- Creator Backlash: John has actually been pretty critical of his early work, particularly on Mighty Mouse: TNA and Ren and Stimpy. He even warns his fans to not study his cartoons, but rather all of his influences--"For everything I did right, there were a ton of mistakes."
- He also refused to give himself credit for his directorial role on the Ren and Stimpy episode Nurse Stimpy. He thought it was so bad that he credited himself as "Raymond Spum" instead, out of embarrassment.
- He also disliked how he was forced to add strong adult themes to Ren and Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon.
- He also claims that he can barely watch The Ripping Friends, since the whole show was meddled with to death.
- Doing It for the Art: The whole reason John became a cartoonist was to bring back cartoony animation to the mainstream and put a stop to the stiff, formulaic TV animation coming out around the time, as well as create Spumco as the only other safe haven besides TMS and Studio Ghibli for cartoonists.
- Flip-Flop of God: On Ren And Stimpy's sexuality.
- God Does Not Own This World: Oh, yeah. Unlike other examples, John would get another turn with Ren and Stimpy later on after being fired.
- He Also Did: This gloriously insane music video with Bjork.
- Old Shame: The Ripping Friends. He also dislikes talking his "embarrasing 80's flat period"--referring to his really early artwork, specifically. He is also not proud of his tenures on many 1980's cartoon shows such as The Snorks, He Man and The Masters of The Universe, etc.
- What Could Have Been: Sometime during the 1980's when John was working on Mighty Mouse, Ralph Bakshi had recognized John's talent. Ralph and John were planning on teaming up to do an animated film called "Bobby's girl". Which was set to be a parody of the teen comedies during the time. However TriStar canceled the project. But artwork of this proposed project can be seen in the Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi book. It's interesting to think what John's career would have been like if he were a film director, not a creator of television shows.