Frtiz The Cat may have lacked a suggestive title but it was unashamedly devoted to the topics of sex, drugs and violence and was the first animated film to be given an X certificate.

The film was based on the underground comic strip of the same name created by Robert Crumb (b.1943). As a boy, Crumb had made his own comic books and devised a strip based on his household pet, Fred, who was the model for the famous Fritz. Crumb soon established his reputation as a comic-book artist in California where he quickly gained a strong cult following with his magazine Zap. Crumb embodied the counter-culture hippie movement of the period. Through his irreverent, drug-taking, orgy-partaking characters, Crumb provided an important social commentary on society and the Establishment.

In the late 1960's, the animator Ralph Bakshi approached Crumb with the idea of making Fritz The Cat into a film. Although the end result was a commercial success, Crumb hated it and killed off the character in his comic strip.