John Kricfalusi and John Lasseter: both major influences on today’s animation industry.
And they’re BOTH named John.
ITS A CONSPIRACY, I TELLS YA! A CONSPIRACY! IT’S ALL ONE GIANT CON-SPEAR-AYE-SEE!
John Lasseter: Founder of Pixar. Pioneer of CGI. Director of one of the most popular animated films ever.
John Kricfalusi: Inventor of the webtoon, launcher of the '90s animation renaissance, creative genius who’s style influenced most cartoons you see on TV today.
I have an entire forum dedicated to John K. and his epicness. We can compare him to John Lasseter there as well. www.spumcoforums.com
I also have an original Kaspar drawing hanging up in this very room, drawn and signed by his excellent. Storyboards and layouts from Firedogs II are arriving in the mail as well.
If by “Major Influence” you mean “Old curmudgeon who does nothing but complain about modern animation yet couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag” then yes.
How is John K. the launcher of the 90s animation renaissance? Weren’t there a number of different animation renaissances happening at the time (many of which were rooted in the late 80s)?
Well the thing about John K. is that he’s someone who’s really stuck in the old way of doing cartoons. That’s where his experience is in animation, so I can’t really say that I blame him for complaining so much about today’s cartoons, just that on his blog he comes off as sounding really arrogant and putting down almost everyone’s work other than his own. And while I don’t quite agree with everything he says (I’ll always stick up for Pixar, whether it’s CGI or not) I still think he’s a very talented guy and there are some things that I have come to agree with. I hate the cheap looking quality of the shows we get on TV now, and how for a long time traditional hand drawn animation has been in a state where it’s struggling to survive because many studios only want to use CGI in theaters. I guess his criticisms have rubbed off on me a bit too cause as someone who’s into cartooning I feel compelled to make my cartoons feel more “classic”.
I think some of his bitterness may have come from getting fired from Nickelodeon for his work on Ren & Stimpy, which was for two reasons:
Many episodes were not getting finished on time, but I understand that as John wanting the quality of his work to be at it’s very best, which isn’t easy when a network gives you a deadline to always meet. Makes me think one of the reasons today’s cartoons have gone so cheap on the animation is just so they can always come out on time.
Because Nickelodeon was simply shocked and appalled by the content on the show (it was one episode in particular that was what really got him fired, and that same episode was never aired on Nick). To be honest, I can’t really say I ever cared much for John’s taste in humor in most of his other cartoons anyway, but the Ren & Stimpy episodes he made on Nick never bothered me.
Also, his animation studio Spümcø is now defunct, so I guess that’s why he uses his blog all the time.
@Fett101 I disagree with John K’s opinions most of the time. That doesn’t mean I don’t think he is an amazing artist, though. It’s not an all or nothing.
I am a fan of Ren And Stimpy. I’ll admit it! As gross and disgusting it may be, it made me laugh. So I’ll always enjoy that show.
But I’m not a fan of the person John. K that much. My reasons are the exact ones that Flik-E. When you read his blog, he sounds super arrogant and mostly puts down others work. And he is stuck in the past way too much. Sure, I am not a fan of modern television cartoons, but I don’t complain about it. I just dont’ watch it! I love Tex Avery and chuck Jones as much as he does, but I understand that children today have different tastes today.
But I do respect him for being the inspiration of 90s Nickelodeon cartoons that follwed Ren And Stimpy (Rocko’s, Angry Beavers and what not)
The thing about that though is that he’s always saying that some of the cartoons that were inspired by his got everything wrong or missed the point. There actually were some other shows back then that were considered to be “Ren & Stimpy clones” by either John or other people (surprisingly Disney made one of these with a show called The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show, and their series for Timon & Pumbaa was made with kind of a Ren & Stimpy vibe to it also). Another one people often call a ripoff was Cow & Chicken on Cartoon Network, but John actually says that he liked that show and doesn’t consider it a ripoff.
Spongebob Squarepants and Flapjack were both very inspired by Ren and Stimpy, but Spongebob added its own unique flair, and Flapjack got (most) of what made R&S so special right…minus John.