Researching Professional Practise.
By
Mathew Richens
Case Study: Spumco
Michael John Kricfalusi (pronounced Kris-fa-loo-see) is the animator better known as John K, the man behind The Ren & Stimpy Show and Ripping Friends. John K was born in Ontario, Canada September 9th 1955. He entered the world of animation as a young fan and slowly watched what he felt was a downfall of the medium. Years of drawing funny cartoons and drawing lessons helped him to build his admiration for animation which all started as a child watching Disney cartoons from a young age.
“”When I was a kid, I loved Disney cartoons, but I wasn’t looking at the content,” He says. “I just loved the pure and inherent form of a cartoon.” His love for Mickey and his friends didn’t last however. “As I got older, I rebelled against Disney. I started realising how insipid they were.” John K instead found himself drawn to the mean and witty ministrations of Bugs Bunny. “I like Warner Bros. Cartoons because they were rude and nasty, like real people!” he said.”
-Brandon Finkler’s
‘The Completely Uncensored, Unbelievably
True Ren and Stimpy Story!’
In 1980, John K took a job at Filmation Studios where he stayed a good seven years despite personally ranking them a ‘low-end’ studio. At Filmation he met other artists like Eddie Fitzgerald (who would later work with him on Ren & Stimpy) and Tim Minton (The Adventures of Mighty Mouse), their job was to work on remade versions of classic cartoons such as Tom & Jerry, Droopy Dog, Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle; The Talking Magpies. John once said his work there was “To destroy the cartoons we all loved as kids” (The only project he worked on and felt had some credit was their revival of The Jetsons.) On every project he and the other animators would do their best to improve the shows in any way, but he came to realise that in an industry created by cartoonists; cartoonists had no power. This is probably what drove John further in his career.
In 1987, John K claimed that Ralph Bakshi (of Ralph Bakshi Productions) ‘saved’ him. Bakshi was considered a ‘great cartoonist’ by Kricfalusi and was most famous at the time for the feature length cartoons Fritz The Cat and Heavy Traffic (as well as the photo roto-scoped Lord Of The Rings adaptation). Bakshi had actually retired from animation by this time, also agreeing with John K that the industry was changing for the worst (at the time, it was impossible to sell a cartoon based on an original idea and all cartoons were being based on toys and older cartoons. Consumerism prevails). Together they worked on CBS’s The New Adventures Of Mighty Mouse, based on the original Terrytoons cartoon. It was the first cartoon in 25 years to have been made by actual cartoonists. Despite being as original as they could make it, people felt that the show just wasn’t strong enough to survive. Most of the people working on the show moved onto more successful things. Jim Smith became a key figure behind Spumco and Ren & Stimpy designing character layouts as well as even forming a band to produce the theme tune ‘Dog Pound Hop’, and Bruce Timm who went on to produce just about every Batman and Superman cartoon for Warner Bros. to date.
1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Was a smash hit and gave John K and other artists hope that something big was on the horizon for cartoony cartoons. It did however, make things worse, as networks decided that even small television productions should use the same pre-production stages as a feature. This meant more writing and less drawing.
In 1989, John k alongside his friends and fellow animators Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith along with animation newcomer Bob Camp, decided they would stop working for established cartoon mills, their considerable anger towards the degraded animation form becoming known to everyone in the industry. They opened a small office in old Hollywood and named their company ‘Spumco’, supposedly after the animation pioneer Raymond Spum. They remained a tight little group, helping each other on freelance projects until they could sell one of their original ideas and hit the big time.
FACT: Spumco took it’s name as tribute to ‘animation pioneer’ Raymond Spum… Or so may believed. Raymond Spum, it was discovered, was in fact an alias used by John Kricfalusi. The name was often credited on cartoons John K worked on but did not feel happy with. Everyone outside the Spumco offices were fooled into believing that this person really existed, but it was just John K joking with the world.
One thing they never lost sight of was their main goal: creating a home for cartoonists who had creative control over their cartoons. And just as importantly, for people who wanted to make cartoons funny again.
The company set out to recruit other unique artists who just didn’t fit in with the other generic establishments. Bob Camp was one of those people. He had previously worked on ‘Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toons’, he once said, “There was a real problem with management. The producers castrated the directors so they didn’t have any power. The writers had all the power and none of the talent.”
What attracted Camp to Spumco was ‘the rule’ – if you can’t draw, you cannot make cartoons. Bob Camp went from being a storyboard artist (Tiny Toons) to being a key member of Spumco’s creative team. Together with John K, Lynne Naylor and Jim Smith, the main Spumco team was assembled.
A couple of months after Spumco’s formation, Nickelodeon (a children’s cable network) announced that they were looking for new shows to fill their time slots. Nickelodeon president Geraldine Laybourne was looking specifically for ‘creator driven cartoons’. She wanted the world to see that Nickelodeon would encourage artists and their creativity. Seemingly, this was exactly what the good people of Spumco were waiting for.
John K met with Geraldine and showed her five different original concepts. Each idea had been greatly censored for the meeting, as Kricfalusi knew they would never accept his adult based humour on a children’s network. Geraldine Laybourne was however incredibly impressed by John’s enthusiasm and picked two of the ideas she liked the most. The concepts were a show called ‘Your Gang’, in which John K had actually hidden the characters Ren and Stimpy in, and the other being ‘Jimmy The Idiot Boy’. Jimmy was John K’s favourite creation and he refused to sell the idea. After a few breakdowns of the ‘Your Gang’ idea, it was decided that the characters of Ren and Stimpy were to become the stars.
Nickelodeon agreed that Spumco’s style of working would be fine provided they met deadlines saying “If story-boards were good enough for Bugs Bunny, they’re good enough for us.” Spumco was thrown into full production as they started work on ‘The Ren & Stimpy Show’.
Many new talents were hired such as Glen Barr, Charlie Bean, Elinor Blake, Eddie Fitzgerald, Mike Fontinelli, Chris Savino, Jim Gomez (whose first writing gig became one of the series most celebrated episodes ‘Space Madness’), Mike Kim, Richard Pursel and Chris Riccardi. Vincent Waller, who had been stereotyped as a ‘realistic artist’ by the people at Filmation, worked closely with John K and had a big impact on the shows cartoony style. Within a year he had been promoted to co-director alongside Kricfalusi.
Spumco wanted the animation style to depend on acting because they felt that is what made characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck so realistic. John K needed to consider many factors like this into helping Spumco build itself up, this however did mean he was focusing less and less on the task of keeping Nickelodeon happy. Incidentally, as soon as Nickelodeon realised Spumco’s plans for Ren and Stimpy, they decided that they no longer wanted them. Most people at the network could see the trouble this show would cause, angry parents calling in about rude jokes, people being grossed out by a sense of humour most of them just didn’t understand. The network would edit each pitch and leave notes explaining what they wanted changed and removed. These changes were usually suggested at the last minute, meaning production began to cost everyone their own time and money. This would cause problems among the staff. Many of them couldn’t adapt to all the changes being made, especially Bob Camp, whose stories and ideas were constantly being shot down and changed great amounts. He spent a lot of his time upset and angry at the network. John K, fearing the loss of his creations, arranged a peaceful dinner between his company and the network execs. Concerned for the show, John asked all members of his staff to be nice and keep a friendly tone. Unfortunately, Camp was easily wound up and the plan to make nice with the bosses failed. The next day Nickelodeon said that John K should fire Camp, but believing his friend had too much talent to waste, he hid Bob from them, allowing him to still continue work for the show. The network was quickly losing faith in Kricfalusi, and Spumco was walking a very fine line.
August, 1991: The Ren & Stimpy Show gets it’s first airing. Incredibly, it becomes an instant hit, it got a hugely positive response from the viewing audience, still Nickelodeon couldn’t bring themselves to like the show. Despite the overly silly and rude humour, people ate it up. As always there are exceptions, but even they did not protest in any over dramatic way. It was a personal triumph for John K and a celebratory time in the offices of Spumco. They finally proved that people still do love creator driven cartoons.
Realising the success of the show, Nickelodeon wanted to order more episode from Spumco, promising to interfere less and let them get on with it as they knew what they were doing. Production soon began on a second series.
Despite their promises, Nickelodeon couldn’t help but make many changes to the production, as it turned out they liked the newer stories even less than they liked the old ones. There was no pleasing them, even though they knew how loved the show had become. At one point John K had to intercept the notes left by the network, as once again, his old friend Bob Camp was struggling to accept the changes. He was getting more and more depressed with every hit. Thinking up a new tactic, John suggested letting Bob direct the episodes instead of writing them, hoping that Bob’s artistic skills might help the network forget that they ever hated his stories. Oddly enough it worked, and even stranger was the networks sudden love for the man. Bob Camp became in very high demand by Nickelodeon.
Still, due to all of the meddling by Nickelodeon, Spumco were falling behind on their workload, and as a result the network refused to pay them. Once again the company was working on it’s own time and money. The praise for Bob Camp continued and they even offered him the position of director on a Ren and Stimpy movie. One that Nickelodeon would produce without Spumco…
John K was still fighting for an agreement with the network, saying that they were quickly going bankrupt and unless they were paid the money owed to them Nickelodeon would not receive any further episodes. The network said they would send a cheque to them straight away, but it never arrived. No payment was ever sent. In fact, everyone from the network reused to meet with him and finally he received a letter from Geraldine Laybourne.
“In the future, to ensure that creator-driven animation has longevity as a concept, we will allow creators to create and NOT be a part of the production process”
-Letter from Geraldine Laybourne
regarding Spumco’s involvement on
The Ren & Stimpy Show
Basically, as far as the network were concerned, Spumco had no paperwork or proof that would be able to stop Nickelodeon from doing as they pleased with the show (which sadly was true). News quickly spread through Spumco that the show they had spent all this time fighting for, was no longer theirs.
On Monday, September 21st, 1992, John K had to say goodbye to what he felt were some of the most talented artists in the animation industry, his friends and family. Over 40 people lost their jobs, Spumco had been knocked down a few pegs too many. John K had lost almost everything, his company, his staff, his own creations had been taken from him, and also it would mean he had failed, it would mean that maybe a creator driven show just wouldn’t be allowed to survive.
FACT: Bob Camp went to John K after the betrayal at Nickelodeon with the news that he was to be the first employee for the networks Games Productions. Many of the original Spumco staff turned their backs on him for selling out to the enemy. John K however, said he did not wish to stand in the way of his career and let it be.
Nickelodeon’s Game Productions (which at the time consisted of Bob Camp and Nickelodeon producer Roy Smith) tried to bring as many of the original Spumco team over to their studio as they could. They were surprised by how many people turned them down, their faith broken by the loss of Spumco and it’s people.
Nickelodeon still owned nine half-hours of unfinished Ren and Stimpy episodes and immediately got to work editing and butchering all their hard work. Naturally, without any care going into the series, it died out, and like Spumco itself, would disappear for a few years…
Though John K felt like a ruined man, he did his best to revive the Spumco spirit. A lot of his staff were long gone, and many of them just couldn’t take the risk of not being paid. The remaining soul of Spumco continues to work on mostly internet based cartoons (most recently they have a deal with Microsoft). Most popular was their music video for Tenacious D’s song ‘Fuck Her Gently’ which was well received as a familiar style of cartoon and got plenty of airplay. They also made a video for Bjork and released a new series for Fox Kids called Ripping Friends, which was unfortunately short-lived. John K also tried bringing back Ren and Stimpy for Spike TV (a totally creator driven network), the show lasted for ten episodes before stopping production.
These days Spumco are very low-key, but still there. Maybe not as strong as they once were, but the Spumco dream still lives on with them.
