John Kricfalusi

A gifted young animation auteur whose style harkened back to the golden era of animation (i.e. Warner Bros., Tex Avery), John Kricfalusi moved to Hollywood from his native Canada in 1980. He promptly started working for different studios on such cartoons as the remakes of "Heckle and Jeckle" and "The Jetsons." Kricfalusi moved from studio to studio doing small animation jobs until Ralph Bakshi made him the director of CBS' revisionist "The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse." Here he was able to break away from the stilted style of modern Saturday morning animation and bring back the feeling and detail of such animators as Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. This was a rare case of the remake being far more imaginative than the original version. After a year at CBS, Kricfalusi moved to ABC to helm the remake of the 1960s classic cartoon "Beany and Cecil." After half a year's worth of shows, ABC canceled the series citing that the style strayed too far from network convention. Disillusioned by the conservatism of the networks, Kricfalusi along with three other animators joined to form Spumco, an independent animation house that would allow animators more freedom to experiment. At Spumco, Kricfalusi created "The Ren and Stimpy Show," a half hour cartoon about a psychotic anorexic chihuahua and a particularly dumb fireplug-shaped cat. This show was distinguished by its anarchic and sometimes liberatingly regressive sense of humor, expressionistic backgrounds, and extreme situations. In 1990 Nickelodeon bought this half hour cartoon thereby finally allowing Kricfalusi to fully exploit his creative abilities. "Ren and Stimpy" debuted with only six episodes in its initial run but both the characters and their creator rose meteorically from their early cult status to become prominent fixtures in pop culture.