John Kricfalusi

John: Schools are really bad now. Schools are not only bad in reading, writing and arithmetic, they're worse in cultural aspects, like in music and art. They don't teach you anything.

John: All artists get better with age. The more you draw, the better you're going to get.

John: (On today's cartoons) Most cartoons you see today still have garish color; they're pink, purple, and green. Genndy Tartakovsky's cartoons are exceptions - they have great color.

John: I don't think animation is as good as it was in the 1930s, 1940s and 50s. To me the classic cartoons were much more skilled in every way: better drawings, great animation, better stories, way better characters and more appealing styles and much more imaginative. Most cartoons today do not use the basic elements of what separates the cartoon from other mediums. They try to imitate other mediums and are not as good as the mediums they emulate. I realize these are very general statements, but in general there is a huge gap in quality and inspiration between today's cartoons and the classic cartoons.

John: It's beyond me how Mickey Mouse or Walt Disney ever became a success. Disney must have been the blandest human on the planet, it's like he was from another century. When you look at Disney's early cartoons they're the blandest things in the world. Then you see what Fleischer was doing, it's just leagues ahead of Disney.

John K: (In an interview about the content in his cartoons) My biggest thing is personality humor. I like the humor to come out of the characters. Sure, I like to put them in, you know, insane plots or situations and stuff like that, but if they don't seem like real characters it's not as much fun for me. That's why I'm not crazy about South Park and stuff like that, because it's merely edgy, but there's nothing else to support the edginess. The edginess that's in those shows, they don't say anything in those shows that you and your friends can't say at home sitting on the couch having a couple of beers. So my cartoons hearken back to American entertainment from the '30s and '40s, where you have to have good performance to back up the content.

John K: (In an interview, about making a feature film) We're hoping that at some future point that we can make a feature film for the theaters, that'd be great. I'd love to do a Ren and Stimpy feature; I'd love to do a George Liquor feature. Or a Ripping Friends feature at some point. I'd want to practice first on simpler characters like Ren and Stimpy.

John K: (In an interview, about getting Ren and Stimpy back into production) SI was a little nervous at first that we might not be able to recapture the feeling we had when we were first doing it, so we started by taking one of the old scripts, Ren Seeks Help, that never got produced. As we did it, within the first week we came up with most of the rest of the stories for the season, all new. Once we started working on it again, it all came back and the new stuff is even weirder than the old stuff! We got into it real fast.

John: (In an interview, about the length of cartoons) Actually, eleven minutes is a really clumsy format for a cartoon It's not enough to tell a story, really, and it's too much to do a gag cartoon. So some of our stories were pretty awkward because of that.

John K.: (in an interview, talking about sexy girls in animation) Ha ha. There aren't too many sexy girls in animation for some unfortunate reason, but Rod Scribner's Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs is great. I love Owen Fitzgerald's pretty girl comics. I like Harry Lucey – his Betty and Veronica comics of the 50s and 60s.

John K.: (in an interview, talking about Ren and Stimpy) Ren and Stimpy was known initially for its "edgy" and gross humor, but much of what we did then seems pretty soft compared to Beavis and Butthead, South Park, Family Guy and others that followed.

John K.: (in an interview, responding to a question about his concerns about a budget) Give me $100,000 and I'll do a cartoon that might be better than anything anyone else is doing. It's talent and inventiveness, is what it it is. The money helps, you like to be able to do something again if you get it wrong or something. You like to do what you should and make it fully animated. But fully animated by itself doesn' t make a good cartoon. Like Don Bluth films. It's just a bunch of guys flailing all over the place. What the hell is that? That's not acting. It's full inbetweening.

John K.: (in an interview, responding to a question about Spumco having animation kits)We have The Big Shot Hollywood Cartoonist Cel Painting Kits. If you buy them, you'll learn all the secrets of the animation world. For example, in a coloring book, you paint on the top of the page. I don't know how many people know that you paint the _back_ of a cel. It's also great propaganda. Basically we're teaching the next generation of cartoonists to be ready for the real world. On the back we'll have a cutout mask of a big shot Hollywood cartoonist.

John: (on the censorship of his work on the Nickelodeon kids network) The main thing is that they never understood the show. Even the basics. I'm not talking about the outrageous stuff. Just talking about things like, "Well, we'd like to do a cartoon with Ren and Stimpy in space." The response was, "What do you mean in space? How could they get in space?" Well, I'd say, "They're just in space in this cartoon." "That doesn't make any sense," they'd reply. "How will the kids understand it?" Well, I'd ask, "Haven't you people ever watched cartoons before? Sometimes Bugs Bunny's in space, sometimes he's a caveman, sometimes he's in a forest. It's a cartoon." They never quite got that.

John: (about Animaniacs and Steven Spielberg) And why does this guy put his name on everything? Have you seen the billboards for the dinosaur cartoon? Aaaaaargh!!! Gimme a break! Pretty soon we'll see billboards that say, "Coming soon...a bucket of puke from Steven Spielberg!" or, "Don't miss the latest dried-out bloody-nose boogers from the man who gave you ET!" Better hide your dog's butt before "Steven" signs his name on it.