Artcow Michael John Kricfalusi / John Kricfalusi / John K. / John K. Stuff / Raymond Spum - scammer animator who pissed away his own career, salty blogger, CONFIRMED predator and child rapist

[Steamboat_Bill]

I disagree with you on the first part but that is a perfectly valid opinion because Rocko's Modern Life is the shit.

Yes, Rocko was the shit indeed. Admittedly Rocko has a more consistent tone throughout the show, but that's largely because that show never had a fraction of the problems Ren and Stimpy did behind the scenes.

 

[LordofCringe7206]

Yes, Rocko was the shit indeed. Admittedly Rocko has a more consistent tone throughout the show, but that's largely because that show never had a fraction of the problems Ren and Stimpy did behind the scenes.

Rocko essentially took what made Ren and Stimpy stand out and simplified it to a point that the quality would always be consistent. Episodes of Rocko were a lot more easier to grasp and follow compared to episodes of Ren and Stimpy, even as a child.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Funnily enough, I've always thought Nick greenlit Rocko (and, perhaps, Real Monsters) to try to get another hit like Ren and Stimpy.

Luckily Joe Murray had his own sensibility that made it its own thing.

But back to John K. ...

They're still around here and there, I believe Ben the Loony is one.

Yes, but who gives a shit what he thinks?

They may be around, but there are far less of them than there used to be. They started bleeding after Adult Party Cartoon aired and turned out to be a complete and utter dud, and they've been bleeding steadily ever since. The pedophilia accusations have probably ensured there'll never be more.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Rocko essentially took what made Ren and Stimpy stand out and simplified it to a point that the quality would always be consistent. Episodes of Rocko were a lot more easier to grasp and follow compared to episodes of Ren and Stimpy, even as a child.

Rocko also didn't have that nihilistic surreal quality of Ren & Stimpy. Rocko was aiming to be more or less a cartoonish version of every day adult life.

 

[Sidney Crosby]

Hot Take: Ren and Stimpy's humor style was essentially the 90's version of *holds up spork* humor from the early/mid 2000's.

And I say this as someone who has fond memories of watching this show. R&S is the single cartoon I have no desire to re-watch.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Never saw Ren & Stimpy so I have no feelings about it whatsoever.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Back to John.

I am sure those of you who know who he is are familiar with his hatred of writers for animation who can't draw. He absolutely despises those people, and is of the firm belief that cartoons do not need scripts - after all, that's not the way they were made back in Bob Clampett's day, were they?

One such writer who used to have a blog defending scripts in animation posted this as a response to another round of John's bullshit about them on his blog:

Spoiler

A day in the life of a non-drawing cartoon writer

(According to a few people anyway)

8:00 AM - Alarm goes off. Hits snooze. Sleeping comfortably on piles of money, rolls over and goes back to bed.

9:11 - Phone rings, waking writer as baffled story board artist calls to find out what the hell he was talking about. Throws sack of Kruggerands at phone to shut it up.

10:27 - Finally wakes up. Goes to the rest room. Takes a crap. Looks at it, realizes once again, he has crapped gold. GOLD! And peanuts. But gold!

11:14 - Saunters into the studio, accidentally knocking over a pile of neatly organized storyboard pages that were about to be pitched, causing her hours of work rearranging it for for an 11:15 pitch.

11:20 - Passes cubicles on way to gigantic office, saying hello to board artists, but getting half of their names wrong.

11:30 - Leaves for lunch.

2:30 - Returns from lunch, smelling of gin and stripper.

3:00 - Calls agent, asks how it's looking for a job on Fox's "War at home." In lieu of that, looks for joke writing for Jay Leno. Or Letterman. Or anybody who will pay WGA minimums and residuals.

3:30 - Realizing no residuals will be coming anytime soon, forces a meaningless song into an episode. After spending 30 minutes on Rhymezone.com in an attempt to find words that rhyme with "Fart," pronounces the song emmy-worthy. Song takes up pages 24 through 27 in the revised script.

4:45 - Starts writing new script with the words "100 zebras of different colors run down a hill of daffodils, rose bushes and apple trees that have rainbow colored apples. The thorns glisten in the light, like the sun rippling against a lake on a windy day."

4:59 - Heads home, asks board artists to not raid the 'fridge of his diet cokes when they leave that night.

8:00 - On way to Hollywood, realizing he lost his watch while patting himself on the back. Swings by the studio to pick it up, saying hello to the board artists on the way to, and back from his office. Stops to count "diet cokes" - unsure of he the number he had in there, takes a moment to leave a bitchy note with the line producer, just in case.

9:30 - Parties with Paris Hilton. Has no shot at her, of course, because when he answers the quesiton "what cartoon" he mentions it's a basic cable kids show. She disappears into the bathroom with two guys who were smart enough to say they were the creators of South Park, but were actually the Valet parkers.

1:15 AM - Drives past studio. Lights on in the studio as the board artists continue working. Accidentally breaks wind and smells it... sure enough, it smells like roses.

P.S. - Happy 4/1... including to John and Stephen, who probably believe this.

 

[Dark Emporer Dood]

Back to John.

I am sure those of you who know who he is are familiar with his hatred of writers for animation who can't draw. He absolutely despises those people, and is of the firm belief that cartoons do not need scripts - after all, that's not the way they were made back in Bob Clampett's day, were they?

I used to believe that myself, about scripts being unneeded. Then I saw a far amount of "creator driven" cartoons that really need something to keep the plot on its rails, something like....a script?

Rick and Morty is probably a good example, I couldnt bear that show 10 minutes into the first episode.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

I used to believe that myself, about scripts being unneeded. Then I saw a far amount of "creator driven" cartoons that really need something to keep the plot on its rails, something like....a script?

Rick and Morty is probably a good example, I couldnt bear that show 10 minutes into the first episode.

There are creator-driven cartoons that use scripts and aren't storyboard-driven, though I don't know which ones do at present.

John prefers the storyboard-driven method, where, instead of the storyboarder working from a script, the boarder works from an outline and conjures up the gags by himself. On shows that use this method (not just R&S, but Rocko, SpongeBob, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, most of CN's shows, actually), the board artist is the writer.

This is why, I think, John hated the 90s WB shows so much. They used scripts.

This is also partly the reason why John and his fanbase were criticizing the Games episodes so strongly - a couple of "writers that couldn't draw" were hired to work on the show (God forbid!)

 

[cactus]

Ah, so you're telling me John K. hasn't seen the Venture Bros. How unfortunate.

 

[Dark Emporer Dood]

There are creator-driven cartoons that use scripts and aren't storyboard-driven, though I don't know which ones do at present.

John prefers the storyboard-driven method, where, instead of the storyboarder working from a script, the boarder works from an outline and conjures up the gags by himself. On shows that use this method (not just R&S, but Rocko, SpongeBob, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, most of CN's shows, actually), the board artist is the writer.

This is also partly the reason why John and his fanbase were criticizing the Games episodes so strongly - a couple of "writers that couldn't draw" were hired to work on the show (God forbid!)

True, I'm probably getting the method mixed with my general thoughts over executive interference and what not. As I understand JohnnyK hated rules, he hated guidelines, and so did his fans. Rocko and those other toons would poke holes in the guidelines but they never out right threw them away.

I was shocked when I learned that some anime even used storyboards, since I always assumed that they were script-driven due to how word-heavy anime is. Typically the animators liked bare-bones storyboards, since it allowed them bigger creativity. Wouldnt a script do the same? (assuming it doesnt waste time verbally explaining how something looks)

 

[NARPASSWORD]

Ah, so you're telling me John K. hasn't seen the Venture Bros. How unfortunate.

He would hate it, if he did.

 

[cactus]

He would hate it, if he did.

Oh yeah, I forgot, he doesn't like good stuff.

 

[Big Nasty]

When Ren & Stimpy first aired there were apparently lots of odd edits done to the episodes, to cut out stuff that was seen as simply too weird. Like Ren & Stimpy sitting in a hot tub with an old naked guy while Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies plays in the background, and Stimpy describing his lost fart to a police sketch artist.

 

[Kerth Gersen]

I was shocked when I learned that some anime even used storyboards, since I always assumed that they were script-driven due to how word-heavy anime is. Typically the animators liked bare-bones storyboards, since it allowed them bigger creativity. Wouldnt a script do the same? (assuming it doesn't waste time verbally explaining how something looks)

I'd have assumed the same...because anime is derived from Manga, which has a "script-AND-storyboard" format.
So John K. is cleary a doctrinaire asshole of the worst stripe: the kind who are passionately committed to principles only they care about. Because it's clear, whether it's done by a scene-conscious writer or a story-conscious artist, all comics, manga, anime and animated shows involve BOTH writing and graphic layout. So his obsession w/ "storyboard vs. script" was always an indicator of someone who had a disconnect between the world as they perceived it, and the real world. (Some people might say that 'reality' is only a consensus among fallible human beings...don't be that people.)

Then the pedo stuff is a whole 'nother unrelated problem.

 

[GhostButt]

Rocko has a more consistent tone throughout the show, but that's largely because that show never had a fraction of the problems Ren and Stimpy did behind the scenes.

Rocko managed that with the wife of the creator committing self forever sleep, that's how disorganized John K is.

 

[Kerth Gersen]

It's probably a combo of being one of the laziest sons of bitches ever to walk the face of the planet as well as being such an asshole that nobody wants to work with him, and you can't really get animation done by yourself.

Add to that the new, Internet of Stupid dynamic wherein everyone who has ever achieved any success has choices: "Obtain funding for another product that will require massive amounts of effort and work." OR "Obtain funding based on previous success, and, being a lazy son-of-a-bitch, just spend it and go back for more funding based on previous success." In a saner world, this latter tactic would have a limited period of application, but apparently we live in a reality where the supply of money+gullible is near limitless.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

I'd have assumed the same...because anime is derived from Manga, which has a "script-AND-storyboard" format.
So John K. is cleary a doctrinaire asshole of the worst stripe: the kind who are passionately committed to principles only they care about. Because it's clear, whether it's done by a scene-conscious writer or a story-conscious artist, all comics, manga, anime and animated shows involve BOTH writing and graphic layout. So his obsession w/ "storyboard vs. script" was always an indicator of someone who had a disconnect between the world as they perceived it, and the real world. (Some people might say that 'reality' is only a consensus among fallible human beings...don't be that people.)

Then the pedo stuff is a whole 'nother unrelated problem.

Hell, didn't most shows during the 80s-early 2000s do the "Script and Storyboard" thing?

 

[Adamska]

Add to that the new, Internet of Stupid dynamic wherein everyone who has ever achieved any success has choices: "Obtain funding for another product that will require massive amounts of effort and work." OR "Obtain funding based on previous success, and, being a lazy son-of-a-bitch, just spend it and go back for more funding based on previous success." In a saner world, this latter tactic would have a limited period of application, but apparently we live in a reality where the supply of money+gullible is near limitless.

Eh, if you accidentally make one single thing that's good, then you can coast on it for most of your career; it's an unfortunate thing with the entertainment industry honestly.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Eh, if you accidentally make one single thing that's good, then you can coast on it for most of your career; it's an unfortunate thing with the entertainment industry honestly.

And now you know why John K. could even get his foot in the door anywhere else after he got fired by Nickelodeon. He made Ren and Stimpy, after all, so he had to be a genius, the thinking went.

After many failed projects and the colossal bomb that was Adult Party Cartoon, however, nobody wanted to deal with him anymore - and that's why he had to go to Kickstarter to get anything made.