Dr. T: How long did it take you to get Ren and Stimpy back into production? Were you up and running right away?

JK: I was a little nervous at first that we might not be able to recapture the feeling we had when we were first doing it, so we started by taking one of the old scripts, Ren Seeks Help, that never got produced. As we did it, within the first week we came up with most of the rest of the stories for the season, all new. Once we started working on it again, it all came back and the new stuff is even weirder than the old stuff! We got into it real fast.

Dr. T: I see that you’re only making six new episodes right now, and that must be a relief.

Bob Clampett, seen here with Mel Blanc, regaled the young Kricfalusi with stories about Warner Bros. animation. All Bob Clampett photos courtesy of the Bob Clampett Collection ™ & © Bob Clampett Productions.

JK: Yeah, it is. We wanted to do thirteen episodes, which I’m all for. But I was worried because I knew I’d have to start a studio from scratch in Canada. It is a hard show, and I remember how I had to train everybody from scratch the last time and I knew I was going to have to do that this time. I figured that if we had thirteen episodes, then we might have six good ones and seven not so good ones. So I asked them if it would be okay if we made six the first season to buy us the time to train people. And it is taking a while to train people. This is the first week that I’ve decided to delegate to some people who’ve got the style down and have them train others. Creatively, it’s really exciting, we have a killer crew, and everyone’s having a great time.

Dr. T: Speaking of having great new talent...you’ve been very critical of today’s animation.

JK: Oh, do you mean the last thirty-five years?

Dr. T: Yeah, let’s take the last thirty-five years. Animation, in your view, seems to get locked down at the story stage and dominated by writers who can’t or don’t draw.

The George Liquor Show, an Internet series, is another of Kricfalusi's creations. © Spumco.

JK: Can’t write, either!

Dr. T: The system is an assembly line of poor communication among compartmentalized workers, in your words, designed against creativity. Do you find that you have to totally retrain people when they come to work for you?

JK: Yes. Even people that worked for me before, because if they go work on other projects, they instantly fall into bad habits.

Dr. T: How difficult is it to retrain them into your system and style of unit-based animation?

JK: Extremely difficult. It’s my biggest frustration.

Dr. T: For example?

JK: Here’s a good example. Everyone in Canada basically follows the Nelvana system; many of the TV studios follow their methods, which are kind of similar to the DIC methods. So, when we were first doing storyboards up here, every person that was doing the boards did every single establishing shot of a new location from a “down shot.” They used to do that at DIC too, and at some of the other Saturday morning studios in L.A. And I always hated that — it’s beyond me where the hell that came from! I think they think they’re doing live-action, but they don’t do that in live-action. Who wants to look at the top of everyone’s head? What’s on there that’s so interesting? I ask people, “Why is this on a down shot?” and they say, “Well, I want to establish where everything is.” I tell them: “We don’t need to see all that and you don’t have to have an establishing shot as the first shot in every cartoon and every scene, either.” Every single new location would open with a down shot, showing me where everything was — I said, why don’t you just have a hand pointing at where everything was? Yeah, here’s where the toilet seat is, and here’s where the empty beer can is! Who cares! Tell the story! Find out what’s important about the story! Figure out a good, dramatic moment to get it started. When you read novels, they don't start by explaining: “Well, in this room, where these characters are about to enact an incredible drama, there’s uh, a chair..." They reveal stuff a little bit at a time; start with some kind of dramatic moment to grab your interest and catch you. The most amateurish thing to do in the world is to just tell everyone everything right off the bat. And especially from the top. It never looks good in animation; you can’t animate characters walking while looking down on them.