John Kricfalusi (born Michael John Kricfalusi on September 9, 1955, in Chicoutimi, Québec, Canada) is the animator better known as John K., creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show and The Ripping Friends cartoon series as well as the founder of animation studio Spümcø International. (Note that when working on cartoons he doesn't quite support, Kricfalusi is sometimes credited as Raymond Spum.)
For many years, Kricfalusi (pronounced kris-fa-loo-see) drew low-end studio television cartoons before being 'rescued' in 1987 by director Ralph Bakshi. The animator was hired to help create a new series based on the original Terrytoons cartoon Mighty Mouse for Bakshi's animation studio. The Bakshi/Kricfalusi interpretation was in many ways more creative than the original, yet also considerably more bizarre: the series was aired on CBS, but after two seasons complaints from viewers and low ratings prompted the network to cancel it.
Kricfalusi went on to found his Spümcø International animation studio with partner Jim Smith, creating the now infamous Ren & Stimpy Show. Spümcø sold the show to Nickelodeon in 1988, yet after several years of battling with the network's executives over content, Kricfalusi was ultimately fired from production of the series in 1992.
Since then, Kricfalusi has worked on various projects including some web-based cartoons, Björk and Tenacious D music videos, some Yogi Bear cartoons, and a short-lived FOX Kids TV series called The Ripping Friends. Most recently he has written, directed, and starred in new Ren & Stimpy adult cartoons produced for Spike TV, a network which has allowed the animator much more freedom to work with the lewd and bizarre themes that make his art distictive.
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