“Uncut, Uncensored & Incredibly Unsuitable for Children!” – Tagline for the 1976 X-rated film “Once Upon a Girl.”

Partly true, folks. The movie is uncut and uncensored, but it is incredibly unsuitable for any audience, unless you are a thirteen-year-old boy in 1976 with a head full of improbable sexual fantasies and a stash of Hustler magazines under your mattress.

This woeful film was produced, directed, and written by one Don Jurwich (although some sources credit Joel Seibel as Producer). Do not assume that Jurwich was a leering smut master; He harkened back to the early days of Jay Ward Productions and served a stint at Hanna-Barbera in the 1960s doing storyboards, layouts, and some writing. In the years after Once Upon a Girl, Jurwich had a long and productive career with HB and Marvel Productions spanning nearly fifty years.

Jurwich was quoted as saying that his group of animators on Once Upon a Girl had worked at Disney; this was stretching things a bit too far. The only person in his crew who could qualify was Bob Trochim, who worked as an assistant animator on Sleeping Beauty (1959). Paro Hozumi was a background artist for multiple DTV productions from about 1990 to 2005. Rene Garcia was an assistant layout artist on The Little Mermaid (1989).

Since these productions came decades after 1986, Jurwich’s claim is highly unlikely. No one else on his film’s animation staff has a single Disney credit at any time. Hal Smith did do voice work for Disney, but never did any animation. However, almost the entire animation department had worked at Hanna-Barbera before (or while) taking on this dreadful project.

Most of the humor for us animation fans comes from clearly seeing the mid-70’s Hanna-Barbera artistic style imposed on the characters as they play Hide-The-Salami in various orifices. It’s almost as if Bill and Joe gave the green light to a porno film. There’s the same limited animation, the same facial designs, the same run/chase cycles, the same vapid faces. These HB clones also get to recite dialogue like “Fucketh you, harlot bitch, fucketh!” or “Look at that little fucker suck!” Need I say that the Funky Phantom never did or said anything of the sort to April Stewart?

The first 5:41 of the movie is a cheesy live-action segment in which Mother Goose (portrayed in drag by Hal Smith, once the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh!) is on trial in some unnamed Southern courtroom on obscenity charges; it seems that she has been retelling classic children’s fairy tales to kids in a manner that would get Larry Flynt tossed in the slammer. In defending herself, Mother Goose begins recounting those same tales in the courtroom.

After the first tale, that of Jack and the Beanstalk, you have seen everything you need to see, roughly twenty minutes into the film’s 1:17 run time. Obscene language, close-ups of female genitalia, raging erections, stiff nipples, and, oh yeah, pimping and bestiality. Enjoy the scene involves Jack reaching the giant’s castle on a phallic beanstalk (watered by his ejaculate); A busty magic harp’s music has all the glasses and silverware in various stages of, um, sexual congress. Soon, the giant’s wife is using Jack as a live dildo.

There follows a filthy version of “Cinderella” featuring lusty, incestuous stepsisters, and a “Little Red Riding Hood” retelling that depicts a rape scene. “Goober and the Ghost Chasers” it ain’t, unless you’d like to imagine every form of sexual depravity set to cut-rate HB animation. Even John Kricfalusi, or that censor-challenger, Bob Clampett, would have disdained this flick.

Giving voices to these characters were Richmond Johnson, Carol Piacente, and Kelly Gordon (the latter two have no previous credits). Most of the voices came from the immortal Frank Welker, but everyone is entitled to one mistake and a paycheck.

Look, honored readers, I’m no prude. Out of respect for your collective good taste in animated films, I have avoided much of the language in this research piece (except for the quoted dialogue). I truly give a fuck about you (oops!). But is there any reason for this trash to exist? Yes. Let me explain.

1972 saw the first X-rated feature film, Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat. In 1973, production began on Charles Swenson’s Dirty Duck (completed in 1974 but not released until 1977). The bandwagon began rolling. When Osama Tezuka released his 1970 film Cleopatra, American distributors renamed it Cleopatra: Queen of Sex and slapped an undeserved X rating on it upon later release…because Fritz had one.

Once Upon a Girl was a 1976 film that fits squarely into the time frame for producers and distributors to cash in on the X-rated animation fad. The problem is, animated depictions of sex depend on considerable exaggeration, which often comes out as more risible than erotic. Exploring Once Upon a Girl for any arousing or erotic content is a fool’s errand. Even the wordplay of the title is unfunny (not to mention ignoring the pleasures of the cowgirl position). I’m a baaaaad boy!