In the world of animated shows aimed at adults there are alot of shows that people talk about shows like Robot Chicken , Superjail and Archer to name but a few but the one show that has been forgotten due to the passage of time is ironically the show that started it all for animated shows aimed at adults so here is my review of Spicy City.
The format that this show took was that of an anthology series so each episode had it's story and cast of characters with the only connecting factor being that of the character Raven who is pretty much the host of the show. Making the show an anthology does make it stand out from other adult animated shows but at the same time it would have been nice if there was more then one connecting factor like maybe you could have characters crossover into each others stories or maybe have a recurring location.
Now as I mentioned each episode had a different cast of characters and so the cast list is huge but the only actor to appear in all six episodes was Michelle Phillips as Raven but also in the show was the likes of A Nightmare On Elm Street 4 star Tuesday Knight and E.G. Daily,
The acting for me was very hit and miss for every performance that I thought was good there would be one that wasn't Michelle did a great job as the "host" Raven but Tuesday Knight wasn't that good for me she really should have stuck to singing because her voice acting at least in this show wasn't that good and with E.G> you know your in a for a good performance so I wasn't really shocked when she gave a good performance in this.
The animation came from two different companies Koko Entertainment and Dong Yang Animation and honestly the animation was really good but I have to wonder why were two different animation studios contacted about doing this show when one would have been cheaper and easier to find. I will say that in the final episode I did notice that some of the background characters looked like they could have came from Batman: The Animated Series it's not that much of a bad thing but it was distracting to see.
It's common assumption that South Park is the first animated show aimed at adults and while it was the first one to go mainstream that show came out one month after this one which means that by default Spicy City is the first adult orientated cartoon show but tho Spicy City was only made due to the popularity of Jesus vs. Santa the second short that helped bring South Park to life.
For awhile I was racking my head trying to think of why this isn't talked about in the cartoon fanbase and one of the reasons I came up with wasn't due to the fact that it came out in late nineties but rather it's lack of seasons for you see Spicy City only lasted six episodes but tho a second season was commissioned and then cancelled by HBO because they wanted to replace all the writers and the creator of the show Ralph Bakshi refused to bow down to that demand and thus Spicy City bit the dust.
As I just mentioned the creator of the show was Ralph Bakshi one of the greatest animation directors of our time but the legends in animation doesn't really end there because Eric Radomski the creator of Batman: The Animated Series did some work on the show altho for some reason even tho he's listed in the shows opening credits he's not listed on IMDB but tho also working on the show was a man called John Kafka and if you don't know his name look him on IMDB and you'll soon see that he's worked on alot of great shows.
Ralph did alot of work on this show because not only was he the creator and executive producer but he also directed two episodes , came up with character designs for two episodes and was the series voice director I want to know if he ever slept during this show because that's alot of work to do on one show so I have to give the guy alot of respect and it might have helped that his son Preston was a writer on the show.
Since i've called this show an animated show aimed at adults many times in this review it should come as no surprise to you that there's alot of swearing , violence , nudity among many other things (or as Ralph Bakshi calls the first draft of a new screenplay) so don't watch this show with your parents trust me it will embarrass both you and them but tho here those adult things that i've mentioned also help to tell whatever story they happen to be telling in that episode so it's not there just for the hell of it it's there to serve a purpose.
Overall this was a show that I was already watching prior to this review and yet when re-watching it I was still taken a back by how good it was and it's a show that shouldn't be forgotten but it's also a show with problems so it gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me.