady gaga – more pop, more arena

      1. Tom Ferreira Also known as Coonskin, features Scatman Crothers in a live action frame story as well as his voice talent. It is very, very open in its criticism of racism, the mob, and like, *society* man. At one point, a beautiful blonde ‘America’ tempts a black revolutionary before executing him with her boob-guns (IRRC). It has been censored nearly out of existence because it was (is?) just a wee bit too honest for a certain kind of White American. Great film.

      2. Cary Shaffner doesn’t the 2023 re release contain both the standard and extended versions under the name coonskin? I saw the vhs years ago rented it from a little mom and pop video store

      3. Cary Shaffner It was difficult to tell if it was critical of racism or was very racist. The reasons expressed for the controversy was that it contained racist imagery and dialogue.

        When I lived in New Mexico, he was a contributor to a regional newspaper/magazine type publication. In one of his cartoons, he portrayed a Migra agent using racial slurs toward a suspected illegal immigrant. Bakshi was accused of being a racist and, due to public backlash, was kicked off the staff. (This was in the late 90s.)

      5. John MacKendrick on a road trip to see my uncle speak at a New Orleans Military Convention we picked up Bakshi in-studio at a college radio station in Silver City, NM. he was pretty fascinating, like much of his stuff no matter how I loved it when I was little I consider ‘American Pop’ a mess, tho. “Harvey Bullock”, the unkempt GCPD detective who’s ambivalent about The Dark Knight in “Batman; The Animated Series” depiction was completely based on Bakshi by the staff who’d worked for him

      7. John MacKendrick Exactly- people couldn’t see it for what it was, a confrontation with racism and its themes, using the very imagery popular with racists. It seems like a brilliant counter to another broad idea popular at the time, which was that blacks should aspire to whiteness in a way. Speak in clear diction, dress conservatively, all that. Become the Cosby family. Surely America would love them then? Street Fight to me says ‘blackness is not a sin’, and to me it can only be viewed as racist from that Cosby perspective. We’ve heroes just trying to survive in a world with a stacked deck, that white people would call criminal and therefore immoral. Yet it is the first because white people made it so, and the second because we are so privileged that an attack on The System that provides it is seen as wrong, even as it crushes others. This movie was a goddamn atomic bomb and they thought it a mere cartoon.

      1. Nice- I’m probably going to stick with my ancient MP4 for the moment, as I know exactly zero people that would let me make them watch it and my only DVD thing is an old playstation…

  21. I was too young to experience this as a theatre release. I’ve seen it several times and always wondered how it fared in the box office and home video.. i didn’t see it until the Youtube era.. Thanks for filling in the blanks

  23. I remember seeing Siskel & Ebert review it… the poster for it in the multiplex my parents, brother, and I went to see a Disney double feature: Alice In Wonderland and Amy,
    the story of a woman that leaves her husband after the death of her child–who was born deaf–to teach other deaf children how to speak… and the listing of it with a scene pic in a cable preview guide, all in the early-80’s. After that, I never got to see it until I spent the night at a friend’s condo, watching it (uninterrupted) on late-night cable… and never seeing or hearing about it again for a long time afterwards.

    I knew nothing of Wizards, Coonskin, Fritz The Cat, or even Hey Good Lookin’… and didn’t learn of Heavy Traffic until it was on the shelf of my local Mom-&-Pop video rental shop. But I knew of American Pop. And though I really knew nothing about it’s story, or music, I knew this: It was animated, it looked cool, and I wanted to see it.

    In the time between seeing the clip shown on Sneak Previews, and finally sitting-down to view it with a mind mature & knowledgeable enough to fully appreciate it, one thing stuck out in my memory of it: The moment L’il Pete stepped into the studio and played Bob Seger’s “Night Moves”. When I heard that song come over the radio for the first time, despite it being in my brother’s room–and the lateness of the hour–I insisted on letting it play, just because I liked the sound of it… and how it reminded me of that clip I saw.

    These days… despite having the means to build my own video collection… I haven’t much of pre-recorded movie titles in my ownership. But if I could (cheaply) I’d have a copy of American Pop, just to share with others that appreciated music of all ages & eras, and to say “See this…? This is what animation that was so cool that EVERYONE liked it was like, before watching anime became cool.” And it still is.🤘😎

    2. Mike Kwiatkowski you can get the Blu-ray from Amazon for $27.55 or the DVD for 12.99.
      A couple of other really good Bakshi films are ‘Fire and Ice’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’. He worked with Frank Frazetta on ‘Fire and ‘Ice’. Some very good art work there.

    1. The curious thing is that the music rights for both were renegotiated for home video around the same time, by the same studio (Sony). Even the packaging for the VHS was similar (printed on holofoil). Sony clearly had the funds and clout to do so at the time.

  30. Bakshi’s certainly a character. He was put in charge of season 2 of the classic Spiderman TV show. When he ran out of ideas, he simply illegally smuggled finished prints of a Canadian cartoon he’d previously worked on (Rocket Robin Hood) into the US and just painted over the original character with Spiderman. There are lots of videos on YouTube comparing the two and showing that it’s most definitely true

    1. Christopher Wilke I read that it wasn’t a matter of “running out of ideas”, but having such a cheap budget that they had to save money by reusing animation cells from Rocket Robin Hood. It certainly gave those episodes a “trippy” feel.

  37. They also Killed CoolWorld, rewrote & Recast by Hollywood 🧃, im Trying to Get Ralph Bakshi to Provide the original script so we can make his true vision come to life #HolliWouldvsHollyWood

  45. Back in the mid-late 80’s.

    Just KNOWING a Dude with a solid VHS copy of this or Heavy Metal could literally get you enough “cool points” to slide up to that new to town/unknown HOT alternative chick in a suburban Lyon’s at 1am after playing a show at the Stone in SF.

    And have GAME.

    “Wizards” would work for a basic opener.

    Her knowledge of his J.R.R. Tolkien films definitely provided context as to just how cool she might actually be.

    “Fire and Ice” was dicey. Might trigger some wholly appropriate but at the time totally buzz-kill feminist response.

    As far as his early stuff, (Fritz the Cat, Coonskin, Heavy Traffic), even we weren’t cool enough in the suburbs to know about those.

    Well, some of us had heard about Fritz.

    2. Marco Toscano I didn’t learn of Heavy Traffic until it was on the shelf of my local Mom-&-Pop video rental shop, back around the same time. But I knew of American Pop. And though I really knew nothing about it’s story, or music, I knew this: It was animated, it looked cool, and I wanted to see it.

      In the time between seeing a clip showing L’il Pete stepping into the studio on Sneak Previews in the early-80’s, and finally sitting-down to view it with a mind mature & knowledgeable enough to fully appreciate it, one thing stuck out in my memory of it: Hearing Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” for the first time. When I later heard that song come over the radio for the first time, despite it being in my brother’s room–and the lateness of the hour–I insisted on letting it play, just because I liked the sound of it… and how it reminded me of that clip I saw.

      These days… despite having the means to build my own video collection… I haven’t much of pre-recorded movie titles in my ownership. But if I could (cheaply) I’d have a copy of American Pop, just to share with others that appreciated music of all ages & eras, and to say “See this…? This is what animation that was so cool that EVERYONE liked it was like, before watching anime became cool.” And it still is.🤘😎

  51. I saw it when I was 8 with my dad around 1982 on cable. He was a musician, and felt that I should see it. At the time, the only song in it that I had heard before was “California Dreaming”. I know this sounds exaggerated, but the movie really did change my life.

  61. I saw this in the theater upon its initial release at age 14. It remains in my top 5 favorite movies of all time.
    I was so fortunate to acquire this screen used animation cel I spotted at an antique mall some years ago. Prized possession.

      1. Chris See Is it paywalled? Comes up as free for me. Here’s the text of it anyway:

        Animator Ralph Bakshi on Why ‘American Pop’ Ended With a Lame Bob Seger Song
        May 7, 2008
        Courtesy of Ralph Bakshi

        For more than 40 years, underground animator Ralph Bakshi changed the rules of animation. His 1972 feature debut, Fritz the Cat, was the first animated film to receive an X rating. His fierce polemic against racism, Coonskin, caused Al Sharpton to protest the film’s New York premiere. Now he’s the subject of Unfiltered, a new book and ongoing exhibition running at the Animazing Gallery through May 28. Vulture talked with Bakshi about his films and his mass-market protégé Thomas Kinkade.

        Vulture:
        You mentored Ren and Stimpy’s John Kricfalusi. But we can never forgive you for giving Thomas Kinkade his big break.

        Bakshi:
        That son of a bitch! Kinkade was the coolest. If Kinkade wasn’t a painter, he’d be one of those cult leaders. Kinkade came into my office with James Gurney when I was looking for background artists [for Fire and Ice]. He’s a good painter, and he did a spiel. He made all these deals. How he went out and did what he did is beyond my understanding now. He’s very, very talented, and he’s very, very much of a hustler. Those two things are in conflict. Is he talented? Oh yeah. Will he paint anything to make money? Oh yeah. Does he have any sort of moralistic view? No. He doesn’t care about anything. He’s as cheesy as they come.

        Vulture:
        Speaking of which, I have a question about American Pop. Was Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” intended as an anticlimactic conceit?

        Bakshi:
        “Night Moves” sucks! I was furious! It was all wrong. I had a brilliant song in mind, but they just wanted too much money. I forget what it was. I’ve blocked it out. If I remember, I’ll give you a call.

        [Ed. note: True to his word, Bakshi telephoned Vulture from a busy street corner less than an hour after our interview, and confessed that the song he originally had in mind was “Freebird.”]

        Vulture:
        I thought it was just some sick joke on your part.

        Bakshi:
        Well, that’s an interesting thought. I’ll be happy to tell any reviewer that.

        Vulture:
        Do you have a particular aversion to orchestral music? I know that for your version of Lord of the Rings, you were at one point considering Led Zeppelin.

        Bakshi:
        Not at one point. I was thinking all the way. I hate Leonard Rosenman’s music in Lord of the Rings. I thought it was clichéd. Gregorian chants — what else is new? I wanted Led Zeppelin because they were right for the film. The film would have been seen by every hippie in the country. I was one of them. The Lord of the Rings was for us in the East Village. It wasn’t for anybody uptown.

        Vulture:
        Where were you getting your inspiration for your films in those days?

        Bakshi:
        In those days, I didn’t care where I got my inspiration. I wasn’t so precious about it. I was living a life in the Village and running around drinking and fucking around. I love art. Art says everything. So I was endlessly looking at visuals in those days. Especially photography. I loved the New York school of photography. Arbus. Weegee. Newspapers. Take a whole photograph that Eisenstein or somebody did in the shtetl of Europe. If you look at these photographs and you go to those corners, you’ll see something amazing. A bottle in a window. A face distorted. I look at it and I try to get at the little windows of stuff.

        I never went to college, so it was a question of me finding my own instructors and books. It’s a very strange process I went through. It was just the work I thought I had to do. There were no lightbulbs going over my head saying, This is right, this is wrong. When I saw Heavy Traffic, I fell down. Did I say that? Did I have my mother say that to me? It was as big a shock to me as it was to people seeing it for the first time. When my mother lifted her skirt to me in the ballroom, I said, “I can’t believe I did that!”

        Vulture:
        Even though you’d given yourself complete and unfettered freedom?

        Bakshi:
        It felt right at the time. But when it came back to me on the screen, it knocked me out of my chair.

      4. James Bullock Freebird doesn’t fit, either. I can’t see a punk rocker playing a Southern rock classic. I’d have preferred something by Lou Reed, Television, or some other NYC band.

      5. Robert Monroe Jr. I never said it did. I was just stating what Bakshi said. However, the movie never portrayed Pete as a punk rocker, although The Sex Pistols were played during the montage of him dealing drugs. It was just a reflection of the world he lived in, so maybe Freebird was his escape. Who knows? It certainly would have been a different story.

  78. It was a preview on every single VHS rental in the 80s and 90s but then never available to rent. I didn’t see it in it’s entirety until I was able to bootleg it from the web years later. Something about rotoscope that just stands out in animation. Gives it some kind of organic grit.

  102. A friend of mine worked with Bakshi – and a bunch of other animators – on Lord of the Rings. One of them said about the Hobbits, according to the informant, “Man! Those guys sure do like to eat a lot!”

  104. Kansas is corny
    Where you going man?
    West
    You’re already in California, you can’t go any farther west.
    Have had it taped for 40+ years. Haven’t watched it in a long time. Don’t watch my VHS tapes very often anymore. Always thought it was pretty good…

  106. Leonard Maltin in his review said that it was a real disappointment and a failing in pop culture that the culmination of all that build-up from generations past would turn out to be punk rock. That said, Bakshi opened a theme that many other animators, especially in anime, have taken upon for themselves.

  138. I saw this on cable, cant remember what channel but I think it was Stars or Encore rather than one of the big ones. Probably in 1998. Wasn’t that impressed, but I remember a blonde in the movie being overwhelmingly gorgeous.

  146. I finally found wizards on DVD and it’s my golden movie like I will die owning that film. My first copy was on vhs gifted to me by the singer of my band who’s now dead I still have the sleeve to the vhs but lost the tape. But finally after years of searching I found the DVD copy and life is complete 😂

  148. Love this movie. What it really shows is the price you pay to be that person. Pretty fucking high and the road is littered with dead musicians who didn’t make it. RIP Janus (she’s sorta in this move and all the others who couldn’t take.

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