John K accused of prior sexual misconduct

[AllenJ]

John K is also a huge racist. Given that he LOVES "Coal Black"...

I can honestly say I'm not surprised by this, considering his "He-Hog" pilot was full of big-lipped African cannibals not unlike those seen in cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s (see "Jungle Jitters"). John once referred to it as "the cartoon so funny no network would give it to you," but if you watch the whole thing it's painfully clear why no one picked it up, as it's also full of blatant sexism (earlier in the thread I mentioned that the pilot's opening scene makes a lot more sense in light of the recent scandals) as well as gun violence (the titular character shoots his sidekick in the head, then does the same to himself). Something tells me John took his Bob Clampett influence a bit too far...

 

[Pac-Attack]

Am I the only one surprised he hasn't murdered anybody given how unstable this man is?

 

[Fone Bone]

Am I the only one surprised he hasn't murdered anybody given how unstable this man is?

I would end that question with "That we know of".

 

[Lock n' Stock]

Not that there's anything wrong with (most of) Bob Clampett's work, but he's such a butt-kisser when it comes to that guy...

Clampett deserves respect for his impact on animation alone, though there were stories from others that he took credit for more than he deserved (like claiming to be the sole creator of Bugs Bunny). Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc apparently weren't too fond of him.

 

[TsWade2]

Like I said before, he is a disgusting creep. And also a jerk. He needs professional help.

 

[Atoon]

Thad Komorovski said that Bob Clampett family hated John K. for his version of "Beany and Cecil".

Somewhat related to that, a former John K. co-worker said he once went to the house of his idol Ed Benedict (character designer of the early '60 Hanna-Barbera output) to record his reaction while watching a Huckleberry Hound episode. When John was setting up the TV, Animaniacs showed on the screen. He groaned, but Ed said that he liked those a lot, that these were real cartoons and nothing like the "crap" he did at Hanna-Barbera, and John was baffled. (John K. also said later on this blog that Ed Benedict cried of sadness after watching his Yogi Bear cartoons he did at Cartoon Network)

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[Fone Bone]

The way I remember Beany and Cecil was that John K threw all of his personal frustrations about his inadequacies into abusing Beany, and showing how much he sucked with every fiber of his being. I'd be shocked more if the Clampetts DIDN'T hate him for that.

But it's been awhile since I saw that show (to say the least) and I was only 13 at the time, and I may not have recognized the ugliness for precisely what it is. It didn't help that it only lasted 3 episodes.

 

[TeridaxXD001]

I didn't think his Beany and Cecil was that bad, in fact, it was a lot more "cutesy" than I expected. And there were actually 8 episodes finished, as I recall, but about half of them never aired (maybe those unaired episodes were what really destroyed the partnership). Though there was some foreshadowing to R&S: there's an episode where Dishonest John gets sick, and his nose is visibly running, and another where there's this big thug-type guy trying to intimidate Dishonest John, and in an early example of a "gross-up" he's struggling to clip a thick, dirty, infected-looking fingernail, drawn in high detail with creaking/bending sound effects.

By the way, I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but even the R&S clips on The Splat's YouTube channel are gone ("Happy Happy Joy Joy," "Skinny Dipping," "Climb Inside My World," etc). Glad I saved the first and last of those earlier. They were the highest possible quality copies of those songs.

 

[zlens]

I can honestly say I'm not surprised by this, considering his "He-Hog" pilot was full of big-lipped African cannibals not unlike those seen in cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s (see "Jungle Jitters"). John once referred to it as "the cartoon so funny no network would give it to you," but if you watch the whole thing it's painfully clear why no one picked it up, as it's also full of blatant sexism (earlier in the thread I mentioned that the pilot's opening scene makes a lot more sense in light of the recent scandals) as well as gun violence (the titular character shoots his sidekick in the head, then does the same to himself). Something tells me John took his Bob Clampett influence a bit too far...

I had seen that He-Hog pilot, very bad animation (there's only like less than 40 seconds of full animation, and almost half of it, recycled animation and/or what seems like translucid pencil tests), too many recycled poses (and to think he said he never used twice the same pose, tss, tss), its really more like a (lewd) slideshow that an animated cartoon, if he tried to be like Bob and make the next ¨Coal Black¨ or something, at least he should have invested more time in the animation quality, that's unusual for him, he used to be a perfectionist.

I agree with everything that you said @AllenJ, except about He-Hog's gun violence and suicide gags, no doubt Kricfalusi tried to emulate Bob with that revolver gags, but that stuff wasn't Clampett's exclusive (lots of gun gags in the Rabbit Season, Duck Season shorts by Chuck Jones, Yosemite Sam shorts, etc; suicide gags by all directors), or Warner's (lots of gun and suicide gags in the Disney shorts, MGM, Fleischer/Paramount, Lantz, etc) I understand why no network wants anything with those gags now, or the racism and sexism, through.

Bob Clampett would never have done something so crappy as that He-Hog short (if Coal Black or Tin Pan Alley Cats are racists cartoons, at least Clampett didn´t intended them to be, or made them with the purpose of offending people, they are not as mean as something like Angel Puss by Jones anyway) Besides his shortcomings and flaws, Bob Clampett was still a good person, I think, unlike John Kricfalusi.

 

[AllenJ]

I had seen that He-Hog pilot, very bad animation (there's only like less than 40 seconds of full animation, and almost half of it, recycled animation and/or what seems like translucid pencil tests), too many recycled poses (and to think he said he never used twice the same pose, tss, tss), its really more like a (lewd) slideshow that an animated cartoon, if he tried to be like Bob and make the next ¨Coal Black¨ or something, at least he should have invested more time in the animation quality, that's unusual for him, he used to be a perfectionist.

I agree with everything that you said @AllenJ, except about He-Hog's gun violence and suicide gags, no doubt Kricfalusi tried to emulate Bob with that revolver gags, but that stuff wasn't Clampett's exclusive (lots of gun gags in the Rabbit Season, Duck Season shorts by Chuck Jones, Yosemite Sam shorts, etc; suicide gags by all directors), or Warner's (lots of gun and suicide gags in the Disney shorts, MGM, Fleischer/Paramount, Lantz, etc) I understand why no network wants anything with those gags now, or the racism and sexism, through.

Bob Clampett would never have done something so crappy as that He-Hog short (if Coal Black or Tin Pan Alley Cats are racists cartoons, at least Clampett didn´t intended them to be, or made them with the purpose of offending people, they are not as mean as something like Angel Puss by Jones anyway) Besides his shortcomings and flaws, Bob Clampett was still a good person, I think, unlike John Kricfalusi.

I never said gun gags were exclusively a Clampett thing, but they certainly seemed to be one of his trademarks. Nearly all of the WB cartoons I can think of with gun suicide gags are from Clampett ("Hare Ribbin'," "An Itch in Time," "The Sour Puss," "Horton Hatches the Egg," "Tortoise Wins By a Hare"). As for the animation, I've always assumed that the pilot was never fully finished, and that the circulating copy is more of an animatic than an actual cartoon (similar to Pixar's "George and AJ").

 

[zlens]

You are right, it was something of a trademark for Clampett, its just I don't like that he gets labeled like the ¨Suicide gag¨ guy, like some folks at Cartoon Brew say to dismiss him as a director, when he wasn´t the only ¨offender¨. Sorry if I upset you.

The thing is, (and I know this is not gonna make me popular around here) when Clampett, and other cartoonists of the Golden Age did those gags, it was funny, because they had better timing, and half of the time the characters didn't even die (the dog from Hare Ribbin for example) but when some modern cartoonist like John K does it, it looks like they use it for shock value, without understanding why it worked in old cartoons for the audience (this is a theory I have, but I think it worked for most people then, because suicide was more taboo, ironically, they tried to come to terms with the idea that suicide existed, so they tried to saw it like a surreal situation that can't happen in their lives). In He-Hog case, the context of the suicide gag says much about John's repressed urges if you know what I mean.

But I'm digressing, I get that that hog thing was an animatic, but I don't understand how John let someone upload a work of him so incomplete to YouTube. Its weird for someone who prides himself of being an obsessed control freak and perfecionist.

 

[AllenJ]

But I´m digressing, I get that that hog thing was an animatic, but I don´t understand how John let someone upload a work of him so incomplete to YouTube. Its weird for someone who prides himself of being an obsessed control freak and perfecionist.

I don't think John asked anyone to upload it to YouTube, I always figured it was leaked by someone at Spumco and circulated via bootleg tapes. This also happened with several Ren & Stimpy episodes that were censored by Nick ("Man's Best Friend" could only be seen on bootleg videos until 2003, and work-in-progress versions of "Sven Hoek" and "Out West" were also bootlegged during the 90s).

 

[TeridaxXD001]

Note than in classic-era cartoons, guns were almost always non-lethal weapons. Daffy Duck has been shot in the face dozens of times in one cartoon and gotten no worse injuries than a displaced bill.

 

[19MagiswordLane]

Looks like [adult swim] is still airing John's bumpers:

 

[Rhaynebow]

Looks like [adult swim] is still airing John's bumpers:

Shoot, they probably DID spend a pretty penny to get those and probably had to wait a billion years for him to make them ‘cause he most likely pissed off what little crew he probably had making this.

In any case, it’s AS’ choice and I am sorta on their side for choosing to still run them. John K is scum of the earth, but we have to begrudgingly admit that he was not a terrible artist. He doesn’t deserve NEW work, but that doesn’t make it any more correct to remove every promo he’s made, redraw a couch gag or burn every dvd of Ren and Stimpy. Should people stop watching Disney movies because of John Lasseter? Should there be a boycott of The Loud House and Clarence? If we try to erase the works of every person who’s done something bad, we’d have a sizable gap in content because, shocker, people who make nice things aren’t always nice people.


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[Fone Bone]

Looks like [adult swim] is still airing John's bumpers:

Those "Sissy ass" bumpers are also incredibly homophobic. I object to Ren and Stimpy TOS being made unavailable to the public, but those crappy bumpers need to get gone and stay gone.

 

[dumbfoolkid5]

Is this John really as bad as he sounds? If so whatever. Don't like his animation style anyway. What's his opinion on Japanese anime? Just curious.

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[Light Lucario]

Shoot, they probably DID spend a pretty penny to get those and probably had to wait a billion years for him to make them ‘cause he most likely pissed off what little crew he probably had making this.

In any case, it’s AS’ choice and I am sorta on their side for choosing to still run them. John K is scum of the earth, but we have to begrudgingly admit that he was not a terrible artist. He doesn’t deserve NEW work, but that doesn’t make it any more correct to remove every promo he’s made, redraw a couch gag or burn every dvd of Ren and Stimpy. Should people stop watching Disney movies because of John Lasseter? Should there be a boycott of The Loud House and Clarence? If we try to erase the works of every person who’s done something bad, we’d have a sizable gap in content because, shocker, people who make nice things aren’t always nice people.


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Admittedly, this is a bit of a different situation than what happened with The Loud House and Clarence. Both series were still in production at the time those scandals happened, so they couldn't be handled in the same way that Ren and Stimpy have. Plus, they did fire their respective creators so that the other employees could keep their job. I understand the point you'e making here, but the comparisons here just wouldn't work. Same with John Lasseter. While he has been involved in many Disney/Pixar movies, they aren't his creation in the same vein as Ren and Stimpy is to John K.

Not to mention avoiding every Disney movie would just be too impractical. I don't mind it when companies try to avoid a show after a scandal has been revealed. I see it less like attempting to erase history and more like trying to not support really terrible people, but considering how long John Lasseter has been with Disney, avoiding all of the movies he has been involved with just wouldn't work like it would if this was just one series.

That being said, I don't think I've seen these bumpers on AS. I only watch the block on Saturdays for Toonami, so I don't know if they air there or if they're only part of the usual Adult Swim bumpers. I can understand why they would want to keep them from a business perspective if it did take a lot of time and money for John to even make them, but I can also definitely understand why people would want them to take the bumpers down since he probably still gets some money from them using his bumpers too.

 

[zlens]

Is this John really as bad as he sounds? If so whatever. Don't like his animation style anyway. What's his opinion on Japanese anime? Just curious.

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@dumbfoolkid5, for what I got from his blog, John thinks anime is pretentious and emotionally manipulative, but he likes the color palette of most anime.

Those "Sissy ass" bumpers are also incredibly homophobic. I object to Ren and Stimpy TOS being made unavailable to the public, but those crappy bumpers need to get gone and stay gone.

¨Sissy ass¨ bumpers? I don't want to know what that means...
But for the other Kricfalusi's bumpers that I've saw... Adult Swim really paid a lot of money for that? Really?

 

[19MagiswordLane]

@dumbfoolkid5, for what I got from his blog, John thinks anime is pretentious and emotionally manipulative, but he likes the color palette of most anime.



¨Sissy ass¨ bumpers? I don't want to know what that means...
But for the other Kricfalusi's bumpers that I've saw... Adult Swim really paid a lot of money for that? Really?

He means this: