After Ralph Bakshi was screwed over by Frank Mancuso Jr. altering his film Cool World to the point where it no longer resembled his original pitch, it's nice the HBO was willing to give this short lived animated sci-fi anthology project a chance. While the results aren't perfect, there is so really good animation and art direction. Unfortunately what's missing is Bakshi's usual presence of biting satire from seen in Fritz the Cat and Coonskin or the awe and wonder seen in his fantasy films like Wizards or Fire and Ice. This is a case of style over substance as the stories aren't usually all that interesting or memorable with the exception of one story involving a bongo player's hands getting chopped off and going through various misadventures around the titular city. A second season was ordered but creative disagreements between HBO and Bakshi lead to the order being rescinded and the series was effectively cancelled. It's unfortunate the series wasn't allowed to continue because with a little more polish this probably would've been considered an influential show that could've paved the way for more serious attempts at prime time animation(as opposed to the South Park, Simpsons and Family Guy clones which can't seem to evolve past their influences). As it stands Spicy City is a curiosity for both sci-fi fans and animation fans. At the time of this writing there's no official home media release of this series and there doesn't appear to be much interest from the rights holders. Hopefully that'll change in the future because even if you don't like this show, it still deserves to be seen and analyzed so it can be given its place in TV history.
Review of Spicy City
