Movies - Short films by Ralph Bakshi

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	Movies - Short films by Ralph Bakshi

The following article is a list of live action and animated short films directed by Ralph Bakshi.

The Cigarette and the Weed

A short film Bakshi made around 1980 to keep his artists and studio together. Little is known about it.

This Ain't Bebop

This Ain't Bebop is a live action short film written and directed by Bakshi in 1989. It was first shown as an episode of the TV miniseries Imaging America. The 30 minute short stars Dean Hill and Harvey Keitel. It was filmed in locations around Los Angeles, California.

Malcom and Melvin

Malcom and Melvin is an animated short made in 1997 for the Cartoon Network. It first aired on November 28, alongside Babe! He Calls Me.

The central character is Melvin , a pathetic buffoon who wants to be hip and famous. The world is cruel to him however, the hipsters will not let him play with them, and when he offers to help diaper a baby rock star he is called a pervert and attacked mercilessly by the self righteous "hero" Batlaw. Groveling home, Melvin suffers a nervous breakdown and decides to kill himself.

He sends his mama, Mrs. Melvin , a goodbye note, inspiring mama to sing the blues, which immediately hurls her into celebrity, fame and fortune. As she is interviewed on a talk show, Melvin prepares to throw himself out the window , using a toilet bowl as an anchor. Malcolm , a cockroach who shares Melvin's apartment, observing the "oppressor" about to jump to his doom, decides to "play him a goodbye song" on his trumpet. He begins to play a hot jazz lick.

The cockroach's music is so enchanting that Melvin, hearing it, decides life is worth living after all. He tells Malcolm, "you saved my life!" but the roach's song has also been heard by the girl downstairs who comes pounding at the door panting, "I'm in LOVE with the person playing that MUSIC!!".

Melvin immediately takes credit for the music, deciding that he can fool the girl by pretending to play the trumpet with Malcolm hidden inside his mouth. Malcolm reluctantly agrees to go along with this, ("OK, OK, just don't STEP on me, man!") and the girl is thrown into a sexual frenzy as Malcolm plays inside Melvin's mouth. Unfortunately Malcolm does not have the stamina to play long enough to satisfy the lass and the music suddenly stops. "I feel so USED!", she says and storms out of Melvin's apartment.

Furious at the cockroach, Melvin crushes him in his teeth ,then suddenly is ridden with guilt as the other cockroaches in the apartment turn their accusing eyes toward him. They sentence Melvin to be "tickled to death" and swarm up his legs and over his body.

As Melvin is about to laugh his last suddenly Mrs. Melvin appears on the TV singing the blues and attracting all the roaches from Melvin. Malcolm reappears miraculously at the end and offers to be Melvin's friend. "I...have a ...FRIEND?", says Melvin through tears of joy, and the two of them dance off down the street, Malcolm playing his horn and dozens of women chasing after them.

Plot summary copied from:

Babe! He Calls Me

As the story of Babe! He Calls Me begins, Mrs. Melvin(Mama) searches the streets desperately for her son, rumored captured by a cockroach. Indeed Melvin has taken up with the jazz trumpeting cockroach Malcolm , playing in jazz clubs "so despicable they have no cover charge". Malcolm plays inside Melvin's mouth, the chicks go crazy thinking it's Melvin, and, as the two plan it, Melvin gets their phone numbers.

Mama visits the private detective Brick Hardrock in an attempt to locate her missing son. Brick introduces his sidekicks Say Wen and Bunky in a display of histrionic special effects that terrify Mama and send her screaming in terror("aw Brick", says Bunky, "ya gotta quit with the gimmicks!") into the alley where she meets The Kid, a sawed off punk with a head for larceny. He tells her to "Shove it, Babe!", and she is tickled. "He calls me Babe!", she sighs in her Yiddish accent, "An affectionate toim (term) of the heart!". Mama, enamoured and yearning for romance, follows The Kid to The roach Pit, the club where Melvin and Malcolm are playing to a packed house of screaming panting women. Even The Kid admits that "Da music is GREAT!" as he and Mama cut a rug.

But from the roof of a nearby building Batlaw, who has now gained a small entourage of uniformed, arm-banded followers, looks down upon The Roach Pit with disgust. He is not enchanted by Malcolm's music, declaring that the perverted notes that are corrupting the women of the city must be stopped. He crashes through the roof of the club, flattening the bouncer and allowing The Kid to make off with the large barrel of money that has collected by the door. Batlaw sees Melvin onstage. "My work begins!", he declares, whipping out his trusty lawarang (made from a coat hanger) and lassoing Melvin from the stage, revealing Malcolm to be the actual musician. The audience of women are grossed out and begin to hurl. Malcolm is heartbroken.

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