Sunday, February 10, 2013

Why Art Matters: John Kricfalusi

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I went on a little Rolling Stones video bender on YouTube, and was delightfully surprised to realize one of my favorite videos of the era, the animated gem Harlem Shuffle, was done by none other than John Kricfalusi.

John K is a Canadian born illustrator, founder of the studio Spumco. He grew up copying images from the golden age of animation, his heroes being Tex Avery, John Clampett and Chuck Jones. Y'know, the guys responsible for the multi-layered funny for kids but also for adults Bugs Bunny cartoons.

His love for this animation led to his own unique style, where one historian noted "no cartoonist since Clampett created cartoons in which the emotions of the characters distort their bodies so powerfully."

He created the Ren and Stimpy Show, which debuted on Nickelodeon in 1991. The high-strung chihuahua and stupid cat were famous for their off-color humor, oddball references, sexual innuendo and excessive violence, of course the perfect recipe to be a huge hit among the college crowd.

College kids watching a naughty cartoon on Nickelodeon. Something had to give.

The more the network pushed for cleaner R&S episodes, the raunchier K made them, the more we adult children loved them. It imploded, creative control was taken away from K, and R&S failed to survive past the third season.

R&S made it ok for edgy animation to exist, such as South Park and Beavis and Butthead. The conflict with the network coincided with the emergence of the internet, which led to K creating what has been billed as the first web-based interactive cartoon.

John K has remained busy with his web-based animation as well as music videos, commercial work, and other network cartoon programming. But for me, he is the creator of the coolest Stones video, Powdered Toast Man, and Log "it's big, it's heavy, it's wood... it's better than bad, it's good!"

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