HEAVY TRAFFIC

The film begins in live-action, introducing Michael Corleone, a twenty-two year-old virgin who plays pinball in New York City while asking himself philosophical questions before envisioning an animated and dangerous New York neighborhood. Michael's Italian father, Angelo "Angie" Corleone, is a sleazy, struggling mafioso who frequently cheats on Michael's Jewish mother, Ida, with his mistress, Molly. Angie and Ida constantly bicker and try to kill each other at every opportunity.

The unemployed Michael dabbles in cartoons and often wanders throughout the city to avoid family skirmishes and to artistically feed off the grubbiness of his environment. He regularly visits a local bar where he gets free drinks from his girlfriend and the black bartender, Carole, in exchange for sketches, which results in Shorty, Carole's violent, legless bouncer devotee, becoming jealous.

One of the regular customers at the bar, the cross-dressing Snowflake, gets beaten up by a tough drunk in a hard hat named Bongo after he discovers that Snowflake is a man and not a woman like he first thought. Snowflake loves the beating due to his masochism, but the drunk causes property damage. Shorty throws Bongo out and then brutally kills him soon after, while the bar's manager Mario abusively confronts Carole, provoking her into quitting.

Shorty offers to let Carole stay at his place, but not wanting to get involved with him, Carole tells Shorty that she's staying with Michael. Meanwhile, Angie manages a strike at a mob-controlled factory, but when he reveals his plan to replace the strikers with unemployed black workers, the Godfather abandons him in disapproval. Michael allows Carole to stay with him, but the Corleones' deteriorating domestic situation convinces Michael and Carole to move out of Michael's parents' house and try to earn enough money to move to California, in order to avoid Shorty, who's been stalking Carole ever since she quit the bar.

Michael gets a chance to pitch a comic strip idea to an elderly executive lying on his death bed, who seems enthusiastic enough to listen to the idea, but the abnormally dark tone of Michael's story overwhelmes the mogul, resulting in him dying during the pitch.

Meanwhile, Angie tries to use his Mafia connections to put a murder contract on Michael for "disgracing" the family by dating a black woman, but the Godfather refuses to do so because he feels he owes Angie nothing for his failures and because the hit he desires is "personal, not business". Angie realizes he is out of favor with the mob; drunk and depressed, he is seduced by Snowflake. However, Shorty eventually encounters Angie and agrees to fulfill the contract.

Meanwhile, Carole tries working as a taxi dancer, until she is fired when one of her customers she dances has a heart attack at the sight of her underwear.

Michael and Carole turn to crime as a means of getting by with Carole posing as a prostitute, flirting with a sleazy businessman and luring him into a hotel room where Michael beats him to death with a lead pipe so they can rob him. As the two walk out with the dead man's cash, Shorty arrives and shoots Michael in the head. In Michael's reality, following the conclusion of the animated story, he destroys a pinball machine in anger after it tilts (symbolizing the end of his fantasy) and walks out onto the street. He then bumps into the real Carole and follows her into a park, confronting her. The two are seen briefly arguing before they finally take each other's hands and begin happily dancing in the park.