George Liquor first appeared in Ren and Stimpy. © Spumco.

JK: Well, he and Mike Barrier did all those interviews in the ‘70s and ‘80s with all the classic animators. It’s all in that book Hollywood Cartoons that Mike Barrier wrote.

Dr. T: Yeah, great book.

JK: I hated it. It was a whole book about how rotten everybody was! It’s okay to have a little bit of criticism, but you know, you’re talking about the best animation that was ever done. The book makes it sound like it’s the worst animation that was ever done. You should qualify it by saying: “Well, I’m criticizing things that I personally don’t like.” It doesn’t mean that they’re wrong or right, just that he doesn’t like them. All kinds of things that he said he hated I loved, and most people loved.

Dr. T: There were some harsh judgments about classics like What’s Opera, Doc? and Bill Tytla’s animation in Fantasia...

JK: He hates it when they get over-distorted in cartoons — I love that one! He said that when Clampett — well, I’m going to be guilty of paraphrasing — ah, dismembers his characters, it makes him queasy. Well, it doesn’t make me queasy, and it doesn’t make 99% of humanity queasy. People laughed at that stuff! That’s part of what a cartoon is!

Dr. T: As far back as 1993, you’ve been coming up with ideas for feature films. If I’m not mistaken, The Ripping Friends was originally planned for the big screen, is that right?

JK: Nope. I don’t know why everyone keeps saying that! It was originally meant to be a satire of all the toy shows from the ‘80s — like GI Joe and He-Man, all that stuff. And then after a while I actually liked what we were doing with it as we were creating it, and I thought, this would probably be really hard to do for television, maybe it should be a feature. But I had never made a feature, and I had no idea how to even go about selling a feature. I think I pitched it a few times but it never sold.

Kricfalusi is looking to produce a feature film in the near future and Ripping Friends could be a candidate. © 2001 Fox Kids. All rights reserved.

Dr. T: Is a feature film still in your future plans?

JK: We’re looking to do a feature-length film with The New TNN. We’re hoping that at some future point that we can make a feature film for the theaters, that’d be great. I’d love to do a Ren and Stimpy feature; I’d love to do a George Liquor feature. Or a Ripping Friends feature at some point. I’d want to practice first on simpler characters like Ren and Stimpy.

Dr. T: So...what was the best Kirk Douglas movie of all time?

JK: Detective Story. I love that movie. There was another couple of great ones too — Young Man With A Horn, which I think is the best movie about creativity and about artists ever made. And The Champion, the one where he’s a boxer — yeah, that one’s great, too.

If you'd like to learn more about Bob Clampett or the history of animation at Warner Bros., please check out Beany & Cecil, The Special Editionavailable on DVD from www. facets.org and www.amazon.com. This collection includes some of Clampett's lost works as well as in-depth audio interviews that Milt Gray, Mike Barrier and others conducted with Clampett about his Warner years.

John Kricfalusi has been redefining animation for the past fifteen years. He is the creator of Ren and Stimpy, The Ripping Friends, and Internet classics such as The George Liquor Show on his own Website and Weekend Pussy Hunt for Icebox.com. He is an avid yodeler and a great fan of the films of Kirk Douglas...even when they use the occasional “down shot.”

Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.