John will be coming to the Portage Theatre on Friday, May 25th and Saturday, May 26th as a part of "The John and Bill Show," a mini-animation festival that teams him up with the similarly warped animator Bill Plympton. I was able to ask John a few questions last week, and then brag about it to my friends and Dad. It was full of awesome…

ELR: When Ren & Stimpy was big, it was the kind of big where you would hear people quoting it for no reason. Did you ever overhear someone go "You EEEdiot" or something, and think about how they were imitating your voice?

John K: Yeah, lots of times. In fact sometimes I would be recognized buying underwear at Sears by the cashier and he would start doing all the voices for me and telling me to hire him. They’d slip their cards into my boxers. Everyone wants to do cartoon voices!

ELR: You've written in your blog about the quality of children's toys now versus how they were when you were younger. How important has it been to merchandise your work?

John K: I collect old toys. I always wanted my toys to reflect the humor of my cartoons. My cartoons are satires on cartoons and entertainment. I want my toys to be satires of toys.

ELR: I read an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of "South Park", stars of "BASEketball") where they said they got some advice from Mike Judge ("Beavis and Butthead," writer of "Idiocracy") that went something to the effect of there would be a point where one day, they wouldn’t be able to make enough crappy products for people to buy, and then the next everyone will be so sick of seeing it all that there’d be a backlash. Did it ever get to the point where you’re an animator and you’re putting your name on soundtracks and videogames and you thought it was too much.

John K: I didn’t have much control over the merchandise in "Ren and Stimpy." They took me to a couple meetings at Mattel and I suggested stuff like the talking hairball.

ELR: I know at least one person who still has the talking hairball doll! It’s probably the most adorable cat vomit-related toy out there.

John K: Yeah, they used that but they hired superhero sculptors to make the toys and they didn’t look cute or funny like the cartoons. Later, I started my own toy company for awhile and made the George Liquor characters and The 3 Stooges. We made the toys funny and even the packaging was full of jokes.

ELR: I've read that Nickelodeon and you were at odds a lot about the content of "Ren and Stimpy," and I know that a lot of episodes and segments were banned from broadcast. How did that rift play out as the show became more and more popular?

John K: I actually got along quite well with Vanessa Coffey, who was the executive on the show. We would negotiate for different types of content. I had to talk her into letting me do some of the grosser stuff. I told her that was our gift to the kids and that she should not worry that it didn’t amuse her. I would trade her warm, cute scenes and stories for gross stuff and extreme psychodrama. It got harder to keep the show fresh and inventive in the 2nd season, once the show was a big hit. Nickelodeon started hiring extra executives, and the more they hired, the more network notes we would get. Vanessa was usually with me on the stuff, but the other execs would lean on her to tone everything down and try to formulize it.

ELR: Looking back on it now, "Ren and Stimpy" has the feel of a lot of classic animation, like the Tex Avery and Bob Clampett stuff with the jazzy score and the elaborately painted backgrounds, which was really rare for afterschool cartoons back then. Did you ever get notes asking you to modernize it, or simplify it?

John K: I didn’t ever need to be asked to modernize. Cartoons in the 80s were very conservative and bland. My style stuck out like crazy as something new and modern. Ren and Stimpy actually had a few styles in it. We experimented with the art not only in the main stories, but we did all those fake commercials in a 50s retro style. That retro style became the new style that Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and all the other modern studios have copied ever since.

ELR: But after a long day, did it ever feel like you all were working too hard to make the background pretty for what was essentially a booger joke?

John K: Actually that was the joke. I thought it was extra fun to take the lowest crassest kind of joke and then paint it with such precision detail and love. The kids appreciated that too!

ELR: It seems like every few years, mainstream television will decide to embrace the viability of more grownup cartoons and produce a bunch of them in a block, and a lot of the time it doesn't last long. Why is that?

John K: I think they get too excited and want to jump on bandwagons. Then they do a whole bunch of shows all at once, thinking somehow quantity will give them the edge over the competition. All the talent gets thinned out. There are not a lot of star talents in the cartoon business and if you spread them too thin the product has to suffer.

I think it would be better to start small with a really good crew and get used to working together and make each episode better than the last. As the crew gets better, you can start to hire more artists and expand. Less shows but funnier, better quality shows would make a lot more money for the networks. We only did 6 episodes of the first season of "Ren and Stimpy" and the show took off. It made a billion dollars and put Nickelodeon on the map.

ELR: So what makes for a good cartoon?

John K: Talent. Talented and skilled cartoonists left to try things on a regular basis without having to submit to trends and formulas. My tip to any young cartoonists is to amass as much skill as you possibly can while you are young. You can only create what your hand can actually draw. Have fun, be creative but learn to draw for real and don’t rely on stylistic tricks or trends.

For more John K stuff, check out his blog All Kinds of Stuff at http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com. It is seriously one of the best blogs out there. For tickets and info on The John and Bill Show, go to www.thejohnandbillshow.com/.