High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Heavy Traffic is a 1973 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film, which begins, ends, and occasionally combines with live-action, explores the often surreal fantasies of a young New York cartoonist named Michael Corleone, using pinball imagery as a metaphor for inner-city life. Heavy Traffic was Bakshi and producer Steve Krantz`s follow-up to the successful but controversial film Fritz the Cat, the first animated feature to receive an X rating. Though producer Krantz made varied attempts to produce an R-rated film, Heavy Traffic was given an X-rating by the MPAA. The film received positive reviews and is widely considered to be Bakshi`s biggest critical success.