Cool World
Encyclopedia
Cool World is a 1992 American 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
. Reviews praised the film's visuals, but criticized the story and characters, as well as the combination of live-action and animation, which some critics felt was unconvincing.
veteran Frank Harris returns to his mother. Shortly after his arrival, he shows his mother a motorcycle
that he won in Italy
during his service. Out in the desert, they both ride on the motorcycle, but collide with a drunk couple. Frank survives, but his mother dies. As an ambulance truck takes her away, Frank is suddenly transported to an animated realm named the "Cool World", a hellish, twisted city of surreal
landscapes and random cartoon violence. He was zapped there by mistake, thanks to a doctor named Doc Whiskers, who created a "spike" that was supposed to take him to the real world, but brought Frank to Cool World instead. Doc Whiskers' interrogators seem to dislike Frank, but Doc Whiskers finds Frank useful enough to run things in the Cool World while Doc Whiskers is gone to the real world.
Forty-seven years later, Jack Deebs, a cartoonist
is imprisoned after murdering a man he found in bed with his wife. While in prison, he creates the highly-acclaimed comic book series known as "Cool World", which features the femme fatale
nymphomaniac Holli Would. On the night before his release, Holli takes Jack into the Cool World, where Jack lands in the middle of a dance club, where he sees Holli dance. After he sees her dance, Jack is zapped back to the real world. It turns out that Holli wants to enter the real world, but is forbidden to do so by Frank, who is now a police officer in the Cool World. After being released from prison, Jack is transported to the Cool World once again, where he is properly introduced to Holli and her goons. Meanwhile, Frank is about to go on a date with his girlfriend Lonette, when his partner Nails, a spider, tells him about Jack's presence. Frank confronts Jack at the local Slash Club, informing him that the Cool World has existed long before he created the comic series and warns him that "noids", humans from the real world, are not allowed to have sex
with "doodles", the inhabitants of the Cool World. After that, Jack is transported back to the real world.
Holli brings Jack back into the Cool World later on, where The Goons meet him and take him to Holli's apartment
. Holli and Jack have sex, which transforms Holli into a human. While Frank attempts to mend his relationship with Lonette, he temporarily leaves detective duties to Nails. Nails receives a call from an informant named Sparks, who tells him that Jack and Holli have finished having sex and are leaving for the real world. Nails decides that he can do this on his own and goes off to stop Holli. As Holli says goodbye to her gang, Nails pops in to try to stop her from leaving the Cool World. But Holli uses a pen
to suck Nails in, trapping him inside. Jack and Holli then leave the Cool World and return to the real world, where Holli sings "Let's Make Love
" at a nightclub with Frank Sinatra, Jr.
. Frank discovers that Nails has been done away with and decides to venture into the real world to pursue Jack and Holli. Meanwhile, Jack and Holli have started to flicker between human and doodle states. While contemplating their situation, Holli tells Jack about the "Spike of Power", an artifact placed on the top of a Las Vegas casino
by a doodle who crossed into the real world. When Jack displays skepticism about the idea, Holli abandons Jack to search for the spike on her own.
Frank meets up with Jack later on, and they both decide to team up and stop Holli from removing the spike. They get Jennifer, the daughter of Jack's neighbour to drive them to the casino, and on the way, Frank explains that it was Doc Whiskers who crossed worlds and put the spike on the top of the hotel
and if it were removed, it could potentially destroy the real world and the Cool World. Holli is escourted out of the casino for asking about Vegas Vinnie, which is the alias of Doc Whiskers. When she spots the Doc, she tells him that she couldn't find him, but when she starts to flicker between human and doodle state again, she begins to become suspicious and starts to see through Doc's disguise and shakes him out of it, revealing his identity. Doc tries to convince Holli not to get the Spike of Power, but Holli becomes enraged and threatens Doc Whiskers with the same pen she used on Nails. When Frank, Jack, and Jennifer get to the destination, Frank pursues Holli on the casino, while Jack and Jennifer put Doc Whiskers back together after being popped by Holli's pen. Frank chases after Holli throughout the hotel, while she's still flickering from human to doodle state. While in doodle form, Holli eventually kills Frank by pushing him off the top of the building. Holli finds and takes the Spike of Power, transforming her, Jack, and everyone in Vegas into doodles and opening a gateway between the two worlds, releasing numerous monstrous doodles. Fighting off an increasing number of doodles as a superhero doodle, Jack returns the Spike of Power to its place, trapping him, Holli and the rest of the doodles in Cool World.
Meanwhile, Nails manages to escape from Holli's pen, and both he, Doc Whiskers, and Frank's body return to Cool World. Lonette is heartbroken, but suddenly realizes that when a noid is killed by a doodle, he is reborn in Cool World as a doodle. On cue, Frank appears in doodle form, allowing him to pursue his relationship with Lonette. Holli is now stuck with Jack, who plans to marry Holli, much to her dismay.
In 1990, Ralph Bakshi 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." Bakshi pitched Cool World to Paramount Pictures
(where Bakshi had worked as the final head of the studio's animation division
) as an animated horror film
. The concept of the film involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned her. Bakshi states that Paramount Pictures "bought the idea in ten seconds".
As the sets were being built in Las Vegas
, producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso, Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret, and gave Bakshi a new screenplay by screenwriters Michael Grais
and Mark Victor
that "was barely the same". In interviews at the time of the film's release, Mancuso, Jr., who was best known for the Friday the 13th franchise, stated a desire to move away from horror films, and wanted to produce a film "about what happens when someone creates a world, becomes defined by it, and then can't escape [...] a film about being trapped by your own creation." Bakshi remembers that he got into a fight with Mancuso, Jr. and "punched [him] in the mouth." Paramount threatened Bakshi with a lawsuit if he refused to complete the film. "I thought if I did the animation well, it would be worth it, but you know what? It wasn't worth it." Bakshi also stated that he "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."
Bakshi had originally intended to cast Drew Barrymore
and Brad Pitt in the film's leading roles. Pitt was cast as Frank Harris instead, with Gabriel Byrne as Deebs and Kim Basinger as Holli. The film's voice cast includes Maurice LaMarche
and Charles Adler. According to Bakshi, Basinger had attempted to rewrite the film halfway into its production because she "thought it would be great [...] if she would be able to show this picture in hospitals to sick children [...] I said, 'Kim, I think that's wonderful, but you've got the wrong guy to do that with.' [...] [Mancuso] was sitting there with Kim [...] agreeing with her."
The visual design of the live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. The film's sets were based upon enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by Fleischer Studios
(whose cartoons were released by Paramount) and Terrytoons (where Bakshi once worked, and whose Mighty Mouse
character was also adapted into a series by Bakshi). The artwork by the character Jack Deebs was drawn by underground comix
artist Spain Rodriguez
. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi to "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"
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 remix
es, and performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra
, was released on compact disc
by Varèse Sarabande
. It also received positive reviews.
was altered to include a 75-foot-tall cutout of Holli Would. The alteration angered local residents. In a letter to the city's Recreation and Park Board on Monday, commission officials wrote that they were "appalled" by the board's approval of the alterations and that "the action your board has taken is offensive to Los Angeles women and is not within your role as custodian and guardian of the Hollywood sign. The fact that Paramount Pictures donated a mere $27,000 to Rebuild L.A. should not be a passport to exploit women in Los Angeles." Protestors picketed the unveiling of the altered sign. The promotional campaign was focused on the sex appeal of Holli. It was considered by some experts as misaimed, with Paramount's marketing president Barry London saying "Cool World unfortunately did not seem to satisfy the younger audience it was aimed at," and designer Milton Knight recalling that "Audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did."
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
.
wrote that Cool World "misses one opportunity after another", describing it as "a surprisingly incompetent film". Deseret News reviewer Chris Hicks described it as "a one-joke movie -- and it's a dirty joke
. [...] And much of what's going on here seems more angry and nasty than inspired or funny." Variety
reviewer Brian Lowry compared the film to an extended music video
, praising the soundtrack and visuals, but panning the story. Leonard Maltin
described the film as "too serious to be fun [and] too goofy to take seriously", and the lead characters as "unlikable and unappealing". The Washington Post
reviewer Hal Hinson wondered "whether Kim Basinger is more obnoxious as a cartoon or as a real person," and felt that the combination of animation and live action was unconvincing.
In 1997, John Grant wrote in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy that Cool World "stands as one of the fantastic cinema's most significant achievements, an instauration fantasy that reveals greater depths with each viewing." Animation historian Jerry Beck
described the film as being "for adults and Bakshi completists only," writing that the film "has a great premise, a great cast, and the best animation he's ever been involved with," but critiquing it as a "pointless rehash of many of Ralph's favorite themes, and the story literally goes nowhere." Film website Rotten Tomatoes
, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a "Rotten" rating of 3%. The movie garnered a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (Kim Basinger
; also for Final Analysis
).
Live-action/animated film
A live-action/animated film is a motion picture that features a combination of real actors or elements: live-action and animated elements, typically interacting.-History:...
directed by Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...
, and starring Kim Basinger
Kim Basinger
Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for her portrayals of Domino Petachi, the Bond girl in Never Say Never Again , and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman . Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture...
, Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
, and Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
. It tells the story of a cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
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
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
about an underground cartoonist
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
, 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
Michael Grais
Michael Grais is a screenwriter, most well-known as the co-writer of Poltergeist .He has also produced such movies as Great Balls of Fire! , Marked for Death and Sleepwalkers .- Biography :...
and Mark Victor
Mark Victor
Mark Victor is a screenwriter. He co-wrote Poltergeist , Poltergeist II: The Other Side , Marked for Death , and Cool World .-References:...
, best known for writing Poltergeist and Poltergeist II: The Other Side
Poltergeist II: The Other Side
Poltergeist II: The Other Side is a 1986 horror film. A sequel to Poltergeist, it features the return of the original's family and once again sees a spirit trying to harm their daughter, Carol Anne. It received mixed reviews from critics and did not gross as much at the box office as its...
, and an uncredited Larry Gross
Larry Gross
Larry Gross is an American screenwriter, producer, and occasionally a director. He won the 2004 Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival for We Don't Live Here Anymore.-Filmography:...
. Reviews praised the film's visuals, but criticized the story and characters, as well as the combination of live-action and animation, which some critics felt was unconvincing.
Plot
In 1945 Las Vegas, World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
veteran Frank Harris returns to his mother. Shortly after his arrival, he shows his mother a motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
that he won in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
during his service. Out in the desert, they both ride on the motorcycle, but collide with a drunk couple. Frank survives, but his mother dies. As an ambulance truck takes her away, Frank is suddenly transported to an animated realm named the "Cool World", a hellish, twisted city of surreal
Surreal
Surreal may refer to:*Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art*"Surreal" , a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki*Surreal , an album by Man Raze*Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor...
landscapes and random cartoon violence. He was zapped there by mistake, thanks to a doctor named Doc Whiskers, who created a "spike" that was supposed to take him to the real world, but brought Frank to Cool World instead. Doc Whiskers' interrogators seem to dislike Frank, but Doc Whiskers finds Frank useful enough to run things in the Cool World while Doc Whiskers is gone to the real world.
Forty-seven years later, Jack Deebs, a cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
is imprisoned after murdering a man he found in bed with his wife. While in prison, he creates the highly-acclaimed comic book series known as "Cool World", which features the femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
nymphomaniac Holli Would. On the night before his release, Holli takes Jack into the Cool World, where Jack lands in the middle of a dance club, where he sees Holli dance. After he sees her dance, Jack is zapped back to the real world. It turns out that Holli wants to enter the real world, but is forbidden to do so by Frank, who is now a police officer in the Cool World. After being released from prison, Jack is transported to the Cool World once again, where he is properly introduced to Holli and her goons. Meanwhile, Frank is about to go on a date with his girlfriend Lonette, when his partner Nails, a spider, tells him about Jack's presence. Frank confronts Jack at the local Slash Club, informing him that the Cool World has existed long before he created the comic series and warns him that "noids", humans from the real world, are not allowed to have sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
with "doodles", the inhabitants of the Cool World. After that, Jack is transported back to the real world.
Holli brings Jack back into the Cool World later on, where The Goons meet him and take him to Holli's apartment
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
. Holli and Jack have sex, which transforms Holli into a human. While Frank attempts to mend his relationship with Lonette, he temporarily leaves detective duties to Nails. Nails receives a call from an informant named Sparks, who tells him that Jack and Holli have finished having sex and are leaving for the real world. Nails decides that he can do this on his own and goes off to stop Holli. As Holli says goodbye to her gang, Nails pops in to try to stop her from leaving the Cool World. But Holli uses a pen
Pen
A pen is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used, with a nib of some sort to be dipped in the ink. Ruling pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but...
to suck Nails in, trapping him inside. Jack and Holli then leave the Cool World and return to the real world, where Holli sings "Let's Make Love
Let's Make Love
Let's Make Love is a 1960 musical comedy film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by George Cukor and produced by Jerry Wald from a screenplay by Norman Krasna, Hal Kanter and Arthur Miller...
" at a nightclub with Frank Sinatra, Jr.
Frank Sinatra, Jr.
Franklin Wayne Sinatra , professionally known as Frank Sinatra, Jr., is an American singer, songwriter and conductor....
. Frank discovers that Nails has been done away with and decides to venture into the real world to pursue Jack and Holli. Meanwhile, Jack and Holli have started to flicker between human and doodle states. While contemplating their situation, Holli tells Jack about the "Spike of Power", an artifact placed on the top of a Las Vegas casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
by a doodle who crossed into the real world. When Jack displays skepticism about the idea, Holli abandons Jack to search for the spike on her own.
Frank meets up with Jack later on, and they both decide to team up and stop Holli from removing the spike. They get Jennifer, the daughter of Jack's neighbour to drive them to the casino, and on the way, Frank explains that it was Doc Whiskers who crossed worlds and put the spike on the top of the hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
and if it were removed, it could potentially destroy the real world and the Cool World. Holli is escourted out of the casino for asking about Vegas Vinnie, which is the alias of Doc Whiskers. When she spots the Doc, she tells him that she couldn't find him, but when she starts to flicker between human and doodle state again, she begins to become suspicious and starts to see through Doc's disguise and shakes him out of it, revealing his identity. Doc tries to convince Holli not to get the Spike of Power, but Holli becomes enraged and threatens Doc Whiskers with the same pen she used on Nails. When Frank, Jack, and Jennifer get to the destination, Frank pursues Holli on the casino, while Jack and Jennifer put Doc Whiskers back together after being popped by Holli's pen. Frank chases after Holli throughout the hotel, while she's still flickering from human to doodle state. While in doodle form, Holli eventually kills Frank by pushing him off the top of the building. Holli finds and takes the Spike of Power, transforming her, Jack, and everyone in Vegas into doodles and opening a gateway between the two worlds, releasing numerous monstrous doodles. Fighting off an increasing number of doodles as a superhero doodle, Jack returns the Spike of Power to its place, trapping him, Holli and the rest of the doodles in Cool World.
Meanwhile, Nails manages to escape from Holli's pen, and both he, Doc Whiskers, and Frank's body return to Cool World. Lonette is heartbroken, but suddenly realizes that when a noid is killed by a doodle, he is reborn in Cool World as a doodle. On cue, Frank appears in doodle form, allowing him to pursue his relationship with Lonette. Holli is now stuck with Jack, who plans to marry Holli, much to her dismay.
Cast
- Kim BasingerKim BasingerKimila Ann "Kim" Basinger is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for her portrayals of Domino Petachi, the Bond girl in Never Say Never Again , and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman . Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture...
as Holli Would - Gabriel ByrneGabriel ByrneGabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
as Jack Deebs - Brad PittBrad PittWilliam Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
as Detective Frank Harris - Michele Abrams as Jennifer Malley
- Deirdre O'ConnellDeirdre O'Connell (actress)Deirdre O'Connell is an American character actress who has worked extensively on stage, screen, and television.O'Connell began her career at Stage One, an experimental theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts...
as Isabelle Malley - Janni Brenn–Lowen as Agatha Rose Harris
- Frank Sinatra, Jr.Frank Sinatra, Jr.Franklin Wayne Sinatra , professionally known as Frank Sinatra, Jr., is an American singer, songwriter and conductor....
as himself
Voice Cast
- Charlie Adler as Nails the Spider
- Candi MiloCandi MiloCandi Milo is an American voice actress and singer. She voiced many different animated characters such as the voice of Jacobo on Disney's The Replacements, Coco, Madame Foster and Cheese on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Irma Lair on Disney's W.I.T.C.H., lead character Maya Santos on Maya &...
as Lonette and Bob - Joey CamenJoey Camen- Anime Roles :* Dinozaurs - Dino Tricera* Eureka Seven - Dr. Greg "Bear" Egan- Non-Anime Roles :* Darkwing Duck - Stegmutt* Little Dracula - Werebunny* The Smurfs - Additional Voices- Movie Roles :...
as Interrogator #1, Slash and Holli's door - Jenine Jennings as Craps Bunny
- Michael David Lally as Sparks
- Maurice LaMarcheMaurice LaMarcheMaurice LaMarche is an Emmy Award winning Canadian-American voice actor and former stand up comedian. He is best known for his voicework in Futurama as Kif Kroker, as Egon Spengler in The Real Ghostbusters, Verminous Skumm and Duke Nukem in Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Big Bob Pataki in Hey...
as Interrogator #2, Mash, a drunken bar patron, Dr. Vincent "Vegas Vinnie" Whiskers and Super Jack - Patrick PinneyPatrick PinneyPatrick Pinney is an American voice actor. He attended college at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he had many friends including assistant director Michele Panelli Venetis and San Francisco Bay area costumer Alison Barnwell Morris , with whom he costarred in "The...
as Chico the Bouncer - Gregory SnegoffGregory SnegoffGregory Snegoff is an American voice actor, writer and dialogue director who frequently works on English anime-dubs, known for providing the voice of Scott Bernard in Robotech, Taki Renzaburo in Wicked City and Master Roshi in Dragon Ball . He is also known by the names Greg Snegoff, Gregory Snow,...
as Bash - Frank WelkerFrank WelkerFranklin Wendell "Frank" Welker is an American actor who specializes in voice acting and has contributed character voices and other vocal effects to American television and motion pictures.-Acting career:...
as a telephone / Additional Voices
Production
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
(where Bakshi had worked as the final head of the studio's animation division
Famous Studios
Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...
) as an animated horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
. The concept of the film involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned her. Bakshi states that Paramount Pictures "bought the idea in ten seconds".
As the sets were being built in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso, Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret, and gave Bakshi a new screenplay by screenwriters Michael Grais
Michael Grais
Michael Grais is a screenwriter, most well-known as the co-writer of Poltergeist .He has also produced such movies as Great Balls of Fire! , Marked for Death and Sleepwalkers .- Biography :...
and Mark Victor
Mark Victor
Mark Victor is a screenwriter. He co-wrote Poltergeist , Poltergeist II: The Other Side , Marked for Death , and Cool World .-References:...
that "was barely the same". In interviews at the time of the film's release, Mancuso, Jr., who was best known for the Friday the 13th franchise, stated a desire to move away from horror films, and wanted to produce a film "about what happens when someone creates a world, becomes defined by it, and then can't escape [...] a film about being trapped by your own creation." Bakshi remembers that he got into a fight with Mancuso, Jr. and "punched [him] in the mouth." Paramount threatened Bakshi with a lawsuit if he refused to complete the film. "I thought if I did the animation well, it would be worth it, but you know what? It wasn't worth it." Bakshi also stated that he "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."
Bakshi had originally intended to cast Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
and Brad Pitt in the film's leading roles. Pitt was cast as Frank Harris instead, with Gabriel Byrne as Deebs and Kim Basinger as Holli. The film's voice cast includes Maurice LaMarche
Maurice LaMarche
Maurice LaMarche is an Emmy Award winning Canadian-American voice actor and former stand up comedian. He is best known for his voicework in Futurama as Kif Kroker, as Egon Spengler in The Real Ghostbusters, Verminous Skumm and Duke Nukem in Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Big Bob Pataki in Hey...
and Charles Adler. According to Bakshi, Basinger had attempted to rewrite the film halfway into its production because she "thought it would be great [...] if she would be able to show this picture in hospitals to sick children [...] I said, 'Kim, I think that's wonderful, but you've got the wrong guy to do that with.' [...] [Mancuso] was sitting there with Kim [...] agreeing with her."
The visual design of the live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. The film's sets were based upon enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
(whose cartoons were released by Paramount) and Terrytoons (where Bakshi once worked, and whose Mighty Mouse
Mighty Mouse
Mighty Mouse is an animated superhero mouse character created by the Terrytoons studio for 20th Century Fox.-History:The character was created by story man Izzy Klein as a super-powered housefly named Superfly. Studio head Paul Terry changed the character into a cartoon mouse instead...
character was also adapted into a series by Bakshi). The artwork by the character Jack Deebs was drawn by underground comix
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
artist Spain Rodriguez
Spain Rodriguez
Manuel Rodriguez , better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, is an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman. His experiences on the road with the biker gang, the Road Vultures, provided inspiration for his work, as did his left-wing politics.-Biography:Born in Buffalo, New...
. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi to "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"
A soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
, Songs from the Cool World
Songs from the Cool World
Songs from the Cool World is the soundtrack album for the 1992 Ralph Bakshi film Cool World.-Track listing:# "Real Cool World" - 5:24# "Play With Me" - 4:06# "Disappointed" - 4:22...
, featuring recordings by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult is an American electronic industrial rock band originally based out of Chicago, Illinois.-History:...
, Moby
Moby
Richard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...
, Ministry
Ministry (band)
Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded by lead singer Al Jourgensen in 1981. Originally a synthpop outfit, Ministry changed its style to industrial metal in the late 1980s. Ministry found mainstream success in the early 1990s with its most successful album Psalm 69: The Way to...
, The Future Sound of London
The Future Sound of London
The Future Sound of London is a prolific British electronic music band composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. The duo are often credited with pushing the boundaries of electronic music experimentation and of pioneering a new era of dance music...
, and others, was released in 1992 by Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
. It included the track "Real Cool World
Real Cool World
"Real Cool World" is a song from the soundtrack of the film Cool World, performed by David Bowie. Released in August 1992, it represented his first new solo material since Tin Machine dissolved....
", a David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
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
Mark Isham
Mark Isham is an American trumpeter, synthesist, and film composer. He works in a variety of genres, including jazz, electronic, and film.-Life and career:...
's original score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
for Cool World, featuring a mixture of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, orchestral pieces, and electronic remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
es, and performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra
Munich Symphony Orchestra
The Munich Symphony Orchestra is a German orchestra based in Munich. Kurt Graunke founded the orchestra as the Graunke Symphony Orchestra in 1945. The orchestra acquired its current name in 1990...
, was released on compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
by Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
. It also received positive reviews.
Promotion and merchandising
As part of the film's promotion, the Hollywood SignHollywood Sign
The Hollywood Sign is a landmark and American cultural icon in the Hollywood Hills area of Mount Lee, Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, California. The sign spells out the name of the area in and white letters. It was created as an advertisement in 1923, but garnered increasing recognition...
was altered to include a 75-foot-tall cutout of Holli Would. The alteration angered local residents. In a letter to the city's Recreation and Park Board on Monday, commission officials wrote that they were "appalled" by the board's approval of the alterations and that "the action your board has taken is offensive to Los Angeles women and is not within your role as custodian and guardian of the Hollywood sign. The fact that Paramount Pictures donated a mere $27,000 to Rebuild L.A. should not be a passport to exploit women in Los Angeles." Protestors picketed the unveiling of the altered sign. The promotional campaign was focused on the sex appeal of Holli. It was considered by some experts as misaimed, with Paramount's marketing president Barry London saying "Cool World unfortunately did not seem to satisfy the younger audience it was aimed at," and designer Milton Knight recalling that "Audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did."
Several different licensed video games based on the film were created by Ocean Software
Ocean Software
The British company Ocean Software was one of the biggest European video game developers/publishers of the 1980s and 90s...
and released for the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
, Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo. A four-issue comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to the film was published as a miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
by DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
.
Reception
Cool World opened at sixth on the North American box office, with $5,5 million. Its lifetime gross was $14.1 million, much lower than the reported $28 million budget. Critical response towards the film was generally negative. Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote that Cool World "misses one opportunity after another", describing it as "a surprisingly incompetent film". Deseret News reviewer Chris Hicks described it as "a one-joke movie -- and it's a dirty joke
Off-color humor
The term off-color humor is an Americanism used to describe jokes, prose, poems, black comedy, blue comedy, insult comedy, cringe comedy and skits that deal with topics that are considered to be in poor taste or overly vulgar by the prevailing morality of a culture...
. [...] And much of what's going on here seems more angry and nasty than inspired or funny." Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
reviewer Brian Lowry compared the film to an extended music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
, praising the soundtrack and visuals, but panning the story. Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
described the film as "too serious to be fun [and] too goofy to take seriously", and the lead characters as "unlikable and unappealing". The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
reviewer Hal Hinson wondered "whether Kim Basinger is more obnoxious as a cartoon or as a real person," and felt that the combination of animation and live action was unconvincing.
In 1997, John Grant wrote in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy that Cool World "stands as one of the fantastic cinema's most significant achievements, an instauration fantasy that reveals greater depths with each viewing." Animation historian Jerry Beck
Jerry Beck
Jerry Beck is a well-known animation historian, with ten books and numerous articles to his credit. He is also an animation producer, an industry consultant to Warner Bros., and has been an executive with Nickelodeon and Disney....
described the film as being "for adults and Bakshi completists only," writing that the film "has a great premise, a great cast, and the best animation he's ever been involved with," but critiquing it as a "pointless rehash of many of Ralph's favorite themes, and the story literally goes nowhere." Film website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a "Rotten" rating of 3%. The movie garnered a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (Kim Basinger
Kim Basinger
Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for her portrayals of Domino Petachi, the Bond girl in Never Say Never Again , and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman . Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture...
; also for Final Analysis
Final Analysis
Final Analysis is an American neo-noir drama directed by Phil Joanou and written by Wesley Strick. It stars Richard Gere, Kim Basinger and Uma Thurman...
).
External links
- Cool World at the official Ralph BakshiRalph BakshiRalph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...
website.