American Pop

American Pop is a dazzling display of talent, nerve, ideas (old and new), passion and a marvelously free sensibility. The man may well be a genius, though that sort of pronouncement will have to wait on time. Read full review

It's a bit unnerving to realize that an entire life can be summed up so well in 20 minutes and that four generations can be fit into a mere 96 minutes without feeling cramped, but that's what's so beautiful about stories like this, too. Read full review

The occasional use of real people on old film is jarring. But cumulatively, the effect is the strength of American pop to convey American mythology. [6 March 1981, p.15]

All that aside, American Pop is still worth watching. Bakshi may not have perfectly captured eight decades of American music history, but his attempt to do so is often thrilling for reasons other than ambition. Read full review

That American Pop is a work of anti-nostalgia does not make it any less banal than the sunny trip-down-memory-lane formulas it mocks. For all his very real skills as an animator, Bakshi's limitations as an artist are all too clear in American Pop. There's something perversely small-minded about a saga of pop music that resolutely refuses to convey any sense of the joy of making music. Bakshi's ears hear only the downbeats. [16 March 1981, p.94]

Ralph Bakshi's half-baked epic American Pop exposes the banality of his pop mentality. The creator of "Lord of the Rings' and "Fritz the Cat" surpasses himself: American Pop is undeniably his sorriest spectacle yet. [6 March 1981, p.C11]

Low production values, an artless script, and an unconvincing view of history don't add up to much in the way of entertainment. Read full review

The daring ceases to be exploratory and turns, spitting and screaming, on itself. When Bakshi shows us an animated replay of the infamous 1968 pistol execution of a suspected Viet Cong sympathizer, he imparts to the event the grinning slapstick of a Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote confrontation. It's as good a place to walk out of American Pop as any. [6 March 1981]