John Kricfalusi?s new blog

He's a great sketch drawer; I'll give him that.

But as for pitching television shows, he should just move on. After witnessing his recent abominations, I don't think any network wants to be associated with him anymore. His time has passed long ago.
 
Hmm... John K is great at drawing, and I liked many aspects of Ren and Stimpy, but he hasn't really done much since then that's appealed to me. I visit his blog often, because of the animation lessons, but I have no interest in his main group of characters like George Liquor and Jimmy.

I have to wonder if that Kaspar the Unfriendly Bear one is a joke-- it looks like the kind of thing I did a lot in Grade 8, where I'd make ridiculously dumb pitches for TV shows, and show them to my friends. Lots of the joke characters I made up had names very similar to "Porknievitch the Irritating Anthropod", and "Miserable the Disagreeable Moose".

He seems to be serious though... Does he really think the average kid want to watch that kind of thing? I really doubt that I would've, or that any of my younger cousins would want to. His shows aimed at kids, such as the Heartaches, seem really forced and contrived to me. But maybe that's just cause I'm reading about them in the form of "series bibles", which always tend to come off that way.

I kinda feel bad for him, because he's obviously got a lot of talent, but his show pitches are just not very appealing, and he seems to be focusing more on them lately. I don't think any networks are going to be interested, either. Of course, he also seems to have given up on TV itself, and I believe he's trying to pitch these shows to an internet sponsor of sorts.

I do agree with Zam though; even if I'm not a big fan of his stuff, I'd rather take it over another bland kid-at-school cartoon. I guess we'll see what happens...
 
He's got a great Bob-Clampett-influenced art style, and I'd probably be looking forward to seeing some of this stuff animated if it weren't for the realization that his humor leans very heavily on crass vulgarity, cruelty and negativity. As many times as I've ranted against political correctness in this forum, I don't like seeing retarded children being used as the subject of humor. I was tempted to leave a comment on his blog saying, "John, you need to face the facts. 'Jimmy, the Idiot Boy' IS NOT FUNNY! There is not enough marijuana in the world to make him funny no matter how many times you resuscitate him. The same is true of George Liquor, whose only virtue is that he is just slightly less appalling than Jimmy." Somewhere along the line, John K.'s humor went from wildly anarchic to just plain ugly. And that's where he lost me.
 
John K is one of the many reasons I both fear and hate the animation industry. Not the animators. The evil producers and network heads. I'm a huge fan of his, you know... and just seeing all these pitches for cartoons of his just makes me want to cry. He's an established animator and yet he can't really get anything past a couple episodes and commericals nowadays. I don't care what anyone says. I LOVED Ripping Friends. By far one of the most Bizzare superhero cartoon parodies I've ever seen. A bunch of masochistic crime fighters that love to be in constant pain, and don't need sissy super powers to save the day. And they have that great fauxclassical music score.

The idea that anyone would hire him in this day and age is a dirty shame. There's no market for that kind of thing. I'd love to see something of his end up at least on adult swim. But that ain't going to happen. And with the sadly shrinking market for animation of any kind, it may never will.
 
I think Kricfalusi pushes the envelope too hard, and in the wrong direction. Who needs another gross-out toon? As Drawn Together proves, few cartoonists can do such stuff in an entertaining fashion (South Park). Now, while I realize that he helped pioneer that particular comic style, frankly I think people like the SP gang picked up on it and improved upon it, while he still emphasizes it over humor that's drawn from personality and actual gags.

I've read some of his other blog and I admire him greatly. But if I had my druthers...I wish he'd bring back the original Ren and Stimpy and make new episodes that echo the quality of classics like "Stimpy's Invention", "Stimpy Goes To Hollywood" (my fave) and "Space Madness". But I guess that's an empty hope...
 
And multiple reruns no thanks to 9/11 getting an episode cut. I will say, I only have seen one Adult Party episode, and I thought it was funny. I liked how they closed that gap between Ren and Stimpy sleeping in the same bed. Not so much how they did it. And the part where they were living in the bum's mouth made no sense. All and all the only thing I really hated was the fact they reused the opening from the old series, and it didn't have any clips of the new episodes on it. But it was still better than the poorly drawn, written, and animated Games animation stufff.

But back on Ripping Friends, I almost wonder what it would have been like if it was the movie it was intended to be. Too bad kids would have rather watched the rest of Fox kid's abysmal line up than that show. he targetted it to the wrong people. And Playmates never made the toy line, which really made me unhappy. I heard it did better in Canada, though.
 
Even if we leave quality completely out of the equation, I don't think any network would greenlight a John K. Pitch.

He's kind of like bad juju; No show of his has ever lasted two full seasons with him still at the helm (He left Mighty Mouse after the first season and was fired from Ren and Stimpy halfway through its second season, so those don't count). Plus many of his shows have histories of missed deadlines, going overbudget, etc. under his supervision, so I doubt many network or studios will accept any of his projects as the seeds of a long-lasting show
 
Dude needs to partenr up with an indie entertainment company and make a movie. or find some way to make a new web series. I know he made a music video for a Weird Al Yankovic song. If he can't get network work (and so few animators can nowadays, for multiple reasons) he needs to find something else worthwhile to get him back in the spotlight.
 
I want to see him make an animated feature film of his own, if only to see what he'd want from such a thing and perhaps give his constant criticisms of Pixar and such a bit more weight.
 
Anybody who isn't BLOWN AWAY by the animation in "Adult Party" Ren and Stimpy simply must tell me what cartoons THEY'RE watching. It is a ridiculously underrated show...



-Jordan
 
I will say this: John K gives increadable animation observations and advice! I go to his blog daily to soak in the knowledge. The one thing I don't like about him is that he is extremely critical about today's animation industry, I mean there are things he says that I totally agree with (bland animation, bland characters, bland design writerspeak, executive control, Family Guy) and then there are times when his "advice" becomes totally biased and opinionated, the posts about Halloween costumes and toys? Who cares? And the people who post in his comment section... don't get me started about them.

Also, I think George Liquor is pretty cool, and could be a good show if done right.
 
Meh, one of the reasons I can't stand the guy is that inevitably everything goes back to two things: Bob Clampett and John K's own cartoons - all of which, aside from the first season and a half of Ren and Stimpy, really aren't very good. The fact the he illustrates some of his arguments with clips and photos of the Adult Party Cartoon (a disturbingly bad and painfully unfunny canceled series) makes me laugh. His bias towards Bob Clampett's cartoons (and to a lesser extent other WB cartoons) makes him completely incapable of having an open mind about anything else.

He makes me laugh, but not in that ha ha kinda way.
 
I will say his ramblings were more relevant when he was forced to work on really bad shows from Filmation, and had to compete with a Transformers/Carebears centric industry. Now he's just bitter. I'm still a big fan of his, but as I said... I want him to do something instead of just saying how much he hates how successful everyone has become.

I, however, would love to see him rant about HSM and the migration to vapid live action tweencoms.
 
yeah, the bob clampett stuff is pretty overbearing, but still he does give valuable advice that every network executive will reject instantly.
 
It's not even the Clampett bias that gets me. IT's the fact that he has to turn EVERY ONE of his discusiions of classic cartoons into a partisan grudgematch. Clampett vs. Chuck Jones, Clampett vs. Disney (Because we all know how much Disney sucks, right fellers?), Clampett vs. Family Guy, Clampett vs. South Park, Clampett vs. UPA and basically Clampett vs. every other cartoon ever made (except for Fleischer, Terrytoons or early Hanna-Barbera).

And the fact the no one can even address this without Steve Worth showing up to point out how ignorant we are of animation history gets tiring after a while.
 
Has anyone ever seriously called him out on his blog? I really don't have the time to wade through 100+ comments of brainless followers telling him how great he is.
 
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