John K. Fairbank

John King Fairbank (May 24, 1907 – September 14, 1991), was a prominent American academic and historian of China.

Education and early career

Fairbank was born in Huron, South Dakota in 1907. He was educated at Sioux Falls High School, Phillips Exeter Academy, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Harvard College, and Oxford University (Balliol). As an undergraduate, Charles Kingsley Webster, the distinguished British diplomatic historian then teaching at Harvard, advised him to choose a relatively undeveloped field of study, and suggested that since the Qing dynasty imperial archives were then being opened, China's foreign relations would be a prudent choice learned (Fairbank later confessed that he then knew nothing about the state of China itself). In 1929, when he graduated from Harvard summa cum laude, he went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.

At Oxford, Fairbank began his study of the Chinese language and sought the counsel of H.B. Morse, retired from the Imperial Maritime Customs Service. On Webster's advice, he had read Morse's three-volume study of Qing dynasty foreign relations on the ship coming to England. Morse became his mentor. The ambitious young scholar decided to go to Beijing to do research in 1932.

John Kricfalusi

Michael John Kricfalusi /ˌkrɪsfəˈluːsi/ (born September 9, 1955), better known as John K., is a Canadian animator, voice actor, producer, writer, and director best known for creating The Ren & Stimpy Show and founding the animation company Spümcø.

After being fired from The Ren & Stimpy Show by Nickelodeon in 1992, Kricfalusi went on to direct and produce animated television commercials for multiple products and music videos for entertainers such as the singer Björk and comedy rock duo Tenacious D. In the late 1990s he created the first cartoons made exclusively for the Internet: The Goddamn George Liquor Program and Weekend Pussy Hunt. He returned to television with The Ripping Friends and the adult animation spin-off Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon".

Early years

John Kricfalusi was born in Canada to a father of Ukrainian descent and mother of Scottish and English descent. He spent his early childhood in Germany and Belgium while his father was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. At age seven he returned with his family to Canada. Having moved in the middle of a school season, he spent much of his time that year at home, watching Hanna-Barbera cartoons and drawing them. Kricfalusi's interest in Golden Age animation crystallized during his stay at Sheridan College, where he attended weekly screenings of old films and cartoons at Innis College held by film archivist Reg Hartt, among them the cartoons of Bob Clampett and Tex Avery, which left a deep impression on Kricfalusi. He soon left Sheridan College and moved to Los Angeles, intending to become an animator.