Creativity Quote by John Kricfalusi

A great cartoon can look like pure flow, but Kricfalusi pulls the curtain back on the petty bureaucracy underneath: not a well-oiled machine, but a set of rival fiefdoms. The line lands because it treats a supposedly collaborative art form like a dysfunctional family, where everyone is guarding turf and credit instead of trading ideas. “Doesn’t talk to” repeats like a drumbeat of institutional failure, and then the blunt punchline - “They’re all jealous” - refuses the comforting story that breakdowns are merely logistical. It’s emotional. It’s status.

The specific intent is half-complaint, half-warning. In animation, storyboard, layout, and writing aren’t just departments; they’re competing versions of authorship. Storyboards can function as writing. Layout can dictate performance and timing. When those boundaries blur, insecurity spikes. Kricfalusi frames jealousy as the hidden engine of silos: if you don’t share, you can’t be overridden; if you don’t collaborate, you can’t be exposed.

The subtext is also a critique of industrial animation’s assembly-line culture, where specialization is supposed to increase efficiency but often breeds contempt. Jealousy isn’t just personal pettiness here; it’s a predictable outcome in workplaces that reward ownership over outcomes and treat creative contribution like a finite resource.

Context matters: Kricfalusi came up through studio systems and later became synonymous with auteur-driven animation. Read that way, the quote doubles as an argument for stronger creative integration - or at least for leaders who can force conversation before ego hardens into pipeline.