Fun Fact: When the show was being pitched, one of the first few rejected ideas from John K and Bakshi was actually going to be Ren and Stimpy. Now imagine that.
Ren and Stimpy on network TV would have worse behind-the-scenes stories of John K being an asshole than the Nickelodeon one. So, maybe it's a good thing this never happened (it came close with The Ripping Friends).
We all have the thank Ralph and many of the other animators under his mentorship for paving the way for the Animation Renaissance that lasted from the late 80's til the mid-2000's. Without him or Mighty-Mouse, we wouldn't have Ren & Stimpy, Batman: The Animated Series, Powerpuff Girls, Animaniacs, Dexter’s Lab, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Rocko’s Modern Life, 2 Stupid Dogs, or even future Adult Swim shows, the list goes on.
My favorite Ralph story is that he started out in Terrytunes doing painting or some minor thing but he wanted to draw, so he moved his drawing table down to the artist pool and started taking work. He was so good, the office let everyone upstairs taht wanted to come downstairs to draw. Great initiative.
Ralph is the kind of guy who refuses to be told what his limits are - when told no, he does his own thing and goes his own way. Gotta respect the guy for that.
So nice to see Ralph in person explaining himself here. For many years I only heard the myths and rumors of him as this insane tyrant. Yet I always admired his work, and that he got into so many facets and launched so many talents. So how crazy could he be? Nice to see he's simply driven to challenge than radical to care less. Which I think many still view him as. He should get his due BIG TIME now I'd say!
I just realized that without Ralph or John, we wouldn't have the humor today's cartoons have. Fritz the Cat proved animation can be for adults too, and while Ren & Stimpy also showed this, it had humor that you wouldn't see in any cartoon at the time.
"Now I know why they call television a medium. Because everything on it is neither rare or well done." xD Best line ever!!! I miss Mighty Mouse. I used to have the episode where Ed Bell said that line. "I can't do it." After that it showed the entire studio staff yelling and throwing papers around. It was from the episode where MM was about to marry Pearl, his sweetheart, and he imagined what married life would be. It was entire episode that parodied "I Love Lucy." "TO THE MOON PEARL!!!" *Pearl uppercuts MM to the moon* ..."she's been practicing her uppercut."
Think it was a parody of The Honeymooners too. Yes, I loved the last scene where animator Ed Bell cops out and cries, ''I can't go through with it! I can't do it, I can't marry him!!'' That was entirely animated but the soundtrack from the studio was used, even down to the other cartoonists laughing.
I thank you for sharing this. Favorite'd for sure, and I'll prob link this video from my channel. Great back story here. I'm the world's largest collector of Ren & Stimpy merchandise, and stuff like this really pieces together the moments that allowed them to come to be. Thanks again!
Groundbreaking series to be sure. Unique animation and writing approach that definitely made Mighty Mouse a more interesting character than in his original Terrytoons version. Should have had a longer run if it wasn't for the flower-petal incident. Mike Kazaleh has a TH-cam page currently...user comments are disabled on all of his videos. Make of that what you will.
I love these guys. Thank God they grovelled to the networks to get their ideas made so that we can enjoy the fruits of their laborious insanity!! It's comedy gold!!!
I was thirteen and I knew this was different, the best on TV. Probably my last year of watching sat. morn. toons. Last year I bought a toy, or asked for one for my 12th birthday, a sharkticon transformer. anyway, I recorded two or three episodes of Mighty Mouse on the VCR and kept the tapes for years until in desuetude they decomposed and bacame holiday tinsel snappers. Elwey and the Tree Weasels was my favorite episode.
God dammit i never even really knew about this aside from a few mentions of this cartoon when i read of John K's filmography like it had some kind of significance but i didn't knew it was this significant
Question: Is there an easy way to find out who wrote and directed an episode for this show Individually, because as far as I'm aware (aside from the end credits which lazily lump every artist together) this show's stories just open with the episode's title and that's it. So you can't really tell who was in charge of what. Is there a website, a blog post, something?!
I was probably about 3 or 4 when I watched this show, it was one of favorites. A year or so later I remember watching Beany and Cecil on Saturday Mornings and loving that as well. And then when I was 11 or 12 Ren and Stimpy became my favorite cartoon. I had no idea John K. was behind all of those cartoons. It might be one of the reasons why I have such a twisted sense of humor.
Something and its core was broken and corrupted and disgusting and obscene. It disturbed me as a child but I see now what it was. And I can't turn away. As I couldn't then.
One thing I don't understand is why the animation seems so loose and sloppy, especially with how every episode was animated by an entire animation company. It just seems really weird, considering that this show was produced by Ralph Bakshi of all people, who was able to make very fantastic looking films with only a hand full of people.
+Lucas Frasure Here's why... The budgets for Saturday morning cartoons were insanely low in the 80's. These guys were trying something so new within the Saturday morning format, with hundreds more key drawings per episode than had ever been attempted, that there probably wasn't money left over for inbetweens. Usually SM cartoons just reused the same cels and backgrounds over and over and over, where these guys did a new drawing for every pose, in every scene. Basically it was too ambitions.
That always bothered me about the show too, (the voices were fantastic and everything ), but that always bothered me about it, the characters would look one way in one scene and then the other completely different, but I think it probably had to do with cartoons back then being low budget or something.
You sure are confident projecting a statement that’s basically wrong as if it’s a god-given fact that no one will wildly object to while insulting the work of Ralph Bakshi and his team and their efforts to make something unique that they clearly don’t think is “basically unwatchable.” Not only is the show as zany as the work environment and chock full of witty, satirical, subversive humor, it paved the way for many cartoons that followed.
Oh stop trying to make people feel bad for you. If you are really that thick-minded to believe that you won't get a job just because you're a different race, then you're definitely not going to get hired by anyone no matter what race you are. Go back to tumblr if you want to complain about racism on a completely unrelated subject.
And neither do you. You're obviously trying to make people feel bad for you because of very stupid reason in hopes that you will get into the animation industry. Guess what? That's not how the world works...
Fun Fact: When the show was being pitched, one of the first few rejected ideas from John K and Bakshi was actually going to be Ren and Stimpy. Now imagine that.
Ren and Stimpy on network TV would have worse behind-the-scenes stories of John K being an asshole than the Nickelodeon one. So, maybe it's a good thing this never happened (it came close with The Ripping Friends).
It was probably “our gang” actually
After John K was working on Network TV. Would have he worked on Ralph other show Tattertown
We all have the thank Ralph and many of the other animators under his mentorship for paving the way for the Animation Renaissance that lasted from the late 80's til the mid-2000's. Without him or Mighty-Mouse, we wouldn't have Ren & Stimpy, Batman: The Animated Series, Powerpuff Girls, Animaniacs, Dexter’s Lab, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Rocko’s Modern Life, 2 Stupid Dogs, or even future Adult Swim shows, the list goes on.
Bruce Timm, John Kricfalusi and Ralph Bakshi on the same show... damn those were the days.
Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, and Tom Minton too!
Don’t forget Rich Moore
@@akganimationstudioproducti3779 Yeah, Rich Moore directed early Simpsons and head director on The Critic before directing Wreck it Ralph!
John K in his better days, before he went from bad to worse both IRL and later on in animation.
My favorite Ralph story is that he started out in Terrytunes doing painting or some minor thing but he wanted to draw, so he moved his drawing table down to the artist pool and started taking work. He was so good, the office let everyone upstairs taht wanted to come downstairs to draw. Great initiative.
Ralph is the kind of guy who refuses to be told what his limits are - when told no, he does his own thing and goes his own way. Gotta respect the guy for that.
So nice to see Ralph in person explaining himself here. For many years I only heard the myths and rumors of him as this insane tyrant. Yet I always admired his work, and that he got into so many facets and launched so many talents. So how crazy could he be? Nice to see he's simply driven to challenge than radical to care less. Which I think many still view him as. He should get his due BIG TIME now I'd say!
Wow, this show was before The SImpsons and before Tiny Toons animations!
I just realized that without Ralph or John, we wouldn't have the humor today's cartoons have. Fritz the Cat proved animation can be for adults too, and while Ren & Stimpy also showed this, it had humor that you wouldn't see in any cartoon at the time.
I wondered why the show got cancelled, still love the line, "I had a date with destiny but she stood me up."
"Now I know why they call television a medium. Because everything on it is neither rare or well done." xD Best line ever!!! I miss Mighty Mouse. I used to have the episode where Ed Bell said that line. "I can't do it." After that it showed the entire studio staff yelling and throwing papers around. It was from the episode where MM was about to marry Pearl, his sweetheart, and he imagined what married life would be. It was entire episode that parodied "I Love Lucy." "TO THE MOON PEARL!!!" *Pearl uppercuts MM to the moon* ..."she's been practicing her uppercut."
Think it was a parody of The Honeymooners too. Yes, I loved the last scene where animator Ed Bell cops out and cries, ''I can't go through with it! I can't do it, I can't marry him!!'' That was entirely animated but the soundtrack from the studio was used, even down to the other cartoonists laughing.
the 'television is a medium' line is originally from comedian Fred Allen.
I remember watching this as a kid and I knew that time that something off was going on with this show, that it wasn't so entirely innocent.
pervychika666 Mighty Mouse is made of gravy
Right at the end where they did their Ralph Bakshi impressions: sounds like John K got the worst of it all from Ralph. LOL!
Welp, I now understand a little more from John K.
I thank you for sharing this. Favorite'd for sure, and I'll prob link this video from my channel. Great back story here. I'm the world's largest collector of Ren & Stimpy merchandise, and stuff like this really pieces together the moments that allowed them to come to be. Thanks again!
Thank You, John K!
I remember how much I enjoyed this show as a kid and how it stood out from all the other cartoons.
Groundbreaking series to be sure. Unique animation and writing approach that definitely made Mighty Mouse a more interesting character than in his original Terrytoons version. Should have had a longer run if it wasn't for the flower-petal incident.
Mike Kazaleh has a TH-cam page currently...user comments are disabled on all of his videos. Make of that what you will.
Holy crap, I had forgotten the art style of the Bakshi-helmed MM was a similar "near-abstract" to that blamed on John Kricfalusi.
I loved Mighty Mouse, and I still have all of them on VHS. Subversive as hell.
Sen
I love these guys. Thank God they grovelled to the networks to get their ideas made so that we can enjoy the fruits of their laborious insanity!!
It's comedy gold!!!
Used to watch this show all the time with my kids...;)
I'm just here for John K.
Me too
Jan Michael Vincent oh wow
Why?
Me too
if your under 18 .......runnnn.......
I was a huge fan, I was in high school and I would get up and watch Mighty mouse, and Pee Wee's playhouse!
I saw that flower girl episode when I was little. I didn't remember the origin; just that it seemed messed up in a very good way.
11:25 Right there sitting next to each other is the inspiration behind the look and character of Pinky & the Brain
I was thirteen and I knew this was different, the best on TV. Probably my last year of watching sat. morn. toons. Last year I bought a toy, or asked for one for my 12th birthday, a sharkticon transformer. anyway, I recorded two or three episodes of Mighty Mouse on the VCR and kept the tapes for years until in desuetude they decomposed and bacame holiday tinsel snappers. Elwey and the Tree Weasels was my favorite episode.
These guys are legends. The young so called artists of today wouldn't survive
Well that ruins all my plans as an animator.
God dammit i never even really knew about this aside from a few mentions of this cartoon when i read of John K's filmography like it had some kind of significance but i didn't knew it was this significant
This show was such a breath of fresh air at the time - a review called Mighty Mouse "The hippest rodent on Saturday morning tv since Pee-Wee Herman".
All these years I thought Mighty Mouse had one cartoon. (The one with the wolves chasing a little sheep).
Wolf wolf the only public domain cartoon
I remember this Mighty Mouse show. I watched it as a kid.
Question: Is there an easy way to find out who wrote and directed an episode for this show Individually, because as far as I'm aware (aside from the end credits which lazily lump every artist together) this show's stories just open with the episode's title and that's it. So you can't really tell who was in charge of what. Is there a website, a blog post, something?!
@Mr Ubri. IMDb maybe helpful.
I was probably about 3 or 4 when I watched this show, it was one of favorites. A year or so later I remember watching Beany and Cecil on Saturday Mornings and loving that as well. And then when I was 11 or 12 Ren and Stimpy became my favorite cartoon. I had no idea John K. was behind all of those cartoons. It might be one of the reasons why I have such a twisted sense of humor.
Just Roll with it baby *tsk* Just Roll with it
29:49 Lol how the hell is that man, but it hillarious he yells so much, that he fall out from his chair.
Those old behind-the-scenes... John K. was an absolute CUTIE
Bonnie the actual bean dip
He was after cute little girls too
@@CockatielPony He would have "feelings" but the statutory rapes were late 1990s, even after Ren and Stimpy.
He's still a babe too bad I'm too old for him 😂😂💀
@@ellisg5285 lmaoo Imma take the L on this one. I typed this whenever/before the allegations first came out so I was unaware
So John K was basically Philip J Fry in the '80s?
It's funny cause Billy West plays him.
Yup, cuz any resemblance between John K. and Philip J. Fry is purely coincidental.
I had read The Fountainhead and seen the film, admittedly when I was in a heavy Rush phase (2112 was partially inspired by Ayn Rand's book Anthem)
Rush always find another way to make me like them even less
Something and its core was broken and corrupted and disgusting and obscene. It disturbed me as a child but I see now what it was. And I can't turn away. As I couldn't then.
Whats the music at the beginning someone tell me
"In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg
Ungodly looking characters and I ain't talking about the cartoons.
Thanks for this!
Not into "Mighty Mouse", but this was great!
I love Banski's LOTR...wish he got to finish it
Amazing!
This is an awesome video. Thanks for uploading!
One thing I don't understand is why the animation seems so loose and sloppy, especially with how every episode was animated by an entire animation company. It just seems really weird, considering that this show was produced by Ralph Bakshi of all people, who was able to make very fantastic looking films with only a hand full of people.
+Lucas Frasure Here's why... The budgets for Saturday morning cartoons were insanely low in the 80's. These guys were trying something so new within the Saturday morning format, with hundreds more key drawings per episode than had ever been attempted, that there probably wasn't money left over for inbetweens. Usually SM cartoons just reused the same cels and backgrounds over and over and over, where these guys did a new drawing for every pose, in every scene. Basically it was too ambitions.
Dan Jackson Ah, okay. Thanks for the input. :)
They had John Kricfalusi on it. Of course it's going to look loose and sloppy. Watch Ren and Stimpy and you'll see some similarities.
It doesn't look sloppy to me in my opinion.
Since Who Framed Roger Rabbit used this type of style (mostly for wild takes and other gags)
That always bothered me about the show too, (the voices were fantastic and everything
), but that always bothered me about it, the characters would look one way in one scene and then the other completely different, but I think it probably had to do with cartoons back then being low budget or something.
I like the Deputy Dawg parts
1:52 And Sea-Man.
its weird knowing what john k did while watching this
Great documentary. Thanks
Ralph Bakshi sounds like Mark Hamill trying to impersonate Ralph Bakshi.
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
I was obsessed with this cartoon as a small child!
rev. wildman disliked this video
wow awesome stuff.
Is Pat Pinney and Maggie Roswell in this? I’m so curious to see what they both looked like back then when this was made… But I really can’t find much…
It should be noted that The Simpsons shorts preceded this.
By 5 months. Hardly influential, either in style, content or concept.
Wait, did John just shit on the hand that allowed him to make his show? lol
That's what he does, and one of many reasons why his career is in the toilet.
Canais Young True
John thought he was Bakshi. He ended up being a manchild with a godlike mindset.
I remember this kids cartoon show and it's neat.
omg, Ralph sounds like Dumb Pig Cop from Fritz the Cat.
Bakshi was Pig Cop #1
These guys sure are impressed with themselves for making a show that's basically unwatchable. Oh well, at least they had a zany work environment!
Ok zoomer
You sure are confident projecting a statement that’s basically wrong as if it’s a god-given fact that no one will wildly object to while insulting the work of Ralph Bakshi and his team and their efforts to make something unique that they clearly don’t think is “basically unwatchable.” Not only is the show as zany as the work environment and chock full of witty, satirical, subversive humor, it paved the way for many cartoons that followed.
I want to make cartoons for a living and work for a cartoon company... However, I'm not the right skin tone, so I have to stick to youtube.
Why would you say that? doesn't matter your race just how good you are at your work
Trust me. Race is still a very huge factor in this world.
Oh stop trying to make people feel bad for you. If you are really that thick-minded to believe that you won't get a job just because you're a different race, then you're definitely not going to get hired by anyone no matter what race you are.
Go back to tumblr if you want to complain about racism on a completely unrelated subject.
And neither do you. You're obviously trying to make people feel bad for you because of very stupid reason in hopes that you will get into the animation industry. Guess what? That's not how the world works...
Thank you Dr. Phil. You totally changed my life.
Yeah but your making it worse bye saying "I'm not the right race" your only puting yourself down
You're*
@@viemarirunoa🤓👆
Ralph Bakshi really comes off as a Jew
@Fudgaboutit He was born in present-day Israel.