Hey Good Lookin We'll Be Back to Pick You Up

9 /10

In the top 4 of Bakshi's best movies

I am not the biggest Ralph Bakshi fan, but I have liked quite a number of his films(Cool World was the only one really that I disliked). Presently my top 4 are American Pop, Heavy Traffic, Coonskin and this, Hey Good Lookin'. The animation could be seen as crude by some, that I can understand, I find his most visually beautiful films to be American Pop and Wizards(the latter though I had mixed feelings on), but I find the rough-around-the-edges animation to be part of Hey Good Lookin''s charm. The soundtrack is the very definition of awesomeness as well, the story is gritty and often outrageous but also quite affectionate and somewhat daring, and the satirical edge is smart and biting. The characters are characters you do learn to warm to, and the voice work is solid. Overall, one of Bakshi's best. 9/10 Bethany Cox

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8 /10

Ralph Bakshi's Mean Streets

You remember Mean Streets- Scorsese's rough and raw and unpredictable tip of the hat to Little Italy (and, consequently, episodic though with a little plot), which was about as personal as movies could get. With Hey Good Lookin', warts and all, Bakshi has his Mean Streets. It's about two guys, Vinny and Crazy (Shapiro), who go lookin' for girls, start up a possible rumble, and just act like cool and wacky 50s Brooklynites. But to say that this is simply what it's about is nonsense; it's about mood and time, if that doesn't sound too pretentious, and about an abstract sensibility (or, if you will, an impression) of what life was like in Brooklyn hopped up with lots of rock and roll and attitude. It is, indeed, none other than a Bakshi film.

But what does this mean for those who've only seen his work from Fritz the Cat and Lord of the Rings (or, on the lower end of the spectrum though more recent, Cool World)? What may seem like chaos in a Ralph Bakshi film isn't a fault but the actual style of the piece. Everything and anything can happen in a scene, and like an early Scorsese or Cassavetes it's extremely improvisational. This might seem weird since it's animation (and sometimes folks it really is). Baskhi, however, is a delightfully unbalanced force in animation. His characters are ugly and crude and physical and filled with such puffed up cliché or (yes) stereotype via ethnicity or race or (especially) sex, that it's easy to see why some would be turned off in a second.

Hey Good Lookin' doesn't want the most amount of viewers like a Disney flick. Bakshi has a crazy means to his vision, but for those tuned in it's a deranged kind of bliss. His film is alive and wild in not just the style of drawing but in little set-ups (where else will you get a raucous sex scene in a pile of hamburgers, or a car busting through a music hall and killing the band). Sometimes the comic set-ups merely bring up some chuckles, and others are total riots. While this time Bakshi might not have the best musical accompaniment- the songs range from being slightly catchy 50s throwbacks to crappy would-be-50s-really-80's tunes- and the chaos in the storyline or specific scenes might backfire once or twice into total "what the hell is this" territory, mostly it's all good.

This is a true wildman pulling off a personal vision of a time and place with an eye for character, a knack for casting true to the setting as opposed to higher-scale talent (David Proval, also of Mean Streets, incredibly plays Crazy Shapiro), and if it's not one of his very best, it's close.

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1 /10

Didn't make sense....

Warning: Spoilers

I've watched "Heavy Traffic", "Fritz the cat", "Cool World" & "Coonskin", all of which were pure awful, just like this one. This film also had the lack of story line and super bad characters in this. Yeah it's about an ex gangster telling his past to a stupid dim witted prostitute. Really, it was just random, not exciting or interesting to hear about.

That guy was a womanizer, a cheat and a dope. He's not that likable as a character either. After this, I'm not gonna bother looking at another Ralph Bakshi because really, I'm always disappointed in his movies. I'm not even gonna watch his 2015 movie, I'll probably wouldn't like I either....

I wouldn't recommend this film, it's pure stupid....

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7 /10

I like this one too

I don't know if I'm a fan of Ralph Bakshi or not but I do like a lot of his movies, including "Hey Good Lookin' ". "Hey Good Lookin' " might not be his best film but it's up there. This movie moves well and is never boring. There is always something crazy going on. Maybe it doesn't make sense all of the time but that's not unusual for a Bakshi movie. "Hey Good Lookin' " might not be the first Bakshi movie that I would recommend to a novice but it would probably be the second. Honorable mention: a wildly dreamy Roz. I'd love to meet Bakshi's inspiration for her.

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6 /10

A bit mundane for its style.

I sort of want to like this movie but it just doesn't have the panache of Bakshi's other work.

I like the nostalghia for the 50s but unlike Fritz it isn't laced with cynicism or cultural commentary and is more of a personal drama.

The jolty movements can get frustrating and the plot doesn't move very swiftly. The strange moments can even some quite incongruous.

But I still find some ineffable charm to it. It's not the power house of emotion it thinks it is but as it usually the case with Bakshi, you won't forget it in a hurry.

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Sold!

I became a Bashki film from the first time I saw American Pop. It was the most amazing cartoon I'd ever seen and since then, I'd been on the look out for more Bashki cartoons.

Hey Good Lookin' is my second round of Bashki. And, though I didn't like it as much as American Pop, I did like it. It was a darkish cartoon look at rumble life of a couple of 1950s hoods. But, unlike American Pop, which also had the bazaar stlyistic drawings of dark alley life, Hey Good Lookin' has a lot of cartoonish humor like a guy being caught up in a basketball game and chucked in a basketball hoop. I liked it all except for the ending, which got me a little confused, getting wrapped up in Crazy's hypnotic dreaming sequence dancing around and shooting antennea's and stuff. I wasn't sure when it ended. But nonetheless, I did like this movie, and I'd definitely check out more Bashki films.

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8 /10

One of Bakshi's better films(contains spoilers)

Warning: Spoilers

Rated R for Language,Violence and Some Nudity. Quebec Rating:13+ Canadian Home Video Rating:14A

Hey Good Lookin is one of the four Ralph Bakshi films I have seen.The other Bakshi films I have seen are Fritz The Cat(his best movie),Coonskin(good but not as good as fritz or this) and Cool World(which wasn't very good...but not bad).Not many people seem to have seen this film(as of August 28 2007, it has 97 votes).Hey Good Lookin is a film about the 1950's.A mysterious man tells a girl a story.The story follows Vinnie, who is the leader of the gang "The Stompers".Him and his friend Crazy Shapiro have fun smoking,drinking and trying to pick up girls.One day, Vinnie accidentally goes on the rival black gang's turf.The leader of the gang asks Vinnie to rumble with him.He agrees.The rest of the film shows gang trouble and Vinnie and Shapiro dating two girls.Vinnie's girl's name is Roz.Also Crazy Shapiro's father is a cop who hates his son and tries to kill him.The rumble at the end of the film is pretty good but weird with Shapiro hallucinating and shooting at garbage cans and street signs.Vinnie ends up getting shot but is okay and Shapiro falls to his death.We then see the film go back to 1982 where we find that the mysterious man is Vinnie and the girl is Roz.The two then reunite.Hey Good Lookin is one of bakshi's better films and if you can find it, I recommend it.Hopefully this will come out on DVD.

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10 /10

A gritty,outrageous look at the 1950s

Though, I usually watched family-oriented animated films. But I guess, I am like wholesome vs taboo. I first encountered Ralph Bakshi's films when I was a teenager; I don't know how old I was. I started with "The Lord of The Rings;" then "Wizards," that film became my favorite Bakshi film. And then I watched on YouTube : "Fire & Ice," "Cool World" (live action/animated), "Heavy Traffic" and this film "Hey Good Lookin'."

Well anyway, this film takes on a gritty,outrageous look at Brooklyn, New York in the 1950s. But the film's story is about the gang-leader Vinnie, his gang called the Stompers; his relationship with his sexy girlfriend Roz and his "friend" "Crazy" Shapiro. And also the all-out rumble with the black rival gang called the Chaplins near the film's ending.

I love the scene where we first meet Roz, it has a great homage to Tex Avery's "Red Hot Riding Hood" cartoons. I also love the part where Vinny screamed at the corpse buried in the sand and all the Sicillians that are on the beach, dogpiled and beat up Shapiro; that guy is TOO MUCH!

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10 /10

Another look necessary

When "Coonskin/Streetfight" caused a load of controversy and the technical specs caused difficulty, this one sat on a shelf for WAY too long.

And it may be Bakshi's best.

This was like "Heavy Traffic" but two decades earlier. Take away the 70's lingo and bring in the greasers. Ralph seems to be exorcising a rough past with his father here. Not for the first time either.

The best part of this film is the wrecking of the 50's myth. It wasn't all great economy and capitalism. The poor existed. Gangs ran rampant. And the races were at odds. This film points that out. And points again...

The autobiographical angle shows too. Both this and "Traffic" have the struggling artist character getting heat from all around him.

This was like a JD flick but VERY serious. Getting lost in that shuffle was the worst thing that could happen to it.

Go see it.

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hey good watching

O.K. I am a big fan of cartoon movies. with live footage. This one gets goofy in some spots but very watchable.. get it on video, and give it a good chance.

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4 /10

Greatest cartoon since Song of the South...

Warning: Spoilers

ALL MY REVIEWS CONTAIN SPOILERS. EVERY ONE OF THEM.

I first saw this movie when I was 6 years old. Until that time, all my knowledge about the 50's greaser era was fed to me through a miserable show ironically called Happy Days. Fonzie was the type of no nonsense gang leader who encouraged children to drink milk and say their prayers. He was my hero until I watched Hey Good Lookin' and met Vinnie. Vinnie's salute wasn't a thumbs up sign, it was a crotch grab. Vinnie reminded me so much of myself: Perverted, rebellious, and mad at the world. I could relate on so many levels. He also had the biggest hands known to mankind, the better to kick your ass with, my dear.

Vinnie was definitely frightening. He was an ugly, ape-like man with plenty of Neanderthal features. His buddy Crazy was no pretty portrait, either. But Vinnie had the finest girlfriend on God's green Earth. Her name was Roz, a sexy post-Betty Boop but pre-Jessica Rabbit cartoon who fulfilled all my night time fantasies as a child, and sometimes in adulthood as well. Not only was this movie packed with 3 major interests of mine (cursing, violence, and sex) but it was a cartoon as well. I was 6 years old. I literally thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Hey Good Lookin' is vulgar and rude. It is violent, pointless, and cliched. It is ugly, stereotypical, and misogynistic. In other words, it is perfect. It begins with a completely senseless opening featuring a garbage can conversing with trash about spiritual philosophy. What this scene means I will never know, but that's the beauty of it. It makes no sense! I was howling with belly aching laughter from the opening frame. We meet Old Vinnie and Old Roz in present time first, and they both look absolutely terrible. We flashback 30 years to Vinnie as a young man, and he looks absolutely terrible. Vinnie is the leader of a Brooklyn gang called The Stompers. His first Lieutenant and best buddy is a guy named Crazy. Crazy is a misunderstood hoodlum with silver dollar nipples. His dad is a detective who hates him, and routinely tries to kill him.

Vinnie meets Roz, a sultry sex pot drawn specifically for the adolescent male demographic. A running gag in the movie is the fact that Vinnie can't keep his hands off her more than ample breasts. That same joke is done repeatedly throughout the movie, and I had no problem with it. One day, at the beach, Vinnie bumps into his old nemesis, Boog-a-loo, the leader of a rival gang called The Chaplins. Boog-a-loo is the blackest black man I have ever seen in a movie. If there were ever any stereotypes towards black people, Boog-a-loo fits every one of them. He looks a lot like Eddie Griffin, and part of me is convinced Griffin did his voice...but I don't think he was around back then. Anyway, a rumble is set. The movie rapidly moves from one pointless scene to the next, leading up to the big rumble showdown, which is actually a try out for Dance Fever.

But who even cares about the "plot..." what the hell was going on in this movie?? Remember the scene where Crazy bangs this fat broad in a sea of hamburgers? And how about the scene where Crazy becomes a rooftop superhero and fights an army of man eating trash cans and giant naked ladies with no face? Boog-a-loo shows up on the roof with Crazy, and to this day I still am not sure if he tossed Crazy off the roof, or if Crazy jumped on purpose. If it was indeed suicide, why even include Boog-a-loo in the scene? And if Boog-a-loo pushed him off, why didn't they show it? I can't believe I'm even asking questions about this movie.

The movie is basically an animated version of Mean Streets. Speaking of the animation, it's horrible-- but that's cool, cuz I've never been a fan of The Lion King anyway. Everyone is drawn terribly, and all the characters look like Satan. The audio comes in and out and many characters talk at once, so you never really know what's being said. This is why the movie will forever be a classic, it leaves the mystery door open. I have been waiting for the sequel now for 20 years, and if Ralph Bakshi reads this, hopefully he will oblige, instead of going "Hollywood" and making pure crap like Cool World, a movie with no nudity.

* * * * * stars out of 5.

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10 /10

A Great movie

This full-length animated feature takes an amusing and often outrageous look at life during the '50s. Everything from street gangs to young love is given a satirical once-over. If you liked this you will love FRITZ THE CAT.

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6 /10

Hey Good Lookin' summary

This film is complete garbage.  None of the characters are interesting, the dialogue cannot be understood, and the storyline is so weak.  The main character, Vinny is a bit of a tool and I've noticed similarities between him and Danny Zuko from Grease.  This could mean that Hey Good Lookin' supposedly ripped off Grease, that would explain why many people hate this film.

Vinny, now that I've compared him to Danny Vuto, that led me thinking about how John Travolta played Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction.  Yep, and Vincent could be Vincent's real name, but everyone in the film refers to him as "Vinny."  Despite that Pulp Fiction was released 12 years later than Hey Good Lookin', Vinny is more like Danny Vuto, due to the fact that he picks up chicks, has a cocky personality, and is portrayed as a greaser, as well as Grease being released prior to Hey Good Lookin'.

The dialogue is somehow entertaining in certain parts of the film, but mostly involves lots of yelling, cheering and reactions to things.  We see typical conversations in this film, but they're about random things that don't really pertain to what's going on in the film.  After watching the first ten minutes of the film, the dialogue gets boring and loud, sounding like a Looney Tunes cartoon.  And did I mention that Warner Bros. distributed this film?

Despite that this film is considered terrible by many, we come across another positive aspect of this film.  How this film began production.  The slippery slope of how the producers dealt with marketing this film started when Ralph Bakshi started writing the script for this film, after producing Coonskin.  This resulted in Warner Bros. trying to cash in on the film. Many black animators were informed about this becoming a film, so they joined Ralph Bakshi's studio and contributed on this film.  Once they realized how the black characters in the film were given mainstream African American stereotypes, the black animators left the studio; supposedly as a response to how Bakshi avoided giving blacks stereotypes in Coonskin, but exploiting the stereotypes negatively and crossing the line in Hey Good Lookin'.

The film contains live action footage that blended the animated characters with the backgrounds used for the film.  In one scene, the black characters break dance, despite the fact that break dancing wasn't popular to the release of this film.  This film perfected the dance style and this dance became popular among African Americans in hip hop culture.

Since Bakshi wanted the break dancing scenes in the film, a lot of the live action footage was deleted and reshot.  Bakshi was capable of rotoscoping the break dancing scenes, but couldn't on some of the scenes that were reshot due to budget issues.  The film was then shelved until the release of American Pop, and despite that Warner Bros. wanted this film to be a success, it didn't do too well.

If the film is so bad, then yes, the music is also horrible and is rare to find.  This film only became a film because Warner Bros. was fascinated with Bakshi's script, yet I personally find it uninteresting.  The music is cheesy, and pretty much exploits the lifestyle the characters live in.  The music attempts to be 50s music but sounds more like 80s music, the type of music this film has is like the 80s version of Nickelback.  It only gets negative reviews.

The character Crazy has the stupidest name in the film.  Naming him Kangaroo would've been better, because it isn't too obvious that his personality is like a kangaroo's.  Crazy is clearly really clumsy and goofy and the fact that his name is Crazy makes us know that the film will be boring.

The animation is good, and is supposed to be a representation of Coney Island.  However, there's this one scene where Vinny feels something in the sand and digs up a disturbing skull that petrifies the women at the beach.  And what was their reaction to it?  Well, I don't care, because this is frankly an unwatchable film.

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Look beyond the surface

Hey, Goodlooking is an intelligent, dark, and satirical look on the American youth culture of the 50's. Look beyond the poor standard of animation to a story of friendship, love and betrayal. And, of course, there are some great tunes. This film is truly a case of substance over style, which is unfairly dismissed by most people. If you can get past the early-80's, cheap techniques, as in Bakshi's LOTR, you'll discover a great film that works on many different levels.

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8 /10

Excellent Animated Film

The first time I saw this film was at 3am after returning home from a bar. I had only caught the end at the time but was greatly impressed. In fact the movie had left such an impression on me that I spent a month trying to locate a copy on video cassette. This video is now among one of my most prized tapes.

The story is based around two good friends, Crazy Shapiro and Vinnie. Vinnie is the leader of a gang known as the 'Stompers'. Vinnie isn't much of a leader, and Crazy is a loose canon. The story takes us on a journey of how Vinnie dealt with his cowardly ways and how Crazy took a leap to insanity.

One of the reasons this movie has made it into my all time favorites is due to how the movie ends.

This movie like most Psychedelic cartoons is not for everybody. You will either love it or hate it.

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9 /10

Hair, see now, that was really important. Hair counts you know.

You either love, loathe or simply don't understand Bakshi's films. I personally fall into the first category and this was the film that started it all for me at the tender age of 12. It still remains my favourite 15 years later. Me and a friend of mine were obsessed with it and would quote it to each other (and others who must have wondered what the hell we were on about) constantly.

I love Bakshi's animation, it maybe rough and sketchy at times but this is part of the appeal. It's far more organic than some pristine computer generated Disney schmaltz or his rotoscoped films. He has a wonderfully unique way of capturing characters in his art. 98% of people in his world are ugly. Though usually with a couple of exceptions. The love interest Rozzie, for example may well be the very ideal of a red blooded males fantasy, forget Jessica Rabbit! The dialogue (as in all his earlier pics) is wonderfully un-coached and at times sounds very improvised. It's drops a lot of the psycadelic and pseudo 60's philosophy that inhabited "Fritz the cat" and "Heavy traffic". There is also less of his trademark mixing of animation over live action backgrounds although it's still present to good effect in certain scenes. In a sense, it's perhaps more streamlined and consequently more accessible to new comers to the world of Bakshi than his previous works. What really makes the film for me though is Ric Sandlers superb soundtrack which (probably due to the films lack of anything beyond extreme cult success) has never been released. I implore those of you who feel the same to email him and tell so because I personally know (from experience) this music does still exist. And with enough interest it could see a release.

Playin' To Win

9 Out of 10

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5 /10

It's alright, but not the film that we should watch.

Warning: Spoilers

Hey Good Lookin was finished in mid-70's, and it was Bakshi's Fourth feature film. It's original version, featuring Animated Characters against live-action characters discussing girlfriends and haircuts must've been a treat to watch.

But Warner Brothers delayed the film for 4 years before they officially scrapped it entirely, and ordered Bakshi to re-made the whole film in animation, and throughout the production of Wizards and Lord of the Rings, Bakshi used his gains from those movies to remake Hey Good Lookin in animation, but he didn't felt like it, so in the end, he didn't even watched the final film, so just like Cool World, Hey Good Lookin was just made without any love or care, it's just a shell of what it once was.

The reason why this film would feel much different than the original version is because it probably had a charm to it, the new version doesn't has a charm, it's just colorful characters slapped on lifeless, static and bland backgrounds, there are a few scenes where the characters are against a Live-action background, and it looks great, not Roger-Rabbit great, but it's a different take, it's not supposed to look like they're really there, it's just an experiment Bakshi made to see of how far the suspension of disbelief went.

However, there are a few scenes that I like in the current version, SPOILER ALERT, like the scene where Vinnie and Crazy hang out in Manhattan, or any of the scenes with Vinnie and Crazy in them, because they're really well acted, Richard Romanus and David Proval showed some really nice chemistry on their parts as best friends Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro. I like the rumble scene, where the dancing people are rotoscoped, quite surreal, and I like the scene where Vinnie griefs for the death of Crazy, and walks around by himself in Manhattan, it's kinda heartbreaking, to be honest, and I like the ending too, despite what some people say. I don't like sad endings, I like closure.

All in all, I really want to see the original version of Hey Good Lookin. Come on Warners Brothers, time to dust off that Hey Good Lookin print sitting on your vault and restore it to it's full glory and release it on Blu-ray. You did it for the Theatrical Cut, why shouldn't you do it to the original version?

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10 /10

One of Bakshi's Best!

Having first seen "Hey Good Lookin'" at the movies in 1982, the year I was seventeen, I have always considered this a film that connects me directly to my past. I was involved with my first "real" girlfriend at the time, and this is one of the first films that we saw together. That aside, having seen this movie countless times since then I have been struck by it's completeness, and excellence as a film. Bakshi's only film that featured a completely original, and brilliant, musical soundtrack, "Hey Good Lookin'" gives a good look into what it meant to be a guy growing up in 1950's Brooklyn and the role you needed to play in order to get respect, get along with your friends, and what was necessary to get the girl. From the leather motorcycle jackets, the slicked back DA's and the rumbles, Ralph Bakshi gives us a window into which we might look into a past where male / female roles were clearly defined, and a man could still be a man. Oh yeah... and the animation is PHENOMENAL as well. This is one of Bakshi's best!

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1 /10

Continuity -- no. Annoying Characters -- yes.

Man alive -- this movie, aside from being in poor taste and unfunny (the poor taste would be fine if it were funny -- but its not), just doesn't go anywhere. I mean its shocking how parts don't even seem to make sense. The scene progression is just sloppy -- and the characters are just miserable and annoying.

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Hey Good Lookin We'll Be Back to Pick You Up

Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084070/reviews

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