ralph bakshi majored in cartooning at the high school of art and design. he learned his trade at the terrytoons studio in new york city, where he spent ten years animating characters such as mighty mouse, heckle and jeckle, and deputy dawg. at the age of 29, bakshi was hired to head the animation division of paramount pictures as both writer and director, where he produced four experimental short films before the studio closed in 1967. with producer steve krantz, bakshi founded his own studio, bakshi productions. in 1969, ralph's spot was founded as a division of bakshi productions to produce commercials for coca-cola and "max, the 2000-year-old mouse", a series of educational shorts paid for by encyclopædia britannica. however, bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation he was producing, and wanted to produce something personal. in a 1971 article for the "los angeles times", bakshi said that the idea of "grown men sitting in cubicles drawing butterflies floating over a field of flowers, while american planes are dropping bombs in vietnam and kids are marching in the streets, is ludicrous." bakshi soon developed "heavy traffic", a tale of inner-city street life. however, krantz told bakshi that studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and bakshi's lack of film experience.