Raised in the same rough Brownsville, Brooklyn ghetto that would later produce boxer Mike Tyson, Ralph Bakshi began his career following his high school graduation as an animator with Terrytoons, inking such cartoon characters as Heckyll and Jeckyll and Mighty Mouse. Appointed creative director of Terrytoons in 1965, he became president of Paramount's New York cartoon division the following year, and though his early work was all in the Disneyesque style that prevailed in animation at the time, his brush with poverty had formed a sensibility that bristled at all the cuteness. After Paramount's
