One Sick Little Monkey: The History of John K’s Career

Now regarded as one of animation’s biggest monsters, John K has has a wild career. Let me tell you all about it.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the link to the Media Mementos Discord Server.

[mediamementosofficial]

Yes the Rugrats and Doug footage is swapped. Editing error. Oh well.

[MercuryKurogane]

24:30 This isn't the first time I've heard someone use ADHD as a reason to "excuse" being a sexual predator or sexual abuser, but it's honestly disgusting. I have ADHD, and probably some other disorder as well, and I do suffer with sometimes disgusting intrusive thoughts that I end up hating myself for for even thinking it, but I know not to act on them. No disorder should excuse criminal behavior of that nature, and ones past shouldn't excuse it either.

[misterzygarde]

Imagine how differently things would be if John K. had basic human decency and knew how to compromise.

[CJBStudios]

I remember reading about John K on TV Tropes, and from what I’ve read, he was abused by his own father. To be fair, at least Chris Savino isn’t anything like him, which is ironic given that _The Ren & Stimpy Show_ was the very first show that he worked on back when he was 19 years old.

[ethan_exists]

It’s honestly sad that John became from a passionate animator to a literal prick to a criminal at a blink of an eye. It’s pretty sad

[sjmhadsock]

I honestly feel bad for the people who worked for him

[magnetoonproductions]

There were some things that actually gave us hints about John’s true nature.
• A later episode of Ren and Stimpy was a jab at the hostile working environment that John created when working on the show.
• A Spumco commercial had a rooster hitting on a female intern.
• The He-Hog pilot had the title character slapping a woman and tricking her into going on a date with him.
• Boo Boo and the Man featured two bears questioning Yogi and Boo-Boo’s friendship and being roommates.

[somebum]

John K is a textbook example of how NOT to work in animation.

[pokemonmanic]

If there’s one thing to learn from people like John K and Butch Hartman is that the best kinds of media usually doesn’t come from a single person. It’s either people who hold the creator back from throwing everything at the wall at once, or those who can take the ideas and push them higher. Never believe that a singular person is responsible for making a show good—because that leads to creative tunnel vision.

[redwaytoo]

John K's first meeting with Nick execs feels like that Cars 2 misunderstanding plot, like, "he acts really weird and kooky so he MUST be a genius!"

[wajowski]

Ren & Stimpy is so awesome, it really sucks that it was the brainchild of someone who had *other* thoughts in mind.

[Hack_Man_VII]

According to Slopesgameroom, John's dad didn't like his son drawing cartoons so mucj. He was worried that young John wouldn't turn out the way he wanted, so he secretly hid dirty magazines in his room.

[eatatjoes]

I can tell you one thing, learning about John while trying to get my own project off the ground has colored my viewpoint immensely.

Also, it's funny in a cosmic sort of way how he even creeped out *"THE MANLIEST NETWORK ON TV."* That's an accomplishment.

[NicklasNN]

The thing about “perfectionism” is it’s not that you’re literally trying to make something perfect but rather your mind is constantly moving goal posts because, for whatever reason, you don’t want to finish this project. When people brag about being one, I’m never impressed. I feel it’s a red flag that someone doesn’t know what they really want but will still act aggressively to get to this fantasy finish line.

After reading about John K and how much of a prick he could be, I just can’t re read his blog or interviews any more. He’s always making himself a victim or bragging about the shitty choices that he wanted to put into his cartoons and it makes me wonder why I looked to this guy in the first place.

He just had his own, angry, shitty little world that he never wanted to leave.

[ogami]

Just 6 min in, but quick aside: I was a club kid in the late 80's, and catching Mighty Mouse early Saturday mornings while coming down from the psychedelics I had taken Friday night was one of my favorite things. A few years later I would be over-excited about R&S, taping the "Space Madness" episode and showing it to everyone I knew. Good times before the bad, indeed.

[koolboi]

Media Mementos in general feels like a more lighthearted Blameitonjorge.

[BrendanBarney]

What a coincidence. I was watching a few episodes of Ren & Stimpy last night.

[higbeeproductions]

I still love ren and stimpy….but I hate john K

[Lunar_WaveYT]

Fun fact: Raymond Spum was actually the Alias/Name John K went under in episodes he thought were “bad”

[jamilfrost]

John k. In my opinion Is the Dave Sim of animation . Both rose up and became game changers in their respective industry, and then they both screwed it up and committed career suicide and we're revealed to be nasty people.