Bakshi manufactured a title for himself inside animation in the period of the fading times of theatrical studio cartoons. At a Terrytoons studio (best known for the Mighty Mouse cartoons), he produced a series of superhero takeoff cartoons known as A Mighty Heroes. He so moved to Paramount Studios, where he was positioned around charge of the Far-famed cartoon studio in the period of its final times. He produced many experimental alive short cartoons, though none of the babies experienced the major impact by having audiences. Paramount closed its cartoon studio permanently within 1967. Inside 1968, he founded a studio, Ralph's Spot, and headed a low-budget but distinctive TV animated series based on the Spider-Man comic book; new episodes appeared up to 1970. Fallowing 1970, Bakshi went into good-length alive feature.

Bakshi's number one feature, an alive version of R. Crumb's underground comic book Fritz the Cat, was a box-office hit, though Crumb has many times stated his contempt for the film and killed off the title character in retaliation. It was a number one alive feature to exist as rated X, and it was unquestionably aimed primarily at big audiences—something that experienced been unheard of in the years prior to its release.

A fiscal profits of Fritz a Cat gave Bakshi a chance to develop deuce sir thomas more adult-oriented feature, Heavy Traffic and Coonskin, which revealed Bakshi's interest in black history in Us (an additional subject largely overlooked by Hollywood flick studios). However within spite of a telling quality one films (typically credited by film critics when his better act), these films offended numerous viewers & died at the pack professional (though Coonskin cap's premature pack professional dying may be attributed to protests per racial class action CORE, who viewed it when only an additional blaxploitation flick, even though Coonskin cap actually mocked a blaxploitation films of that era). "Coonskin" has as well been observed under a title, 'Streetfight".

Bakshi became a self-proclaimed spokesperson for a new direction in animation during the 1970s, and he turned to the process of rotoscoping to cut costs while still trying to produce quality animation. This sparked a new controversy over the use of traced-over live action in his films: animation scholars accused him of not producing "very" animation, but simply training artists to trace over live action. The rotoscoping content of Bakshi's films increased to the point where the movie American Pop consisted entirely of rotoscoping. Critics and animation fans wondered whether it had been necessary to use animation at all, since everything in the movie could just as easily have been filmed in live-action.

Bakshi's most well-known work after Fritz the Cat came in 1978, when he directed an ambitious animated adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. This first attempt (which portrayed the first half of Tolkien's story, ending halfway through the second book, The Two Towers) to capture Tolkien's vision on screen, although a major success, was considered to be a flop by the film's original distributors, who refused to fund a sequel.

Bakshi directed two more animated films in the 1980s, but Hollywood had turned its back on animation and Bakshi worked behind the scenes for most of the decade. His biggest success in the 1980s was a TV cartoon series aired in 1986, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Bakshi's series was widely hailed by TV critics, and it is still prized by collectors of TV series today. The series—despite the infamous cocaine scene controversy—did not garner high ratings and was cancelled after two years. (It did, however, give a young and ambitious Canadian named John Kricfalusi his start.)

Bakshi also produced a music video for the Rolling Stones song "Harlem Shuffle" in 1987.

The era of modern American animation began after Who Framed Roger Rabbit revitalized the industry in 1988. Bakshi returned to the big screen with a more adult-oriented version of the "alive characters touching real-globe humans" in 1992 with Cool World, but the movie was a box office disappointment.

Bakshi has not officially retired, but he has not produced animated feature films since then, having moved to southwestern New Mexico, and made a living painting. A recent resurgence of interest in his work spiked by its availability over the internet resulted in a three-day retrospective at American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California in April, 2005, and Bakshi announced plans to produce a low budget animated feature titled "Last judgement of Coney Island", financed by himself.

Bakshi produced a short-lived animated TV series called Spicy City in 1997. In 2003 he was the model for and the voice of the eccentric, midget-hating Fire Chief in protégé John K.'s more adult-themed, second-generation Ren and Stimpy cartoons.

Bakshi is usually caricatured on cartoons like Tiny Toon Adventures and The Simpsons as an obese, slovenly, homely figure. He is widely believed to be the inspiration for the character of Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons.

Filmography
Fritz the Cat (1972) Heavy Traffic (1973) Coonskin (released on video as Street Fight) (1975) Wizards (1977) The Lord of the Rings (1978) American Pop (1981) ''Hey Good Lookin' (1982) Fire and Ice (1983) Dr. Seuss' The Butter Battle Book (1989) (TV special) Cool World (1992) Cool and the Crazy'' (TV movie, live action) (1994)