Cool World is a 1992 live-action/animated film directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne, and Brad Pitt. It tells the story of a cartoonist who finds himself in the animated world he created, and is seduced by one of his characters, a comic strip vamp who wants to be real. Cool World marked Bakshi's return to feature films after nine years. The film was originally pitched as an animated horror film about an underground cartoonist who fathers an illegitimate half-human/half-cartoon daughter who hates herself for what she is and tries to kill him.

During production, Bakshi's original screenplay was scrapped by producer Frank Mancuso Jr. and heavily rewritten by screenwriting duo Michael Grais and Mark Victor, best known for writing Poltergeist and Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and an uncredited Larry Gross. The film received mostly negative reviews from film critics, and was not a commercial success. Bakshi himself publicly attacked the film years after its release. He did not make another animated feature film until 13 years later, when he began production on the independent film Last Days of Coney Island.

Plot

The film's plot transposes two alternate dimensions: the real world, and the Cool World, a world of animated characters, called "doodles." The film begins in 1945-era Las Vegas. Frank Harris, a returning GI (Brad Pitt) is reunited with his mother. Soon he takes her for a ride on his motorcycle and they are involved in an accident resulting in her death. Grieving and hallucinating, he is transported into another dimension, the fully animated "Cool World." The film flashes forward to 1992. Cartoonist Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) has been incarcerated for murdering a man he found in bed with his wife. During his prison sentence, he has visions of the Cool World and of the sexy blond doodle, Holli Would (Kim Basinger). Jack passes the time by creating a comic book series based on his visions of Cool World. Shortly after being released from prison and returning to his home in Las Vegas, Jack is pulled into the Cool World by Holli.

Holli wants to have sex with Jack so she can become real and feel real things and enter the real world, but sexual relationships between noids (humans) and doodles (toons) are illegal in Cool World. By now Frank Harris has become an officer in Cool World and, aided by his partner, Nails, the spider-like doodle, keeps a sharp eye on Holli and Jack. Their job is to make sure that humans don't have sex with cartoons, since that act can rupture the fabric between the two universes. The twist lies in the fact that after all these years, Frank has fallen in love with Lonette, a sexy animated waitress who is similar to Holli. Meanwhile, Holli and Jack have sex and she turns into a noid. Jack and Holli head to Jack's home dimension. The barrier between the Cool World and the real world has now been damaged. Jack and Holli repeatedly turn into clown-like doodles. In Las Vegas, Holli manages to find the Golden Spike of Power, which keeps the Interworld Matrix between the Cool World and the real world intact. It turns her back into a doodle and releases many monstrous doodles into the real world. Jack turns into a super-powered humanoid doodle, and puts the Golden Spike back into its place; Jack is stuck, perhaps forever, in the Cool World, but he has plans to marry Holli. Frank is killed trying to stop Holli, but in the process is reborn as a doodle, allowing him to pursue his relationship with Lonette.

Conception and production

Production of Cool World began at a time when animation was going through a renaissance. Ralph Bakshi, who went into semi-retirement in the mid-1980s to focus on his painting, decided that it was time to make another animated film. According to Bakshi, "I made 1,500 bucks in 10 years of painting; I thought it would be nice to pick up a piece of change. So I called my lawyer, who was still speaking to me because no one ever leaves Hollywood, and asked him where I should go to sell a movie." Ralph Bakshi originally conceived Cool World as an animated horror film, and pitched his original concept to executives at Paramount Pictures. "Basically the original script I handed in was a cartoonist, live action, who goes to bed with a cartoon girl and they create a girl, a bastardized child, half live and half real." The half human, half cartoon child would then travel to the real world and try to murder its irresponsible father. "They bought the idea in ten seconds! I told my wife, 'You don't understand this – they finally bought the first animated horror film. We're going to go through the roof again... I'm going to do the greatest movie in the world.' I felt it. The first animated horror film, sex, violence – everything I love! Little did I know." The original name of the character Holli Would was Debbie Dallas.

While shooting on location, Bakshi was handed a new screenplay that was completely different from the one he had turned in. It turned out that producer Frank Mancuso Jr., best known for the Friday the 13th franchise, had the script rewritten in secret. According to Mancuso, "I'd gotten my fill of horror films and was feeling trapped by them. So we started talking about what happens when someone creates a world, becomes defined by it, and then can't escape. And we got the idea of making a film about being trapped by your own creation." Bakshi remembers that he "had a huge fight with the guy and punched Mancuso, Jr. in the mouth. But Mancuso's father ran Paramount Pictures, he was Frank Mancuso, Sr., so I had nowhere to go." Bakshi is also quoted as saying, "I should have quit but I had a lot of animators there that I'd brought in and I thought that maybe I could just have fun animating this stuff, which I did. As far as the script, the one that I wrote that I sold, that's out of the window. I think that was the beginning of the producer becoming powerful in Hollywood. There was a time when the directors were making the movies. Then it shifted back to producers. Most directors are traffic managers, but very well paid."

The artwork by the character Jack Deebs was drawn by underground comix artist Spain Rodriguez, who is credited as a "props design painter".

Casting

Bakshi's original casting choices for the film were Drew Barrymore as Debbie (Holli) and Brad Pitt as Jack Deebs. Pitt was cast as Frank Harris instead, with Gabriel Byrne as Deebs and Kim Basinger as Holli, in lieu of Bakshi's original choices. The film's voice cast includes Maurice LaMarche and Charles Adler. Of Basinger, Bakshi stated that she "had meetings with the producer and me, and thought it would be great – halfway through the picture – if she would be able to show this picture in hospitals to sick children... I'm dead serious! I said, 'Kim, I think that's wonderful, but you've got the wrong guy to do that with. Why didn't you tell me that on the way in? How are you telling me that halfway though the picture?' And the producer, Frank, was sitting there with Kim – probably with her hand up his pants – agreeing with her."

Response

Critical response towards the film was generally negative. Additionally, the film drew unfavorable comparisons with Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Roger Ebert wrote in his review of the film: "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him — he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead. Frank Mancuso Jr. is quoted as saying "If people come expecting Roger Rabbit, it's their mistake. Film website Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 4%.

Bakshi is quoted as saying about the film "...the studio turned it into some Las Vegas piece of crap. You can’t shoot horror films in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra and Kim Basinger. You can’t do an underground cartoonist with Gabriel Byrne. You do it with some other actor that would have done a good job. It’s interesting that when a director sees certain things, if he doesn’t get 'em, they're not there. All these elements were not horror. I mean, to play a 49-year-old woman for sure get Kim Basinger. But I wanted some sexy chick like Frazetta. There was just so much energy that wasn’t there. The film could have been as strong as Coonskin. But the energy wasn't there.

In another interview, Bakshi stated "They were going to sue me if I didn't do the picture. So I thought if I did the animation well, it would be worth it, but you know what? It wasn't worth it. So that was the last picture I did. The moment I couldn't say what I wanted to say any more, I left. I didn't want to make their dumb pictures." Bakshi has stated that if he were ever given the chance to remake the film as he had originally envisioned it, he would.

Although the film would eventually develop a small audience, Bakshi did not complete another animated feature. Bakshi has stated of the film, "A lot of people love Cool World. I'm not surprised at that. I could keep my mouth shut and take credit. The work that was done was amazing, but the end result was not the film I had wanted to make. It's not what animation could do. Not that it's not a decent picture. But that question of what animation should do."

Merchandising

Several different licensed video games based on the film were created by Ocean Software and released for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo. A four-issue comic book prequel to the film was published as a miniseries by DC Comics. The cover of the first issue featured an original painting by Ralph Bakshi. A soundtrack album, Songs from the Cool World, featuring recordings by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Moby, Ministry, The Future Sound of London, and others, was released in 1992 by Warner Bros. Records. It included the track "Real Cool World", a David Bowie song written for the film. The soundtrack received stronger reviews from critics than the film itself, including a four-star rating from Allmusic. Mark Isham's original score for Cool World, featuring a mixture of jazz, orchestral pieces, and electronic remixes, was released on compact disc by Varèse Sarabande. It also received positive reviews.

Cast

• Gabriel Byrne - Jack Deebs
• Kim Basinger - Holli Would
• Brad Pitt - Detective Frank Harris

Voice cast

• Charlie Adler - Nails
• Joey Camen - Interrogator #1, Slash, Holli's Door
• Jenine Jennings - Craps Bunny
• Michael David Lally - Sparks
• Maurice LaMarche - Interrogator #2, Mash, Drunken Bar Patron, Dr. Vincent "Vegas Vinnie" Whiskers, Jack Deebs (Animated Superhero Version)
• Candi Milo - Bob, Lonette
• Patrick Pinney - Chico the Bouncer
• Greg Snegoff - Bash
• Maggie Roswell (uncredited)

References

External links

• Cool World at the official Ralph Bakshi website.