Directed by the enigmatic Bud Lee (a prolific figure in the Golden Age of Porn, alongside icons like Radley Metzger), the film strips Chaucer’s framework down to its essential, base components. Gone is the religious pageantry of Thomas à Becket. In its place, we find a group of weary travelers—a Miller, a Wife, a Knight, a Squire, and a Pardoner—sheltering in a tavern during a storm.
Rather than telling tales of chivalry or moral virtue, these pilgrims engage in a storytelling contest of a different sort. The prize? A silver dagger and a night of debauchery with the innkeeper’s daughter. The stories, much like the original Miller’s Tale or Reeve’s Tale, revolve around cuckolding, mistaken identities, farts in dark rooms, and the eternal battle of wits between husbands and lovers.
What makes the 1985 version remarkable is its fidelity to the spirit of Chaucer. The dialogue is not modern slang; it is delivered in a campy, pseudo-Elizabethan patois. Characters yell things like, “By my troth, thy beard doth hide a lecher’s chin!” before ripping each other’s corsets off. The Ribald Tales Of Canterbury -1985- -Classic-
Then (1985): Virtually ignored by mainstream critics. Variety dismissed it as “barely animated burlesque.” The LA Times mentioned it only in a roundup of “video nasties.” Conservative groups called it “depraved,” which only boosted its rental numbers.
Now (Retrospective): Reviled by Chaucer scholars. Adored by fans of Fritz the Cat, Rock & Rule, and The Groovenians. It holds a 68% “Fresh” rating on the cult film aggregator Rotten Weird (a fan site, not Rotten Tomatoes), with the consensus: “Crude, immature, and borderline unwatchable—but if you’re in the right state of mind, it’s a howlingly funny time capsule of 80s sleaze animation.” Directed by the enigmatic Bud Lee (a prolific
In the mid-80s, adult films still attempted narrative and satire. The Ribald Tales of Canterbury is a low-budget example of the “literary porno” subgenre (others: Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical, The Little French Maid). Its cult status comes from sheer audacity—combining high school English class with smut.
Tagline: “Chaucer’s classic... as you never dreamed (or dreaded) it!” Rather than telling tales of chivalry or moral
In the mid-1980s, the adult animation landscape was a bizarre frontier. Before The Simpsons made prime-time cartoons safe and long before South Park pushed digital boundaries, there was a scrappy, hand-drawn fever dream known as The Ribald Tales of Canterbury. Released in 1985, this feature-length X-rated animated romp is neither a faithful adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales nor a conventional adult film. Instead, it is a gloriously weird, low-budget, and unapologetically lewd time capsule that has earned a cult following among collectors of vintage “adultoons.”