crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists, and t

he Mafia. The film, which combines live-action with animation, stars Philip Thom
as, Charles Gordone, Barry White, and Scatman Crothers, all of whom appear in bo
th live-action and animated sequences. Coonskin makes reference to various eleme
nts from African-American culture, ranging from African folk tales to the work o
f cartoonist George Herriman, and satirizes racist and other stereotypes, as wel
l as the blaxploitation genre, Song of the South, and The Godfather.
Originally produced under the titles Harlem Nights and Coonskin No More..., Coon
skin encountered controversy before its original theatrical release when the Con
gress of Racial Equality criticized the content as being racist. When the film w
as released, Bryanston gave it limited distribution and it initially received ne
gative reviews. Later re-released under the titles Bustin' Out and Street Fight,
Coonskin has since been reappraised. A New York Times review said, "[Coonskin]
could be [Ralph Bakshi's] masterpiece."[1] Bakshi has stated that he considers C
oonskin to be his best film.[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
2.1 Voices
3 Production history
3.1 Style and subject matter
3.2 Casting
3.3 Directing
3.4 Writing
3.5 Music
4 Controversy
5 Critical response
6 Legacy
7 References
8 External links
Plot[edit]
In the South, Sampson and the local Preacherman plan to bust out their friend Ra
ndy from prison. As they rush to the prison, the two are stopped by a roadblock
and have a shootout with the police. Meanwhile, Randy and another cellmate named
Pappy escape from inside the prison and wait for Sampson and the Preacherman to
help them get out. While waiting for them, Randy unwillingly listens to Pappy t
ell a story about three guys that resemble Randy and his friends. Pappy's story
is told in animation set against live-action background photos and footage.
Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox are forced to pack up and leave t
heir Southern settings after the bank mortgages their home and sells it to a man
who turns it into a brothel. The trio moves to Harlem, "home to every black man
". When they arrive, Rabbit, Bear, and Fox find that it isn't all that it's made
out to be. They encounter a con man named Simple Savior, a phony revolutionary
leader who claims to be the cousin of "Black Jesus", and that he gives his follo
wers "the strength to kill whites". In a flashy stage performance in his "church
", Savior acts out being brutalized by symbols of black oppressionrepresented by
images of John Wayne, Elvis Presley, and Richard Nixon, before asking his parish
ioners for "donations". When Rabbit attempts to turn the crowd, Savior tries to
have him killed. After Rabbit tricks his would-be murderers (in a paraphrasing o
f the story of Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch), he and Bear kill Savior. This
allows Rabbit to take over Savior's racket, putting him in line to become the he
ad of all organized crime in Harlem. But first, he has to get rid of a few other
opponents. Savior's former partners tell Rabbit that if he can't kill his oppon
ents, then they'll kill him instead.
Rabbit first goes up against Madigan, a virulently racist and homophobic white p
olice officer and bagman for the Mafia, who demonstrates his contempt for Africa
n Americans in various ways, including a refusal to bathe before an anticipated
encounter with them (he believes they're not worth it). When Madigan finds out t
hat Rabbit has been taking his payoffs, he and his cohorts, Ruby and Bobby, are
led to a nightclub called "The Cottontail". A black stripper distracts him while
an LSD sugar cube is dropped into his drink. Madigan, while under the influence
of his spiked drink, is then maneuvered into a sexual liaison with a stereotypi
cally effeminate gay man, and then shoved into women's clothing representative o
f the mammy archetype, adorned in blackface, and shoved out the back of the club
where he discovers that Ruby and Bobby are dead. While recovering from being dr
ugged, he fires his gun randomly, and is shot to death by the police after shoot
ing one of them.[3]
Rabbit's final target is the Godfather who lives in the subway with his wife and
gay sons. The contract for killing Rabbit is given to his only straight son Son
ny. Arriving outside Rabbit's nightclub in blackface and clothing representative
of minstrel show stereotypes, Sonny is shot multiple times by Rabbit before dyi
ng in an explosion caused by a car crash. His body is cremated and taken back ho
me, where his mother weeps over his ashes. Bear becomes torn between staying wit
h Rabbit or starting a new crime-free life. Bear decides to look for Fox in orde
r to seek his advice. Upon arriving at Fox's newly acquired brothel, Bear is "ma
rried" to a girl he, Fox, and Rabbit met during the fight with Savior's men. Und
er the advisement of Fox, Bear becomes a boxer for the Mafia. During one of Bear
's fights, Rabbit sets up a melting imitation of himself made out of tar. As the
Mafiosos take turns stabbing at the "tar rabbit", they become stuck together. R
abbit, Bear, Fox, and the opponent boxer rush out of the boxing arena as it blow
s up. The live-action story ends with Randy and Pappy escaping from the prison w
hile being shot at by various white cops, but managing to make it out alive.
The main plot of the film is interspersed with animated vignettes depicting a wh
ite, blond, large-breasted Miss America who serves as a personification of the U
nited States. In each of these short scenes, she seduces an African-American man
and then kills him.
Cast[edit]
Philip Michael Thomas Randy
Barry White Sampson
Charles Gordone Preacherman
Scatman Crothers Pappy
Voices[edit]
Philip Michael Thomas - Brother Rabbit
Barry White - Brother Bear
Charles Gordone - Preacher Fox
Scatman Crothers - Old Man Bone, Additional Voices
Danny Rees Clown
Buddy Douglas Referee
Jim Moore Mime
Al Lewis The Godfather
Richard Paul Sonny
Frank de Kova Madigan
Ralph Bakshi Cop With Megaphone
Production history[edit]
Not long after Ralph was born in Haifa, Palestine, the Bakshis moved to a mostly
African-American and Jewish neighborhood in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn
, New York. Around April 1947, Ralph's father and uncle then traveled to Washing
ton D.C. in search of new business opportunities, moving the family into a build
ing in the entirely black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom.[2] Ralph recalls that "A
ll my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school ac
ross the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to
see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was ano
ther black kid on the block. No problem!"[2]
Because Bakshi felt that it was not fair for him to walk several miles every day
to attend Greenleaf Elementary School while his friends attended segregated sch
ools, he asked his mother if he could attend school with his friends, and she ag
reed. Bakshi was the only white student in the classroom.[2] Most of the student
s had no problem with Bakshi attending the school, but the teacher sought advice
from the principal, who called the police. Suspecting that segregated whites wo
uld riot if they learned that a white student was attending a black school, the
police removed Bakshi from the classroom.[2] Meanwhile, Ralph's father had been
experiencing anxiety attacks and stress. Within a few months, Ralph's mother sol
d their store, and the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke
of these events.[2]
These experiences had a strong impact on Bakshi, and led him to develop Harlem N
ights, a satirical film loosely based upon the Uncle Remus storybooks.[2] During
the production of Heavy Traffic, filmmaker Ralph Bakshi met and developed an in
stant friendship with producer Albert S. Ruddy during a screening of The Godfath
er, and pitched Harlem Nights to Ruddy.[2] When Steve Krantz, the producer of bo
th Heavy Traffic and Bakshi's debut feature, Fritz the Cat, learned that Bakshi
would work with Ruddy, Krantz locked Bakshi out of the studio. After two weeks,
Krantz asked Bakshi back to finish the picture.[2] In 1973, production of Harlem
Nights began,[1][4] with Paramount Pictures (where Bakshi once worked as the he
ad of its cartoon studio) originally attached to distribute the film.[1][2] Baks
hi hired several black animators to work on Harlem Nights, including graffiti ar
tists, at a time when black animators were not widely employed by major animatio
n studios.[1][5] Production concluded in the same year.[5]
Paramount Pictures hired an African American representative to oversee productio
n.[5] During production, the film went under several titles, including Harlem Da
ys[5] and Coonskin No More...[6] The title Coonskin was chosen by Ruddy. Bakshi
was nervous about the title.[5] At a production meeting, the representative prop
osed a title change, which Bakshi was in favor of because he wanted the film to
revert to its original title; Ruddy insisted on his preferred title and told the
representative to get out of his office.[5]
Style and subject matter[edit]
A scene intended to satirize black stereotypes
Coonskin uses a variety of racist caricatures from blackface minstrelsy and dark
y iconography, including stereotypes featured in Hollywood films and cartoons, p
resented in a manner that was intended to satirize the racism of the material an
d images rather than reinforce it.[3] Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by p
ortraying them directly, and rejected early designs in which Brother Rabbit, Bro
ther Bear, and Preacher Fox resembled designs from The Wind in the Willows for t
his reason.[2] In the book That's Blaxploitation! Roots of the Baadasssss 'Tude
(Rated X by an All-Whyte Jury), Darius James writes that "Bakshi pukes the icono
graphic bile of a racist culture back in its stupid, bloated face, wipes his chi
n and smiles Dirty Harry style. [...] He subverts the context of Hollywood's ent
ire catalogue of racist black iconography through a series of swift cross-edits
of original and appropriated footage."[3] The film also features equally exagger
ated portrayals of white Southerners, Italians, and homosexuals, also presented
in a satirical context.[3] The depiction of Jewish characters stems from stereot
ypes portrayed in Nazi propaganda, including The Eternal Jew.[7] According to Ba
kshi, although producer Albert S. Ruddy was "fine" with the satire, it seemed th
at no one really knew what Bakshi was up to as he worked on the film. "Everyone
thought the picture was going to be anti-black. I intended it to be anti-idiot."
[8]
In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, Arthur Knight wrote "Coonskin is not a
nti-black. Nor is it anti-Jewish, anti-Italian, or anti-American, all of whom fa
ll prey to Bakshi's wicked caricaturist's pen as intensely as any of the blacks
in his movie. What Bakshi is against, as this film makes abundantly clear, is th
e cheats, the rip-off artists, the hypocrites, the phonies, the con men, and the
organized criminals of this world, regardless of race, color, or creed."[1] The
film is most critical in its portrayal of the Mafia. According to Bakshi, "I wa
s incensed at all the hero worship of those guys in The Godfather; Pacino and Ca
an did such a great job of making you like them. [...] One thing that stunned me
about The Godfather movie: here's a mother who gives birth to children, and her
husband essentially gets all her sons killed. In Coonskin, she gets her revenge
, but also gets shot. She turns into a butterfly and gets crushed. [...] These [
Mafia] guys don't give you any room."[9]
Casting[edit]
The live-action sequences feature singers Barry White and Scatman Crothers, acto
r and playwright Charles Gordone, and actors Philip Michael Thomas, Danny Rees,
and Buddy Douglas. Thomas, Gordone, and White also provide the voices of the fil
m's main animated characters. In the film's ending credits, the actors were only
credited for their live-action roles, and all voice actors who did not appear i
n the live-action sequences were left uncredited. Among the voices featured in t
he film was Al Lewis, best known for appearing as Grandpa on The Munsters.[8][9]
According to Bakshi, the entire cast "[was] all a little nervous, except for Ch
arles Gordone, who plays Preacher/Brother Fox. [...] He was ecstatic about the c
hance to do this. Whenever I had doubts, he'd reassure me, 'Rait on, motherfucke
r!' [...] Barry and Charles were behind it 1,000 percent."[9] Bakshi also worked
with Gordone on the film Heavy Traffic,[10] and worked with Thomas again on the
film Hey Good Lookin'.[5]
Directing[edit]
Ralph Bakshi in January 2009
The experience of living in both Brownsville and Foggy Bottom was a major influe
nce on his work. While designing the look of Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, and C
oonskin, Bakshi emphasized an intentionally crude quality in the animation. He i
s quoted as saying "What I was trying to do was relate to the person in the stre
et. I was looking for a sort of Graffiti Art feelthe colors, the structure, a cer
tain crudeness of backgrounds. I even used grainy films at times. The important
thing to me was to relate to a certain type of person that I grew up with. To do
what I call an art of the street, a 'Ghetto Art.' It's my form of expression."[
3] Bakshi has also stated "The art of cartooning is vulgarity. The only reason f
or cartooning to exist is to be on the edge. If you only take apart what they al
low you to take apart, you're Disney. Cartooning is a low-class, for-the-public
art, just like graffiti art and rap music. Vulgar but believable, that's the lin
e I kept walking."[8]
Coonskin uses a variety of different styles of artwork, filmmaking and storytell
ing techniques. Film critic Leonard Maltin wrote that Coonskin "remains one of [
Bakshi's] most exciting films, both visually and conceptually."[8] The use of a
live-action frame story is a satirical reference to Walt Disney's Song of the So
uth.[9] These sequences were shot in Oklahoma. The El Reno state prison was one
of the locations used during filming. A week after Bakshi and his crew left, the
prison was burned during a riot.[9] The film also uses live-action photographs
and footage as backdrops for animated sequences, a filmmaking technique Bakshi p
reviously employed in Heavy Traffic. The filming of live-action footage also hel
ped contribute elements to the film's story. According to Bakshi, while shooting
live-action background footage on Times Square at 4 am, a group of prostitutes
came out and waved towards the camera before being chased off by the police. "Th
at happened by accident, but we put it in the film. I never could have written a
nything that real in the script."[9]
Writing[edit]
Darius James writes that Coonskin "reads like an Uncle Remus folktale rewritten
by Chester Himes with all the Yoruba-based surrealism of Nigerian author Amos Tu
tuola."[3] The film directly references the original African folk tales that the
Uncle Remus storybooks were based on in two scenes that are directly reminiscen
t of the stories The Briar Patch and The Tar Baby.[3] Writer and former pimp Ice
berg Slim is briefly referenced in the dialogue of Preacher Fox, and the ListonAl
i fights are referenced in the film's final act, in which Brother Bear, like Son
ny Liston, is sold out to the Mafia.[8] The film also features a pastiche of car
toonist George Herriman and columnist Don Marquis' "archy and mehitabel", in a m
onologue about a cockroach that leaves the woman who loves him. Bakshi has state
d that Herriman, a light-skinned African American Creole, is his favorite cartoo
nist.[3][9] According to Bakshi, the scene "is based on personal experiences of
black men I knew who couldn't afford to feed their families, so they left becaus
e they couldn't stand to see them suffer."[9]
Of the writing process, Bakshi stated "The way I worked was that everyone record
ed the script. But then I would change my opinion over the course of the year I
made the film. I read every black culture book I could get a hand on. Then my op
inion on these matters would change. I ran my own studioI had no boss. I was the
director and the writer. I would write and rewrite and record all year. I was al
ways in a state of flux in my films; the process was as important as a finished
project."[9] In another interview, Bakshi stated "In Coonskin, I was able to sto
p an entire movie and integrate Miss America poems. I would do two or three movi
es within a movie. I would use subtext of ideas and go with it wherever I felt i
t should go. That, to me, is extremely excitingimprovisational almost poetry, in
a sense. I love Bukowski."[11]
Music[edit]
Jazz musician Chico Hamilton (pictured in 2009) composed the score for the film
Coonskin's musical score was written and performed by jazz drummer and bandleade
r Chico Hamilton. The soundtrack also features the Bill Withers song "Ain't No S
unshine" performed by Grover Washington Jr. (from his album Inner City Blues (Ku
du, 1972)) and the song "Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes" by singer/guitarist Cha
rlie Brown from his album Up from Georgia (Polydor, 1970).
The film's opening credits feature Scatman Crothers performing a song called "Co
onskin No More".[12] Crothers wrote the music, and the lyrics, containing lines
such as "Ah'm the minstrel man/Ah'm the cleaning man/Ah'm the poor man/Ah'm the
shoe shine man/Ah'm a Nigger Man/Watch me dance!", were written by Bakshi himsel
f. The song's structure is rooted in the history of plantations, when slaves wou
ld "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison,
creating a natural beat, and its fast guitar licks and rhymes feature what Baks
hi described as "an early version of rap".[2] The song "Hit the Deck" from Ice-T
's 1989 album The Iceberg/Freedom Of Speech... Just Watch What You Say! samples
Crothers' spoken reprise of "Coonskin No More".[13]
No soundtrack album has been released for the film.
Controversy[edit]
In order to attempt a contract killing on Brother Rabbit, white mobster Sonny di
sguises himself in blackface and clothing representative of minstrel show iconog
raphy, and uses a gun hidden in a banjo
When the film was finished, a showing was planned at the Museum of Modern Art. I
n a 1980 interview, Bakshi stated, "the museum had seen the film and loved it, a
breakthrough in animation. They set up a very special night to screen it for fi
lm people."[1] The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) surrounded the building, i
n a protest led by Elaine Parker. According to Bakshi, "The room was filled, alt
hough there weren't many protesters from CORE there, eight or nine. Screaming, '
You can't watch this film!' People pulling people out of their seats. It was tha
t kind of night. The audience was very frightened. They were being attacked verb
ally throughout the movie. People kept running up and down the aisles in pitch b
lackness."[1]
In a 1982 interview, Bakshi stated "I had finished the film on a Friday, I scree
ned it in California for the museum on a Monday, and on Wednesday when I came to
New York to screen it there were pickets there. I brought the film on the plane
with me, and no one had seen it but my animators and two guys from the museum.
But there were pickets there, shouting that the film was racist. I never saw any
thing so set up in my life, but the press never picked up on that."[1]
Bakshi asked Al Sharpton why he didn't come in and see the movie. In response, S
harpton announced, "I don't got to see shit; I can smell shit!"[9] In a 2008 int
erview, Bakshi stated that "I called Sharpton a black middle-class fucking sell-
out, and I'll say it to his face. Al Sharpton is one of those guys who abused th
e revolution to support whatever it was he wanted."[14] According to Bakshi, "[S
harpton] brought in some bruisers, and I could hear them asking, 'Should we beat
him up or cool it?' 'Ah, let's watch the film.'"[9] "They were geared to dislik
e it" says Bakshi. "They were booing at the titles! I guess it was an easy targe
t. Or they were paid to do it. I don't know. It was very unusual. They were booi
ng at something they hadn't even seen. This was interesting to me."[3] After the
screening, Bakshi states that Sharpton charged up to the screen, but "people di
dn't want to follow Sharpton up the aisle. His own men! He was screaming to me o
n the podium and turning around to them, saying, 'Are you guys coming up?' But t
hey didn't want to, because they loved the movie."[14]
Gregg Kilday of the Los Angeles Times interviewed Larry Kardish, a museum staff
member, and Kardish recalled that "About halfway into the film about ten members
of CORE showed up. They walked up and down the aisles and were very belligerent
. In my estimation they were determined not to like the film. Apparently some of
their friends had read the script of the movie and in their belief it was detri
mental to the image of blacks [...] The question-and-answer session with Bakshi
that followed quickly collapsed into the chaos of a shouting match."[1]
Animation historian Jerry Beck did not recall any disturbance during the screeni
ng, but said there were racist catcalls during the question-and-answer session,
and Bakshi's talk was cut short. "It wasn't much of a madhouse, but it was kind
of wild for the Museum of Modern Art."[1] According to Bakshi, "there were five
people who were very angry at me and were very vocal. There were two hundred peo
ple sitting in their seats that applauded the film tremendously. It's always the
five people in a room that want to scream, and those are the ones that are goin
g to be heard. That's what really happened. I laughed at the controversy."[1] Ac
cording to Ruddy, he had been told that "there were about four hundred people th
ere. I think ten or fifteen blacks took objection to some of the things, and the
y had somewhat of a scream-out with Ralph at the end [...] It was also for the b
oard of the museum. They loved it. They thought it was a classic."[1]
Following the showing, the Paramount Building in New York City was picketed by C
ORE. Elaine Parker, chairman of the Harlem chapter of CORE, had spoken out again
st the film in January 1975. She told Variety that the film "depicts us as slave
s, hustlers and whores. It's a racist film to me, and very insulting. She then t
hreatened, "if it is released, there's no telling what we might do." The Los Ang
eles chapter of CORE demanded that Paramount not release the film, claiming that
it was "highly objectionable to the black community."[1] The NAACP had written
a letter describing the film as a difficult satire, but supported it.[3] Bakshi
has stated, "The film was positive black in a huge way. It shows what white peop
le think of blacks. I'm not a racist. I couldn't understand it and I still can't
. If I were a racist for the Ku Klux Klan, I could understand it. But how could
I understand the booing?"[3]
With Paramount's permission, Bakshi and Ruddy got contractually released, and th
e Bryanston Distributing Company was assigned the rights to the film.[1][3] Two
weeks after the film opened, the distributor went bankrupt.[1][3] According to a
May 1975 issue of The Hollywood Reporter, Ben Gage was hired to rerecord Barry
White's voice track, in order to remove "racist references and vulgarity."[1] Co
onskin was given limited distribution, advertised as a blaxploitation film. Roge
r Ebert wrote in his review of the film:
Coonskin is said by its director to be about blacks and for whites, and by its a
ds to be for blacks and against whites. Its title was originally intended to bre
ak through racial stereotypes by its bluntness, but now the ads say the hero and
his pals are out "to get the Man to stop calling them coonskin." The movie's or
iginal distributor, Paramount, dropped it after pressure from black groups. Now
it's being sold by Bryanston as an attack on the system. [...] Coonskin is provo
cative, original and deserves better than being sold as the very thing it's not.
[15]
According to Bakshi, when Martin Scorsese was filming second-unit material for T
axi Driver near Times Square, a smoke bomb was thrown into a theater showing Coo
nskin, and Scorsese sent Bakshi footage of audience members running out of the t
heater. "I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but it's okay now."[9]
In a 1982 article published in The Village Voice, Carol Cooper wrote "Coonskin w
as driven out of theaters by a misguided minority, most of whom had never seen t
he film. CORE's pickets at Paramount's Gulf and Western headquarters and, later,
a few smoke bombs lobbed into packed Broadway theaters were enough; theater own
ers were intimidated, and the auxiliary distributor, Bryanston, couldn't book th
e film. Bye-Bye Coonskin."[1]
Critical response[edit]
Initial reviews of the film were negative. Playboy said of the film, "Bakshi see
ms to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together."[1] A
review published in The Village Voice called the film "the product of a cripple
d hand and a paralyzed mind."[1] Arthur Cooper wrote in Newsweek, "[Bakshi] does
n't have much affection for man or woman kindblack or white."[1] Eventually, posi
tive reviews appeared in The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, the New Yor
k Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper), and elsewhere, but the film di
ed at the box office.[1] Richard Eder of The New York Times wrote, "[Coonskin] c
ould be his masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon
formcartoons and live action combinedto convey the hallucinatory violence and frus
tration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically viol
ent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence."[1] Variety called the film a "br
utal satire from the streets. Not for all tastes [...] not avant-garde. [...] Th
e target audience is youth who read comics in the undergrounds."[1] A reviewer f
or The Los Angeles Herald Examiner wrote "Certainly, it will outrage some and in
deed it's not Disney. I liked it. The dialogue it has obviously generatedif not t
he box office obstaclesseems joltingly healthy."[1][16]
Legacy[edit]
Coonskin was later re-released under the title Bustin' Out, but it was not a suc
cess.[1] The film developed a cult following through home video releases and fil
m festivals. According to Bakshi, "The film was very popular with black audience
s. Let 'em laugh at what they always laugh at, then catch them off guard, which
is what I do in all my films."[3] Fans of the film include film directors Spike
Lee,[9] and Quentin Tarantino, who spoke about the film for thirty minutes at th
e 2004 Cannes Film Festival.[17] The Wu-Tang Clan have expressed interest in pro
ducing a sequel.[17][18] According to Bakshi, Richard Pryor was also a supporter
of the film. Darius James quotes Bakshi as saying "Pryor loves it! He thinks it
's great!" James' book also states that Bakshi wanted to work with Pryor on a li
ve-action/animated film based on Pryor's stand-up comedy.[3] Bakshi is quoted as
saying "I get emails from new fans all the time on it. Some can't believe I'm w
hite."[8]
In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the 97th greatest an
imated film of all time.[19] Bakshi has stated that he considers Coonskin to be
his best film.[2] Coonskin was released on VHS by Academy Entertainment in late
1987,[20] and later by Xenon Entertainment Group in the 1990s, both under the re
-release title, Street Fight.[1][3] The 1987 edition carried the disclaimer, "Wa
rning: This film offends everybody".[20] Home video releases in the United Kingd
om used the original theatrical release title.[21] In 2010, Shout! Factory annou
nced that Coonskin would be released on DVD in November 2010, intending to relea
se it with a reversible cover with both titles of the film; the release was canc
elled due to a legal issue involving ownership of the rights to the film, resolv
ed with Xenon's eventual DVD release in 2012.[22] The 2012 release was the first
official home video release to carry the film's original title. In September 20
12, Bakshi incorporated animation from Coonskin into a new short film, Trickle D
ickle Down, criticizing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.[23]