SOUTH PARK - WOW I SUCKED!

[@ECartmanist]

I wonder how different the movie different when they first screened it

[@fountainspencartoons]

Very. There was an entirely different song that was replaced by “Blame Canada.”

[@BlastGamingSaia]

Het F big fan here, im sure you can piece who this might be, im about 15 minutes in as of typing, so far a wild perspective to your story! please do more of this, im sure i speak for more than my self when i say we would love to see more of this! its amazing to see passion for the craft from someone who not only was in the game but was a big part of what the game had become!

[@fountainspencartoons]

No clue - but thanks so much for the support 😁

[@BlastGamingSaia]

of course!

[@daisyteto877]

Just watching this video, it just feels like an old uncle trying to tell someone their experiences.

[@Hillasir]

When F isn't talking about the Poochie drawing in the background I want people in the comments to be asking "Hey, what about Poochie?"

[@fountainspencartoons]

Hahaha

[@minckypasricha1930]

Hmmm I love what I’m seeing on that screen behind you

[@fountainspencartoons]

Good stuff, right?

[@EnGageimations]

I really enjoyed this! As someone who just turned 20 with minimal animation experience, one of my biggest fears is being on a massive production where you seem completely "out of your league" compared to other colleagues, especially when it seems like they don't want to get to know you all that much. As silly as it may sound, I related to a lot of what you told. As someone who was sort of an idiot and went into an animation school with BARELY any animation knowledge, I didn't have a great first year. I was new to Adobe Photoshop, Animate, After Effects, Maya, Blender, all of that jazz. I basically had no idea what I was doing, tutorials online would range from near hours long, and deadlines were coming. Our professor was a little bit on edge, we could always tell he'd get annoyed when students would have trouble with the software... And of course as the most inexperienced, my spirit wasn't so high whenever I would accidently pause a lecture because I somehow lost my timeline in Photoshop. By the time our finals from the first semester were finished, some of the students would present genuine high quality stuff that you'd see film festivals FIGHT FOR. While I on the other hand felt like I made the most embarrassing thing that would lead to the whole school going down under... Then as comedy, our school out of the blue announced near the end of my second semester that the Animation Program was being removed! I genuinely wasn't fond of my prior work, and I could've easily called it quits, but I dunno if I was being an idiot, but something in me wanted to finish what I had originally strived to succeed in. So... I decided to do animation classes online throughout my Sophmore year, and I just wanna say.... was DEFINITELY the best decision I made so far! It was around the time I read your threads about all of the challenges you faced in the industry (as well as other threads from other animation veterans) and I knew I didn't want to end on a sorry note... Before you know it, it finally felt like I was "getting the hang of things", and now I'm being the one who's encouraged to send work to festivals. It's genuinely shocking and motivating to show some of my newer assignments to prior classmates as they go "YOU MADE THIS?" or "You've grown a lot in a year!" Sorry for my ramblings, I really hope I don't come off as humbling myself (I definitely know I have a long ways to go...), but it just really resonnated with me when you said you were glad that you never gave up during the production of South Park, which led to you finally working on projects that made you both happy and proud of. As corny as it may sound, I think not giving up often leads to a better outcome!

[@fountainspencartoons]

I’d be willing to bet there are COUNTLESS stories like yours (ours) but the ones you always hear about are the “Craig McCracken went to CalArts, everyone knew he was a genius and right out of school he got a tv show!” stories. Cheers to you for hanging in there!

[@CartoonKarma]

Watched this in the background while doing other things. Wowzers, man. While I knew the broad strokes of the story from your Twitter summary, and a lot of the "new" stuff in here I had inferred from that, hearing this impassioned recollection really imparted the blood and sweat of the situation. Your describing your inability to click with Maya in particular gave me flashback anxiety to similar "oh crumbs, I just can't click with this software/code" nightmares in college. I FELT your pain. Maybe not the balance of such long work days while doing freelance at the same time, but I felt that part. And knowing in advance how you got out of that and onto your dream gig of storyboards at Nickelodeon really made that payoff all the more satisfying. Heh, I'm also wondering, if you had been on that crew poster, what you South Park avatar might have looked like. A chortle to imagine, I'm sure! And while this wasn't the point where South Park made each episode in a week (I do wonder what those animators do during the off seasons on that show sometimes), hearing of everything they did to accommodate those long crunches was neat. Among many other anecdotal details. Huge fan of the show even if I don't keep up with it much anymore, and given how nearly all the interesting BTS bits focuses on it from Trey Parker's perspective, hearing the ground level animator work he and Matt Stone basically don't interact with due to how busy they are is all the more valuable. Even when it's a struggle as yours was. Also want to reiterate I'm really enjoying what you and your crew are cooking up, even I tend to meekly lurk a lot of the time rather than say so. This show just looks FUN, and that's undervalued in this day and age by the major studio product. Can't wait to see the first episode release!

[@fountainspencartoons]

WOW! This is the kind of response I hope for but never assume I’ll get. Thank you so much for your support! I’ll try to honor your sentiments by exceeding expectations!

[@skuff196]

What an amazing story. Major props for getting through all of that and going for it. Just saw your credit on the theater for it's re-release and all my questions have been answered!

[@fountainspencartoons]

@@skuff196 thanks buddy!

[@kentruhan9629]

Hey there John, I'm continuing my thorough enjoyment of your series of retrospective "how it all began" videos here (hell, when I first started, I couldn't even spell "anumayshin"...now I are one!) I only knew in passing that you had worked on the South Park movie (never the full history)...I definitely feel your pain with navigating Maya, that app is a hell-beast (with big NASTY teeth...) 😵‍💫 Incidentally, the start of your tenure at South Park was right around the time I last saw you - I had taken a trip to L.A. to see a friend of mine there, and also hooked up with Anne Awh as well (how we did this without cellphones, I'll never know...) We met you at that presentation by John Kricfalusi, who was discussing his proposed animated web series project (which, in 1998, was pretty wizard-y)...did you talk with him afterwards?

[@fountainspencartoons]

@@kentruhan9629 Just barely. He was a dick. 😑

[@kentruhan9629]

@@fountainspencartoons BOOOO! 😵‍💫 Why'z it gotta be that way?? (you make cool sh#%...be NICE about it! Plus, you're freakin' CANADIAN!)

[@fountainspencartoons]

@@kentruhan9629 Oh dear... you don't "know", do you? I don't have the heart to tell you, but John K. is more than merely an asshole... I'll leave the rest to you to research... it's not gonna make you happy...

[@kentruhan9629]

@@fountainspencartoons Wow. Fu#% 😐How sad is it that (upon reading your reply above) my immediate thought was, "is Kricfalusi a freakin' pre-vert or somethin'??" Well, thank you Wikipedia for answering THAT question (it's what we created you for, I s'pose!) Still...lord a'mighty... 😵‍💫