IPOD
RADIO
John Kricfalusi
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Oct 12, 2004
It’s amazing, John Kricfalusi and I only spoke for 20 minutes but yet he was able to glean that I am a fat bloated idiot.
Actually he only ended up calling me that when he went into the character of Ren. I’m sure all of you animation freaks know that not only are new episodes of Ren & Stimpy airing on SpikeTV but that the first two seasons of the original show are being released on DVD today, October 12th. In fact John Kricfalusi himself will be at the Virgin Megastore on Sunset and Crescent Heights in Hollywood today to sign the DVDs.
Check out the official website of Ren & Stimpy
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello John!
John Kricfalusi: Hey, I didn’t even know you had articles on SuicideGirls. I thought it was just all about getting naked.
DRE:
Are you a fan of SuicideGirls?
JK:
I don’t know anything about it except that I asked one of the girls I know about it and she got all mad. She caught her boyfriend sort of cheating on her by going to the site and talking to some of the girls. I can’t even mention it to her now.
DRE:
Is that the kind of girls you’re into?
JK:
Goth girls? Not really but I don’t have anything against them. I’m a little old for Goth.
DRE:
Are you married or anything like that?
JK:
Nope, I think that the Goth girls are just a different style than I’m used to.
DRE:
So no tattoos or piercings for you?
JK:
Naw, nothing like that. So I figure I’m the last person they want to hear from. I like Elvis.
DRE:
If you pull some Ren on some of them that might work.
Are you still doing Ren & Stimpy for Spike?
JK:
I just finished a bunch of them. We finished nine half hours and they’ve already aired like four of them. We’ve got one called Naked Beach Frenzy and that’s pretty much what it’s about. Ren and Stimpy go the beach and girls get naked.
DRE:
Oh girls get naked.
JK:
Well Ren and Stimpy are already naked.
DRE:
Do they have genitals?
JK:
Maybe, we don’t really show them.
DRE:
I think on dogs it stays inside.
JK:
Hopefully.
DRE:
How was the tribute to your work at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood?
JK:
It was good and sold out.
DRE:
Was it weird for you at all?
JK:
Not really because I do those all the time. There are a bunch going on in Europe and Australia then we also had one in Ottawa where I’m from. The last night of The International Animation Show was all my stuff. I didn’t think anyone would go because it was on so late but it was so packed people had to turn away.
DRE:
What kind of people show up?
JK:
Weirdoes and Goth girls. Lots of piercings.
DRE:
I guess what I mean is, are they original fans or new fans?
JK:
They must know who Ren & Stimpy are. They don’t show up off the street. But people seem to go out of their way to come see this stuff.
DRE:
What’s one question they always ask at the Q & As?
JK:
They usually ask me how I came up with the idea for Ren & Stimpy.
DRE:
They were the pets of George Liquor.
If you type your name into Google the first thing that pops up is a reel on the Acme site.
JK:
They are our commercial rep.
DRE:
What commercials have you done lately?
JK:
I haven’t done that many lately. We did the Monster.com spot but it was short. It was just a tag on the end of the live action piece.
DRE:
The little monster.
JK:
Yeah, but our best known commercials are the Old Navy spots. The ones that have the little flare girls with the rock and roll band.
DRE:
I saw some of the Yogi Bear stuff which I totally forgot you did.
JK:
Yeah for Cartoon Network.
DRE:
What happened with those?
JK:
I don’t know, they never did much with them. Whenever I run them in a retrospective the audiences laughs their heads off. They should have turned it into a series.
DRE:
Are there Ren & Stimpy DVDs yet?
JK:
The first Ren & Stimpy DVD is coming out October 12. Tell all the Goth girls, free piercings.
DRE:
You’ll be doing the piercing.
JK:
Sure, it all depends on how they look.
DRE:
Depends on whether you sharpened your teeth.
JK:
In fact I am going to be doing a signing in LA but to tell you the truth I’m not sure which one.
DRE:
Is it a Best of DVD?
JK:
Nope it’s the first two seasons. All the stuff I did including Man’s Best Friend, the banned episode. Plus there is all this cool supplemental stuff like commentaries, interviews and lots of artwork. Also plenty of scenes that were cut out, like from Sven Hoek, so I put them back in.
DRE:
Did you have any kind of short cartoon that convinced Nickelodeon to buy it that could go on the DVD?
JK:
Yeah we do, it’s called Big House Blues and it ended up in the series. But it ended up in the series cut so we put the uncut version on the DVD.
DRE:
I’ve talked to a lot of guys who want their older shows to come out on DVD but they wouldn’t get any money because of it. Is that the same situation with you and this DVD?
JK:
They paid me to executive produce the DVD.
DRE:
Did you have to fix any animation or sound?
JK:
Just a little bit because I had to blend the cut scenes in so I had to fix that sound.
DRE:
Are you still in Ottawa?
JK:
Yeah, I started a studio because there are a lot of animators there. I’m from Canada so there are tax exemptions to work here.
DRE:
A lot of funny people come from Canada. Was there anything especially Canadian that helped you do what you do?
JK:
I don’t know about all of Canada but there are a lot of funny people in Ottawa. I went to high school with Mike McDonald who is Canada’s most famous comedian.
DRE:
Were you friends?
JK:
Yeah we were best friends then we ended up hating each other. But that’s high school, one day you’re best friends and the next day you’re at each other’s throats.
DRE:
What were you like in high school?
JK:
I was totally out of control in every possible way. I probably shouldn’t say that because I don’t want to give the young girls who come to your site bad influences.
DRE:
They like crazy guys.
JK:
I’m sure they do but I don’t want to get into trouble with their moms. Actually I went to church every Sunday and now I go everyday.
DRE:
I always wanted to know who was crazier, you or Ralph Bakshi?
JK:
Different kinds of crazy.
DRE:
What kind are you?
JK:
I’m more mild mannered crazy and he’s more powerful. He’s scary when he’s crazy. He’s huge, powerful, very strong and a force of nature.
DRE:
How is it working with SpikeTV?
JK:
It went pretty well.
DRE:
Went?
JK:
We don’t know if we are going to do more. We hope to but we have to wait until all the other ones come out.
DRE:
How did the episodes that aired do?
JK:
I think they did ok but not like the original Ren & Stimpys. To tell you the truth I don’t think many people know about SpikeTV. When I show these new episodes that aired on Spike at the retrospective people laugh their heads off. Then I asked if anyone knew they were on Spike and hundreds of people will say no. That’s kind of scary.
DRE:
How happy are you with them?
JK:
The first two are not that great. It’s almost a whole new crew and we had to almost relearn the whole thing from scratch so it took us a while to get up to speed. By the fourth episode, Ren Seeks Help, we started to get back into the swing of things. Now I think the episodes after that one are a lot better drawn with lots of crazy gags. If there are any complaints it’s that we went too far. Some people think we didn’t go too far and others think we did, I leave that up to the audience. We have one episode called Stimpy’s Pregnant. It’s the first full onscreen live animated birth in history and Dr. Horse is the obstetrician.
DRE:
Was he made pregnant by Ren?
JK:
That’s for you to figure you out. That’s the magic of cartoons, we don’t have to have conception to deliver a baby.
DRE:
How was it getting back into Ren & Stimpy?
JK:
I was nervous at first because it had been ten years since I worked on them. First we took some stories that I had written ten years earlier and produced those. We did, Onward and Upward and Firedogs 2 which actually stars Ralph Bakshi as the fire chief. That one was written in 1991.
DRE:
Did you have to update it at all?
JK:
I had memorized the stories but the only problem was that the first couple of episodes don’t have the greatest timing. I get kind of spread thin on these things especially when I have to train a crew from scratch in two different studios in two different countries. Sometimes by the time we get those thousands of drawings done there is no time left to concentrate on the timing.
DRE:
How you ever approached Comedy Central about doing something?
JK:
I can’t seem to get into Comedy Central. They like to imitate everything I do but they don’t seem to buy anything original.
DRE:
Could that be because of what happened between you and the South Park creators?
JK:
I don’t know. Even before they did South Park I had pitched to Comedy Central.
DRE:
Was that you who directed the Tenacious D video Fuck Her Gently?
JK:
No that was Gabe Swarr. I produced it and it was done at my LA studio.
DRE:
What does the future hold for John Kricfalusi?
JK:
Hopefully lots more work. I’m actually on my way down to LA to do another pitch tour.
DRE:
Like what?
JK:
We got a movie idea and a few shows in development with networks. We have a character called He-Hog The Atomic Pig and he has a sidekick called Half-life the decaying molecule. It’s actually one of He-Hog’s molecules that dropped off during an experiment. I won’t tell you the plot otherwise there won’t be any reason to go to the movie.
We have a show for girls that the Goth girls might like. It’s called Forestland created by Luke Cormican and Katie Rice. It’s sort of mystical but it’s a girl show that makes fun of girl shows. It’s not sucky like My Little Pony or anything. That’s in development.
DRE:
What about your comic books?
JK:
We’re going to repackage our old comic books and put them all out in one big collection.
DRE:
With what company?
JK:
I’m not sure yet.
DRE:
Do you watch cartoons now?
JK:
Not modern ones. I still watch old cartoons.
DRE:
I read that you put together a retrospective of animators like Bob Clampett, the Fleischers, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. I think that stuff holds up more than anything out now.
JK:
Probably better. Those cartoons are so much better than anything being done now.
DRE:
There was a big push a couple of years ago about putting shorts into the theatres in front of movies.
JK:
Yeah but then they made not the greatest cartoons. To be fair you can’t repeat with those characters. They keep trying to revive Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck but those cartoons were perfect. They’re just going to be compared to the old ones. You have to come up with new characters.
DRE:
Do you think the techniques they used still work?
JK:
It worked on Ren & Stimpy. We did a new twist on it so it wasn’t exactly the same. The main thing missing from cartoons is today that old cartoons were cartoony. They did things you can’t do in any other medium. Today’s cartoons are very conservative and are more like live action. The characters look the same in every frame of the damn cartoon. The old cartoons squashed, scratched and did crazy expressions. They were imaginative and crazy. A lot of cartoons aren’t imaginative, they just say things. It might as well be radio. There is no point in having anything to look at in modern cartoons. But you can’t say that about every cartoon. Genndy Tartakovsky’s cartoons are beautiful. The closest thing now to what I’m saying is Spongebob but even that doesn’t go very far. It’s like a conservative version of Ren & Stimpy.
DRE:
Do you have any ideas for anime type stuff?
JK:
I don’t know why any white man would make anime. You won’t make it as good as the Japanese.
DRE:
Were you ever a fan of it?
JK:
I was a fan of Astroboy. I like to look at the techniques but it’s not the type of stuff I would sit down to watch.
DRE:
I hear ice in a glass, are you drinking over there?
JK:
I’m having an ice tea if you call that drinking. Is that going to disappoint your audience? I’m actually shooting up and doing lines.
DRE:
Can you say something in Ren’s voice for me?
JK:
You fat bloated idiot. Don’t ask me again, I’ll kill you. You fat little faggot.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
It’s amazing, John Kricfalusi and I only spoke for 20 minutes but yet he was able to glean that I am a fat bloated idiot.
Actually he only ended up calling me that when he went into the character of Ren. I’m sure all of you animation freaks know that not only are new episodes of Ren & Stimpy airing on SpikeTV but that the first two seasons of the original show are being released on DVD today, October 12th. In fact John Kricfalusi himself will be at the Virgin Megastore on Sunset and Crescent Heights in Hollywood today to sign the DVDs.
Check out the official website of Ren & Stimpy
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello John!
John Kricfalusi: Hey, I didn’t even know you had articles on SuicideGirls. I thought it was just all about getting naked.
DRE:
Are you a fan of SuicideGirls?
JK:
I don’t know anything about it except that I asked one of the girls I know about it and she got all mad. She caught her boyfriend sort of cheating on her by going to the site and talking to some of the girls. I can’t even mention it to her now.
DRE:
Is that the kind of girls you’re into?
JK:
Goth girls? Not really but I don’t have anything against them. I’m a little old for Goth.
DRE:
Are you married or anything like that?
JK:
Nope, I think that the Goth girls are just a different style than I’m used to.
DRE:
So no tattoos or piercings for you?
JK:
Naw, nothing like that. So I figure I’m the last person they want to hear from. I like Elvis.
DRE:
If you pull some Ren on some of them that might work.
Are you still doing Ren & Stimpy for Spike?
Are you still doing Ren & Stimpy for Spike?
JK:
I just finished a bunch of them. We finished nine half hours and they’ve already aired like four of them. We’ve got one called Naked Beach Frenzy and that’s pretty much what it’s about. Ren and Stimpy go the beach and girls get naked.
DRE:
Oh girls get naked.
JK:
Well Ren and Stimpy are already naked.
DRE:
Do they have genitals?
JK:
Maybe, we don’t really show them.
DRE:
I think on dogs it stays inside.
JK:
Hopefully.
DRE:
How was the tribute to your work at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood?
JK:
It was good and sold out.
DRE:
Was it weird for you at all?
JK:
Not really because I do those all the time. There are a bunch going on in Europe and Australia then we also had one in Ottawa where I’m from. The last night of The International Animation Show was all my stuff. I didn’t think anyone would go because it was on so late but it was so packed people had to turn away.
DRE:
What kind of people show up?
JK:
Weirdoes and Goth girls. Lots of piercings.
DRE:
I guess what I mean is, are they original fans or new fans?
JK:
They must know who Ren & Stimpy are. They don’t show up off the street. But people seem to go out of their way to come see this stuff.
DRE:
What’s one question they always ask at the Q & As?
JK:
They usually ask me how I came up with the idea for Ren & Stimpy.
DRE:
They were the pets of George Liquor.
If you type your name into Google the first thing that pops up is a reel on the Acme site.
If you type your name into Google the first thing that pops up is a reel on the Acme site.
JK:
They are our commercial rep.
DRE:
What commercials have you done lately?
JK:
I haven’t done that many lately. We did the Monster.com spot but it was short. It was just a tag on the end of the live action piece.
DRE:
The little monster.
JK:
Yeah, but our best known commercials are the Old Navy spots. The ones that have the little flare girls with the rock and roll band.
DRE:
I saw some of the Yogi Bear stuff which I totally forgot you did.
JK:
Yeah for Cartoon Network.
DRE:
What happened with those?
JK:
I don’t know, they never did much with them. Whenever I run them in a retrospective the audiences laughs their heads off. They should have turned it into a series.
DRE:
Are there Ren & Stimpy DVDs yet?
JK:
The first Ren & Stimpy DVD is coming out October 12. Tell all the Goth girls, free piercings.
DRE:
You’ll be doing the piercing.
JK:
Sure, it all depends on how they look.
DRE:
Depends on whether you sharpened your teeth.
JK:
In fact I am going to be doing a signing in LA but to tell you the truth I’m not sure which one.
DRE:
Is it a Best of DVD?
JK:
Nope it’s the first two seasons. All the stuff I did including Man’s Best Friend, the banned episode. Plus there is all this cool supplemental stuff like commentaries, interviews and lots of artwork. Also plenty of scenes that were cut out, like from Sven Hoek, so I put them back in.
DRE:
Did you have any kind of short cartoon that convinced Nickelodeon to buy it that could go on the DVD?
JK:
Yeah we do, it’s called Big House Blues and it ended up in the series. But it ended up in the series cut so we put the uncut version on the DVD.
DRE:
I’ve talked to a lot of guys who want their older shows to come out on DVD but they wouldn’t get any money because of it. Is that the same situation with you and this DVD?
JK:
They paid me to executive produce the DVD.
DRE:
Did you have to fix any animation or sound?
JK:
Just a little bit because I had to blend the cut scenes in so I had to fix that sound.
DRE:
Are you still in Ottawa?
JK:
Yeah, I started a studio because there are a lot of animators there. I’m from Canada so there are tax exemptions to work here.
DRE:
A lot of funny people come from Canada. Was there anything especially Canadian that helped you do what you do?
JK:
I don’t know about all of Canada but there are a lot of funny people in Ottawa. I went to high school with Mike McDonald who is Canada’s most famous comedian.
DRE:
Were you friends?
JK:
Yeah we were best friends then we ended up hating each other. But that’s high school, one day you’re best friends and the next day you’re at each other’s throats.
DRE:
What were you like in high school?
JK:
I was totally out of control in every possible way. I probably shouldn’t say that because I don’t want to give the young girls who come to your site bad influences.
DRE:
They like crazy guys.
JK:
I’m sure they do but I don’t want to get into trouble with their moms. Actually I went to church every Sunday and now I go everyday.
DRE:
I always wanted to know who was crazier, you or Ralph Bakshi?
JK:
Different kinds of crazy.
DRE:
What kind are you?
JK:
I’m more mild mannered crazy and he’s more powerful. He’s scary when he’s crazy. He’s huge, powerful, very strong and a force of nature.
DRE:
How is it working with SpikeTV?
JK:
It went pretty well.
DRE:
Went?
JK:
We don’t know if we are going to do more. We hope to but we have to wait until all the other ones come out.
DRE:
How did the episodes that aired do?
JK:
I think they did ok but not like the original Ren & Stimpys. To tell you the truth I don’t think many people know about SpikeTV. When I show these new episodes that aired on Spike at the retrospective people laugh their heads off. Then I asked if anyone knew they were on Spike and hundreds of people will say no. That’s kind of scary.
DRE:
How happy are you with them?
JK:
The first two are not that great. It’s almost a whole new crew and we had to almost relearn the whole thing from scratch so it took us a while to get up to speed. By the fourth episode, Ren Seeks Help, we started to get back into the swing of things. Now I think the episodes after that one are a lot better drawn with lots of crazy gags. If there are any complaints it’s that we went too far. Some people think we didn’t go too far and others think we did, I leave that up to the audience. We have one episode called Stimpy’s Pregnant. It’s the first full onscreen live animated birth in history and Dr. Horse is the obstetrician.
DRE:
Was he made pregnant by Ren?
JK:
That’s for you to figure you out. That’s the magic of cartoons, we don’t have to have conception to deliver a baby.
DRE:
How was it getting back into Ren & Stimpy?
JK:
I was nervous at first because it had been ten years since I worked on them. First we took some stories that I had written ten years earlier and produced those. We did, Onward and Upward and Firedogs 2 which actually stars Ralph Bakshi as the fire chief. That one was written in 1991.
DRE:
Did you have to update it at all?
JK:
I had memorized the stories but the only problem was that the first couple of episodes don’t have the greatest timing. I get kind of spread thin on these things especially when I have to train a crew from scratch in two different studios in two different countries. Sometimes by the time we get those thousands of drawings done there is no time left to concentrate on the timing.
DRE:
How you ever approached Comedy Central about doing something?
JK:
I can’t seem to get into Comedy Central. They like to imitate everything I do but they don’t seem to buy anything original.
DRE:
Could that be because of what happened between you and the South Park creators?
JK:
I don’t know. Even before they did South Park I had pitched to Comedy Central.
DRE:
Was that you who directed the Tenacious D video Fuck Her Gently?
JK:
No that was Gabe Swarr. I produced it and it was done at my LA studio.
DRE:
What does the future hold for John Kricfalusi?
JK:
Hopefully lots more work. I’m actually on my way down to LA to do another pitch tour.
DRE:
Like what?
JK:
We got a movie idea and a few shows in development with networks. We have a character called He-Hog The Atomic Pig and he has a sidekick called Half-life the decaying molecule. It’s actually one of He-Hog’s molecules that dropped off during an experiment. I won’t tell you the plot otherwise there won’t be any reason to go to the movie.
We have a show for girls that the Goth girls might like. It’s called Forestland created by Luke Cormican and Katie Rice. It’s sort of mystical but it’s a girl show that makes fun of girl shows. It’s not sucky like My Little Pony or anything. That’s in development.
We have a show for girls that the Goth girls might like. It’s called Forestland created by Luke Cormican and Katie Rice. It’s sort of mystical but it’s a girl show that makes fun of girl shows. It’s not sucky like My Little Pony or anything. That’s in development.
DRE:
What about your comic books?
JK:
We’re going to repackage our old comic books and put them all out in one big collection.
DRE:
With what company?
JK:
I’m not sure yet.
DRE:
Do you watch cartoons now?
JK:
Not modern ones. I still watch old cartoons.
DRE:
I read that you put together a retrospective of animators like Bob Clampett, the Fleischers, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. I think that stuff holds up more than anything out now.
JK:
Probably better. Those cartoons are so much better than anything being done now.
DRE:
There was a big push a couple of years ago about putting shorts into the theatres in front of movies.
JK:
Yeah but then they made not the greatest cartoons. To be fair you can’t repeat with those characters. They keep trying to revive Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck but those cartoons were perfect. They’re just going to be compared to the old ones. You have to come up with new characters.
DRE:
Do you think the techniques they used still work?
JK:
It worked on Ren & Stimpy. We did a new twist on it so it wasn’t exactly the same. The main thing missing from cartoons is today that old cartoons were cartoony. They did things you can’t do in any other medium. Today’s cartoons are very conservative and are more like live action. The characters look the same in every frame of the damn cartoon. The old cartoons squashed, scratched and did crazy expressions. They were imaginative and crazy. A lot of cartoons aren’t imaginative, they just say things. It might as well be radio. There is no point in having anything to look at in modern cartoons. But you can’t say that about every cartoon. Genndy Tartakovsky’s cartoons are beautiful. The closest thing now to what I’m saying is Spongebob but even that doesn’t go very far. It’s like a conservative version of Ren & Stimpy.
DRE:
Do you have any ideas for anime type stuff?
JK:
I don’t know why any white man would make anime. You won’t make it as good as the Japanese.
DRE:
Were you ever a fan of it?
JK:
I was a fan of Astroboy. I like to look at the techniques but it’s not the type of stuff I would sit down to watch.
DRE:
I hear ice in a glass, are you drinking over there?
JK:
I’m having an ice tea if you call that drinking. Is that going to disappoint your audience? I’m actually shooting up and doing lines.
DRE:
Can you say something in Ren’s voice for me?
JK:
You fat bloated idiot. Don’t ask me again, I’ll kill you. You fat little faggot.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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