http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=7129
Highlights:
John K. and Katie Rice working on designing something called The Zodiacs.
Working with Tenacious D on a movie opening and a a video.
Comments on the WB asking for the taking down of YouTube clips.
Comment on why some episodes didn't show on Spike "I don’t know, I’m not
behind the scenes. But for some reason it never made it on the air."
One of the pictures in the piece is censored.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: JOHN KRICFALUSI (REN & STIMPY THE LOST EPISODES)
07.13.06
By Devin Faraci
Talking to John Kricfalusi (John K to fans) is a weird experience,
because every now and again you can hear the Ren Hoek in his voice. It’s
sort of surreal to realize you’re having a conversation with Ren about
how the 1930s was the pinnacle of American progress.
Ren & Stimpy first blew onto the scene and the national consciousness as
a kids show on Nickelodeon a decade ago. Eventually creator John K was
ousted, some ****y episodes were made without him, and then the
characters went away. Then a few years back the fledgling Spike TV asked
John K to make some new episodes of Ren & Stimpy , and this time to make
‘em edgy, for grown-ups. And so Adult Party Cartoons were born.
They didn’t last long, though. Spike never even bothered airing all the
episodes for some reason. But you’ll be able to see them on July 18,
when the Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes DVD hits stores ( order it here
from CHUD.com! ). Packed with raunchy humor in the patented Ren & Stimpy
style, the set is a real treat for fans.
By the way, we’re still running our “Win a phone call with John K”
contest. Click here to see that, and to enter.
Ren & Stimpy isn’t the only thing John K has going on – check out his
blog for info on his attempts to get The Goddamn George Liquor Show made
into direct to DVD cartoons. You can read some of the nutty storylines
by clicking here ,here or here on his John’s blog.
Q: How did the Adult Party Cartoons come about? You were fired off of
Ren & Stimpy…
Kricfalusi: Actually we never were fired. They just started their own
studio and stopped paying us. They never said, ‘You’re fired.’ They
started their own studio, showed up one day with trucks and started
moving all the stuff over there and they called me and asked me to go to
lunch. They said, ‘John, if you continue to consult and do voices, we
could really make it worth your while.’ I said, ‘Nah, no thanks.’
Q: You didn’t own the characters at that point, right?
Kricfalusi: I owned the characters until I sold them to Nickelodeon, and
that was the only way I could get them on TV.
Q: How did you get them back for the Adult Party cartoons?
Kricfalusi: Some of the people who might have been there during the
original Nickelodeon series started Spike TV. They took over TNN and
changed it to Spike TV, and they were big fans of the show and they knew
that a lot of the problems came from the fact that it was such a radical
show for the time, and it was on a kid’s network. So they said, ‘Let’s
put it on the man’s network!’ They asked me if I had any stories that
were rejected by Nickelodeon, and I said sure, I got plenty.
Q: What happened to the show on Spike?
Kricfalusi: That’s the funny part. They said, ‘Go ahead, make it as edgy
as possible, put everything in that you couldn’t do on Nickelodeon.’ We
did, and everybody laughed and they liked it and then they just didn’t
put some of them on. Which is OK, because that just makes them more rare
and great for selling direct to DVD.
Q: Were the episodes they didn’t air too edgy?
Kricfalusi: One of them is really obvious as to why they couldn’t get it
on TV – it’s called ****d Beach Frenzy. It has ****d girls running
around on it and stuff like that. It’s not X-rated or anything. They
weren’t really sure if they could show nipples on TV or not, and I asked
them if it was OK if we draw them in or should we hide the nipples by
having their hands in front of them all the time and stuff like that.
They said, ‘Nah, go ahead and do it.’ So we did it, and they looked at
it – you know, there are so many people involved in these things, and it
may have been the broadcast standards department who disagreed with the
creative executives. I don’t know, I’m not behind the scenes. But for
some reason it never made it on the air.
Q: Is there a future for Ren & Stimpy if these DVDs sell well?
Kricfalusi: I’m not the one to ask because I don’t own Ren & Stimpy. I
keep talking to Paramount and Comedy Central, who put out the DVDs –
those people are great. They let me design the packaging on some of them
and stuff. They let me do all the supplemental materials, all the intros
and stuff. There’s a lot of fun stuff on the DVD that you could never
get on TV. They’ve said that if it sells well on DVD they would be open
to doing brand new episodes straight to DVD, which is probably the best
home for it anyway. When people buy things they don’t want them
censored.
Q: Speaking of censor****p, you’ve been involved in an interesting thing
the last couple of days with YouTube. They've been pulling down Looney
Tunes clips you put up there.
Kricfalusi: You know what, that’s not directed at me or anything. That
somehow got re****ted wrong. I plus many other bloggers host clips from
classic cartoons and stuff like that to YouTube and we talk about them.
We have a whole little community going. There’s a guy named Thad who has
a blog from Niagara Falls, and he puts tons of clips up and identifies
who the animators are, which is great for die hard fans like me and
other animators who love the old cartoons. We always want to know who
animated what. All the old animators have individual styles, and it’s
nice to know who did what in what style. So all this stuff is really
educational and should be covered by Fair Use. The funny thing is that
one of the cartoons that YouTube took off that I was putting clips up
from is a public domain cartoon. That’s the irony of the whole thing,
Warners doesn’t even own it.
Q: So they just had a kneejerk reaction and took it down.
Kricfalusi: I have no idea. I’m not behind the scenes on any of this
stuff.
Another irony is that Warner Bros, when they release DVDs of these very
same cartoons, they beg me to go over and do commentaries on them. They
put my name on them and help sell them.
Q: Have you contacted anyone at Warner Bros and asked them what the heck
is going on?
Kricfalusi: You know, these giant cor****ations, they have eight million
departments and none of them talk to each other. They hate each other.
None of them work together. That’s why it’s amazing – Warner Bros is
very screwed up. I know some people who work there and say they can’t
get anything sensible done ever. The people who do know these cartoons
and love them and want to promote them, want to make money for the
company, can’t do it. Their hands are tied.
Q: It’s mind boggling because it does fall under Fair Use, and the stuff
you guys are doing with the clips is educational.
Kricfalusi: For one thing, they don’t run those cartoons on TV anymore.
Maybe in the middle of the night they’ll run the odd one. But they do
want to sell them on DVD, and a lot of young people have never seen
those cartoons. How do they know to buy them on DVD? This is a great way
to promote them. I’m not making any money on this – it’s not like I’m
selling the cartoons and competing with them. I’m promoting their stuff.
There’s nothing I like better than old cartoons from the 1930s to the
1950s. My whole blog is about making cartoons cartoony again, and going
back to our roots. Warner Bros made my absolute favorite cartoons. Chuck
Jones, Bob Clampett and Tex Avery are my heroes. I write about them all
the time.
Q: What is it about that era that attracts you?
Kricfalusi: Everything about American culture attracts me to that
period. That was the era of American progress. That was the era when
every human in the Western hemisphere believed tomorrow would be better
than today and did everything they could to make tomorrow better than
today. If you look at anything from 1930 and then look at it from 1940,
you’ll see a huge progress. Everything today is backsliding; everything
gets worse every year.
We were the greatest country on Earth a hundred years ago. It stayed
that way for about fifty years and now look at us – everyone hates us.
That was the time when everyone looked up to America because look at all
the progress that happened here – all the inventions, the science, the
art. We created jazz, we created rock ‘n roll, we created animated
cartoons, and we developed all those to phenomenal heights for a few
decades. It was just like the whole world looked at us like, ‘Wow,
Americans have a great quality of life. They invented all these arts and
they’re pu****ng science and medicine that makes our lives easier. And
they invented these arts that make our lives fun.’ Now you look at all
art and it’s all about ugly things. It’s all about shooting each other.
It’s depressing! Art isn’t art anymore. There’s no art that pleasures
your senses anymore. And it did in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
Q: Why do you think cartoons have lost that cartooniness?
Kricfalusi: Because cartoonists don’t make the cartoons anymore. We’re
not in charge anymore. There was a short period there, when we did Ren &
Stimpy, that it was so successful that they coined a phrase to describe
cartoons made by cartoonists. They called them ‘Creator driven
cartoons.’ Then all of a sudden all of the networks wanted their own
creator driven cartoons because it was a trend. But what a dumb thing to
invent. How about ‘Musician Made Music?’ How about ‘Scientist Made
Science?’ ‘Plumber Made Plumbing.’ Why do you even need a term for that?
But you do, because cartoonists don’t even make cartoons anymore.
Q: How do you deal with that world today? I know you’re designing the
animation for a show called The Zodiacs. Is it tough for you to go into
that kind of work for hire situation?
Kricfalusi: Actually it’s a lot easier. Before I made my own cartoons I
was a designer. I designed other people’s cartoons. That’s the easiest
job in the world for me. No stress! You don’t have to think it all up,
you don’t have to run a studio, you don’t have to train 40 people, you
don’t have people in-fighting. Any kind of job that I can just do
myself… I’m actually doing that job with Katie Rice, who’s a phenomenal
designer. She and I also did a Weird Al video. We laid out all the
design and posing for a Weird Al video that was beautifully animated by
Copernicus Studio.
Q: That was his latest video, right?
Kricfalusi: He has an album coming out where every song is animated. But
I can’t tell you any of the names or anything because they’re still
debating what the release date is and they asked me not to give away any
details.
I’m also doing something right now for Tenacious D.
Q: You had done a video for them before. Is this another video or is it
something for the movie?
Kricfalusi: An opening for the movie and a video.
Q: What do we see in the opening? Is it an origin story or something?
Kricfalusi: I don’t want to give that away. But it’s a funny gag. It’s
something Jack and Kyle came up with and we’re animating it for them.
Q: You’ve been involved in some very controversial cartoons – the Mighty
Mouse show got some wrath, and Ren & Stimpy had some controversy. Is
that just who you are – is your artistic sensibility the kind of
sensibility that’s going to chafe people no matter what?
Kricfalusi: It probably wouldn’t have in the 1940s, but since we live in
such a bland age anything that makes any kind of statement that looks
artistic – I mean, there’s no art happening right – you do something
artistic and it changes everything.
Q: Are there any cartoons that you currently like?
Kricfalusi: Most animators that I know are all traditional. At least the
guys that I hang out with all love Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, ****ky Pig,
Betty Boop, Tex Avery and that kind of stuff. Nobody I know even watches
TV anymore. We all buy videos and watch old movies and old cartoons and
old TV shows.
Q: The Ren and Stimpy DVD is out next week. You mentioned that there is
some cool extra stuff on the disc. What can fans look forward to?
Kricfalusi: There’s tons of extra stuff. I did an intro for every single
cartoon and I told the backstory of how we came up with the story. Then
after each cartoon there’s a little sitdown with the people who worked
on it, just talking about the experience of making the cartoon. There
are a lot of clips of pencil tests and animatics and background sheet
painting and model designs and I think we gave them some animatics for
cartoons that we haven’t made yet. There’s one called Life Sucks, and
everyone who worked on it swears it’s the best Ren & Stimpy cartoon
ever, even though it’s not made. It’s the best story, it’s the most epic
story. It’s very philosophical. Hopefully if this does well, Paramount
will let us make Life Sucks, as well as some of the other stories we’ve
come up with.
Q: Is it easy to come up with new Ren & Stimpy stories?
Kricfalusi: I have like a hundred stories written. I would never run out
of them. They’re so easy to write for. We were specifically asked to
make super edgy ones for Spike. Some fans don’t like that; a lot of fans
love it. I show them at movie theaters all the time, we do
retrospectives around the country. Whenever I do it they sell out and
everyone starts screaming in the middle of the new cartoons. But some
people want to go back to where it was a kid’s show where everything was
double entendre. I’m fine with that – I have lots of stories for that
too.
But I’ll tell you, I never want to give up drawing ***y girls.
Q: Who can blame you?
Kricfalusi: Even little kids like that. I was horny when I was a little
kid. I didn’t know what it meant or anything, but I wanted to see ladies
****d.
Q: As a professional animator do you get to use real models, or do you
have to do it all from your imagination?
Kricfalusi: It’s pretty much from our imagination. The funny thing is
that most of the ****d girls were drawn by Katie Rice – were drawn by a
girl. The best girl artist in the world that I know of is Katie, and
she’s a girl. Obviously. But she draws the cutest, ***iest girls I’ve
ever seen. You should link to her website – funnycute.blogspot.com .
Q: The next Ren & Stimpy DVD will be the Ultimate Episodes collection.
What will be on that?
Kricfalusi: The Ultimate Episodes will have everything ever done, plus
extras.
Q: And that includes the episodes you didn’t work on?
Kricfalusi: Yeah.
Q: Are you annoyed to see those in there?
Kricfalusi: It kind of desecrates the purity of the Spumco episodes.
Q: Do they let you say nasty things about those episodes on the DVD?
Kricfalusi: Oh yeah. There’s commentaries – they asked me to do
commentaries. But I got some of the guys who did some of those episodes,
so we got to argue a little bit in the commentaries.
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