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1!Trivia Tropes For ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow''
2!!Trivia With Their Own Pages
3[[index]]
4* [[ReferencedBy/TheRenAndStimpyShow Referenced by...]]
5* [[TroubledProduction/TheRenAndStimpyShow Troubled Production]]
6* [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/TheRenAndStimpyShow What Could Have Been]]
7[[/index]]
8----
9* AccidentallyCorrectWriting: In "Superstitious Stimpy", Stimpy is worried about bad luck on Tuesday the 17th. This is treated as a gag, but there are cultures where the unlucky day is Tuesday or the 17th (i.e. Italians consider Friday the 17th unlucky, and Spanish cultures where Tuesday the 13th is unlucky).
10* ActingForTwo: Both main characters were voiced by Billy West after John Kricfalusi, Ren's original voice actor, was fired.
11* AdoredByTheNetwork: While Nickelodeon adored the show and ran it multiple times a week, the limited number of episodes (particularly early in the show's run) meant that Nickelodeon could not marathon the show like they could with their later animated successes ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''.
12* AlanSmithee: Kricfalusi, unhappy with the final product of "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy1X02RobinHoekNurseStimpy Nurse Stimpy]]", replaces his director's credit with "Raymond Spum".
13* AscendedFanfic: "The Cat that Laid the Golden Hairball" is based on a fan comic that said fan mailed to Spumco.
14* BannedEpisode: Besides the obvious culprit of "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy2X02RensToothacheMansBestFriend Man's Best Friend]]", many episodes were removed from future syndication on Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}, Creator/{{Nicktoons}} and Creator/TeenNick for various reasons and haven't reran since. The most notable of these include:
15** "Sammy and Me/The Last Temptation of Ren": The former for its mockery of Creator/SammyDavisJr's glass eye, and the latter for religious references. Instead of Nickelodeon, both premiered on MTV in 1996. The former would later air on Nickelodeon in 2000 and they would both air on Creator/NickRewind.
16** "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy2X06BigBabyScamDogShow Dog Show]]" was infamously banned as Nick execs thought George Liqour's vestigial tail (that he wears to disguise himself as a dog) looked too much like an erection.
17** "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy4X06ILoveChickenPowderedToastmanVsWaffleWoman Powdered Toast Man vs. Waffle Woman]]" had no issues in the 90s, but when the series was syndicated on the Nicktoons Network in the 2000s, it was withdrawn from further reruns for sensitive material following the [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks]] (in this case, a scene where Waffle Woman destroys New York City with her "Radioactive Polythermal Syrup Launcher", blatantly showing the World Trade Center's Twin Towers blowing up). When released on DVD and later rerun on Nick Rewind, it returned uncut and uncensored, likely because the shock of 9/11 had long faded since then.
18* BeamMeUpScotty: "You sick little monkey!" is considered an unofficial catchphrase for Ren (providing the title for ''Literature/SickLittleMonkeys'', a book about the production of the show), even though he only said the line ''twice'' in the entire series: first in "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy1X06BlackHoleStimpysInvention Stimpy's Invention]]", and once again in "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy2X04SvenHoek Sven Hoek]]". However, he did say the line more often in the Marvel Comics adaptation of the series.
19** The show ''itself'' does this during the "Happy Happy Joy Joy" song: Stinky Whizzleteats, the fictional singer of the song, quotes his basis Burl Ives several times, and in the climax blurts out, ''"[[Film/TheBigCountry I told you I'd shoot]], but you didn't believe me! WHY DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME?"'', appropriately as a happy-crazed Ren applies a PercussiveShutdown to his mind-control helmet. The actual quote, however, doesn't specifically mention shooting, with Ives instead saying, ''"I told you! I told you I'd do it! I told you, but you didn't believe me!'' ''[[PrecisionFStrike Damn your soul]],'' ''I TOLD YOU!"''
20** Ren asking "Where's my dinner?" was only used once in the Spumco era ("Marooned"), however, in the Games era episode "Who's Stupid Now?", it's treated like a catchphrase.
21* CreatorBacklash: Kricfalusi is actually pretty critical of the original series, and warns his fans not to study his cartoons--"For everything we did right, there were a ton of mistakes." Kricfalusi even claimed once that he can't really enjoy watching his own cartoons, because all he can see are the mistakes he made on them. He also felt the original show in its initial seasons (sans the Carbunkle episodes) [[http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/03/lost-episodes-of-ren-and-stimpy_22.html?showComment=1143150840000#c114315089625965087 were very inconsistent from a drawing and animation perspective]], and had many bad drawings in them (hence why he discourages his students from studying his own cartoons). Some episodes he singled out for criticism include;
22** "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy1x02RobinHoekNurseStimpy Nurse Stimpy]]" turned out so bad, that Kricfalusi flat out disowned it and refused to put his name on it ([[AlanSmithee crediting himself as "Raymond Spum" instead]])--mainly for the cuts Nickelodeon wanted (who axed a good chunk of footage out of the cartoon) and many artistic failings.
23--->The timing was bad. The drawings are bad. The colors are bad. From an artistic standpoint, to me, it's a really ugly cartoon.
24** "[[Recap/RenandStimpy1x04FireDogsTheLittlestGiant The Littlest Giant]]", mainly for its very slow pacing and sparse gags. He derogatorily nicknamed it "The Littlest Jokes". For budget reasons, the episode also couldn't use the crew's beloved method of drawing fresh character layouts and instead had to blow up the storyboard panels to ten-field size for the animators, resulting in a lot of unsatisfactory animation.
25** "[[Recap/RenandStimpy1x05MaroonedUntamedWorld Marooned]]"; he felt that the premise had merit, but was undermined by the episode's horrible timing (which was freelanced to another company) and some artistic mistakes that came from having to rush aspects of the episode.
26--->"Marooned" had great ideas, but the execution fell short; the timing was horrible. We freelanced the timing on that one and it was just way too slow...We just rushed through it, and so you see a lot of really bad mistakes. You see the aliens at the end, the giant brain guys. They're on overlays, but we were rushing through it so fast that you can see the tear lines around them--[[SpecialEffectFailure they're on cut-out pieces of paper glued to cels.]] It looks awful.
27** He also considered "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy1x06BlackHoleStimpysInvention Black Hole]]" a failure for several reasons;
28--->It's a complete failure. In every aspect it's bad; it's drawn bad, there's no direction to it at all, the timing's bad. It's a winner by default; somehow the premise managed to get through, even though the specific story points don't illustrate the premise very well. It was lucky.
29*** Later on, he singled out the cartoon for criticism again, but this time for [[http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/03/barber-shop-4-story-structure.html its poor structure]];
30---->I produced a cartoon that really suffered from poor structure: Black Hole. The premise of the story was simple. Ren and Stimpy get sucked through a black hole into another dimension where the physical laws are different than ours. Thus, they begin to mutate into weirder and weirder forms. Or...they should have. Instead they morph randomly and not in a building progression. The funniest morphs are early on, and then later they are less weird, so I considered that cartoon quite a failure. I've made other crap too, but my goal is always to have good solid structure and momentum.
31** "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy2x08MonkeySeeMonkeyDontFakeDad Monkey See, Monkey Don't]]". While the episode wasn't directed by him, he singled out this particular episode as "the worst Ren and Stimpy cartoon ever made" (of the first two seasons).
32** While he liked how "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy2x11AVisitToAnthony A Visit to Anthony]]" turned out, he was [[http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/10/happy-birthday-dad.html?showComment=1256844117341#c3459498470156234516 dissatisfied]] at how undirected the acting of Anthony's dad turned out, and he felt the sound effects and music (added by Games) were "clumsy and inappropriate".
33--->I directed the recordings of all the characters EXCEPT my Dad, ironically and was very disappointed when I heard it. It sounded like the actor didn't know the story and was reading it for the first time, so he didn't give it the meaning that the drawings conveyed. It was a professional live action actor and I think whoever directed him was afraid to actually give him any direction. And also didn't know my Dad.\
34I think the animation was done at Creator/{{Rough Draft|Studios}} and it was amazing. The fireplace scene was especially impressive with all the cool effects. The sound effects and music was clumsy and inappropriate as per usual in the Games episodes. That's something they just never got, even though I sent them a long treatise on how to make the sound match the moods of the story.
35** Kricfalusi stated [[http://renandstimpyonline.tripod.com/index2/webchat.html in a web chat]] that he felt the early Games episodes had good art, background and story ideas, but were ultimately mangled by lousy direction. In the DVDCommentary for "[[Recap/RenAndStimpy3x04StimpysCartoonShow Stimpy's Cartoon Show]]", he criticized some aspects of how the final cartoon was handled, namely for muddling its "Artist Vs. Non-Artist" message by changing Ren from executive to producer--while he did submit it in the cartoon as that in an attempt to avoid executive scrutiny, he felt Games used it as a chance to turn the cartoon into an attack on him instead of meddling executives (although he was ok with that), and that there were weird expressions that didn't really work in context.
36--->Elinor Blake and I wrote Stimpy's Cartoon Show and I had planned for that to be an epic, but the direction was pretty bungled. I explain it all on the commentary. The first Games DVD is coming out soon. I'd say it's definitely worth getting. Lots of good artwork, great backgrounds and some good stories-alas, no discernible direction.
37** He didn't hate "Fire Dogs II", but he felt it [[http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/06/apc-trailer-fire-dogs-2.html suffered from very poor timing]].
38--->Incidentally, this cartoon suffers from some piss-poor timing, because we had just started the new episodes and were trying out a new system of shooting storyboards and timing them to music. A lot of the gags would play better if I could go back and cut them tighter. I apologize in advance! (Just run it in fast forward!)
39** Creator/BillyWest was reluctant to talk about the show for many years after getting caught up in Kricfalusi's smear campaign. Working under K's direction apparently took its toll on West's health, with the latter often damaging his throat with how many times K made him redo lines (remember, this is a show where just about all the dialogue [[WorldOfHam is screamed rather than spoken]]) and being bullied whenever K was impatient with him. After K's 1992 firing, he demanded that West quit if Nickelodeon didn't hire him back, but West refused out of fear of being blacklisted, nor did he feel he owed it to K anyway, leading to the latter openly calling him a "job thief" and occasionally sending him ''death threats'' (Creator/HowardStern, West's old boss, then made things worse by inviting the two of them onto his show without either of them knowing that the other would be there, then forcing them to sit across from one another and talk. West's brother, Joseph "Jack" Werstine, had just died, so he was obviously in no mood to deal with it). And this was in addition to the more mundane backlash he was facing from disgruntled fans and industry people who bought into Kricfalusi's martyrdom complex. It got to the point where on West's now-defunct forum, even mentioning the show was a ''bannable offense''. To this day, even after he made peace to the more well-behaved parts of the fandom, West has made no secret that K is difficult to work with, and has vowed never to work with him again. He does, however, appear to have made peace with the series itself, as he has reprised the roles of Ren and Stimpy in ''VideoGame/NickelodeonAllStarBrawl'', ''VideoGame/NickelodeonKartRacers 3: Slime Speedway'', and the upcoming Comedy Central revival.
40--->"Genius is the twin brother of madness--both live in a world created by their own EGO. When I go to work for someone I NEVER bring my personal problems to the arena. The creators of most of the shows I've done don't seem to do that either. John K. wasn't a little bit difficult to work with. He was darn near impossible to work with. His abuse of actors including myself is legendary and was not so much about the search for perfection--it was about borderline sadism and control. His whole fixation with hell dads and boys and torture and punishment... well, I've made millions and millions of people laugh but I don't get what's funny about endless repititions of that crap that he dotes on. There's a difference between cries for help and comedy."
41** To a lesser extent Bob Camp, while he enjoyed working on the show, has similar bad memories working with Kricfalusi and executive demands, and wasn't satisfied with a lot of his directed episodes during the Games Animation seasons. He also hated ''Adult Party Cartoon'' and how it torpedoed any chance of the series getting revived (including his own attempt at pitching a ''Ren and Stimpy'' movie). And unlike John K., Camp was willing to admit that a large part of the show's problems was from the staff's brash attitudes. He also wasn't happy that Nickelodeon didn't ask him to return for the reboot.
42** William Wray, who often describes John K. as "deeply unhappy" when sharing anecdotes about him, refused to talk about the show for many years because doing so brought a lot of bad memories of his and Kricfalusi's relationship, especially since Wray allegedly took it upon himself to befriend John and help with his depression to no avail. One less-than-pleasent anecdote involved John essentially trying to teach Wray how to do his job with a painting "lesson" to get Wray to paint backgrounds exactly how he wanted him to (this despite Kricfalusi [[KnowNothingKnowItAll never having painted in his life]]). Wray initially refused to be interviewed for Thad Komorowski's book ''Literature/SickLittleMonkeys'', and even after coming around was described in the book as "tearful" when recalling the nightmare that was John K.'s firing. When K's 2019 short ''WesternAnimation/CansWithoutLabels'' (which actually ''plagiarized'' a painting of Wray's) was leaked onto Website/YouTube, Wray's critique on his Facebook page turned into a massive thread of former colleagues and other non-fans more or less confirming every single negative rumor about Kricfalusi.
43** Artist Stephen [=DeStefano=] likewise has very bad memories of working on the show.
44--->"Nah man. I don't like revisiting Ren & Stimpy too often. I already been to the Nam, I really don't wanna go back."
45** Jamie Oliff, the director at Lacewood Productions, was not happy with how his studio's episodes turned out, and actually asked John to not send them any more work. He said that the crew members had really bad attitudes and weren't as grateful as they should've been to be working on such a unique cartoon.
46** Outside of the show, and in stark contrast to many of the other Spumco staff who [[ApprovalOfGod contributed to or tipped their hat to it]], Kricfalusi absolutely abhors the unauthorized book of the show's history, ''[[Literature/SickLittleMonkeys Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren and Stimpy Story]]'', as it brought to light many unflattering anecdotes about him. He not only refused to have any part of it, he even took snipes at Komorowski on [[Blog/JohnKStuff his blog]] in the post "Fanboy Admission and Genetics", drawing a disparaging caricature of him as an acne ridden and angry, troll nosed puppet with the text and caption taking an incredibly mean-spirited snipe with the caption "Puppet Aspergers" (Thad himself [[InsultBackfire had the doodle colorized and used as his pic for a while]]). He abhorred the book so much that he would go as far as burning bridges with anyone who dared to support the book--he notably ended his 30-year friendship with animation historian Jerry Beck for posting a glowing review of the book on Blog/CartoonBrew.
47* CreatorBreakdown: According to Bill Wray, a perfect storm of losing control of the show, letting success get to his head ''and'' parting ways with layout artist and longtime girlfriend Lynne Naylor during its production directly caused John K.'s career to implode. This, combined with his alcoholism (the result of his then-undiagnosed bipolar disorder and ADHD), sent his personal and professional life into a downward spiral from which it never came back.
48-->"As far as I know what seemed to trigger the real acting out was the loss of his long time girlfriend, the rise of his power/fame and then the loss of Ren and Stimpy. This trifecta of emotional highs and lows seemed to open him up to a kind of total recklessness and plunged him into a bitter take no prisoners martyrdom. Spumco truly became the John K. House of worship, free of voices of reason. I do think he was brilliant and original visionary who was smart enough to know he needed a unique as him crew of artists and writers to make R and S great, but after he cracked, he forgot he had a great team, great timing in a low ebb in the Animation world, a great new network that believed in him and gave him the world and the love of millions of fans."
49* CreatorsFavorite: Creator/JohnKricfalusi named George Liquor as his favourite character to animate, considering him to be his most fully rounded character.
50* CreatorKiller: After Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} terminated his contract, Creator/JohnKricfalusi, having let the success of the show go to his head, went out of his way to launch a smear campaign against Games Animation and ex-Spumco staff who stayed with them, painting himself as a martyr wrongfully expunged from his own creation and painting all of his former staff members who continued to work on the show [[MadeOutToBeAJerkass as cowardly sell-outs and traitors to Spumco]].
51** Bob Camp, who likened his relationship to John as that of having an abusive father and still carries psychological scars to this day, was dogged by the stigma of having directed the less-popular Games Animation episodes of the series for years after the series ended. Per his word, Kricfalusi had personally appointed him as his successor after his firing, then stabbed him in the back by launching a smear campaign as soon as he had the chance by calling Camp [[MadeOutToBeAJerkass a sellout and backstabber to Spumco]] in the magazine "Wild Cartoon Kingdom," on [[Blog/JohnKStuff his notorious blog]] and the DVD commentaries, and the "he said/she said" nature of the story made many wary to take his side. Camp was still able to get steady work as a storyboard artist and as director on ''WesternAnimation/{{Robotboy}}'', but was very unpopular among Kricfalusi apologists (it's worth noting that Camp was not only responsible for the show, which never recovered from its budget or schedule problems despite his efforts, but for his then-newborn son and unlike Kricfalusi, never got royalties from the show, nor was he even invited to participate in the DVD box sets to give his side of the story). It took years for the general public to come around to Camp's side about John K's prima donna behavior to the point that he's seen as [[MyRealDaddy the "true" creative force of the show]] and not Kricfalusi.
52** William Wray had such a miserable experience working under John K. and was so hurt by the massive scorn the Games era R&S episodes got that he retired from animation for years and went into painting[[note]]He agreed to be on the DVDCommentary with Kricfalusi in the hopes that they could reconcile, but found out too little too late that Kricfalusi had deliberately arranged for him to comment on a few of the more rushed episodes that Wray had directed and was using the commentary tracks to corner Wray and insult him to his face.[[/note]] and has only recently began to do animation work again.
53** Many other staff members deliberately avoided talking about John K. for many years out of fear of being similarly stonewalled or blacklisted due to the clout John ending up holding over the industry due to ''Ren and Stimpy'''s popularity which lingered until he was eventually outed as a pedophile, at which point all bets were off.
54** Kricfalusi's own career never reached the heights of this show ever again and gradually crumbled into nothingness over the 25 years following his firing. He was able to coast on his near-literal cult figure status in the late 90s, having some success with [[WebAnimation/TheGoddamnGeorgeLiquorProgram web]] [[WebAnimation/WeekendPussyHunt cartoons]] and occasional gigs with [[Music/TenaciousD the alternative comedy scene]], but few were willing to work with him due to his reputation of being difficult. His [[WesternAnimation/TheRippingFriends one other attempt at an original TV show]] bombed and his second attempt at ''Ren and Stimpy'' bombed even harder. Outside of this, Spumco would only produce a handful of short subject material, such as commercials, music videos and station [=IDs=], before getting sued into bankruptcy in 2008, with John K's only other work of note being [[Blog/JohnKStuff his extremely controversial blog]]. By the time his pedophilia came to light, he barely had a career to speak of any more and what little good faith anyone had in him as an artist was permanently crushed by the failure of his crowdfunded short ''WesternAnimation/CansWithoutLabels''.
55* TheDanza: Creator/BillyWest voiced Billy the Beef Tallow Boy.
56* DescendedCreator:
57** John K. as Ren for the first two seasons.
58** Bob Camp was credited among The Players in a lot of Games Animation episodes.
59** Chris Reccardi wrote much of the show's original music. He and Jim Smith, with their band, Die Screamin’ Lederhosen, wrote and performed both the theme song and credits song. He also wrote the music for "Happy Happy Joy Joy."
60* {{Defictionalization}}:
61** The LOG toy from Blammo, which initially only existed as a parody commercial, eventually did become a real ''Ren and Stimpy'' related toy.
62** John K. noted on the DVD commentary for "Sven Höek" that there was a ''Ren and Stimpy'' fan website dedicated to the Loyal Order of Stupids, Sven and Stimpy's "club", called "Members of the Loyal Order of Stupids".
63** "Ask Dr. Stupid" became the letters column for the ''Ren and Stimpy'' comic book by Creator/MarvelComics. Just like in the TV skits, readers would send in silly questions and get equally silly answers.
64** Nickelodeon considered making a real Powdered Toast meal (an otherwise fictional recipe that Bob Camp claims was just "a stupid gag") as a tie-in to the show, but the plans were nixed due to the 2018 scandals surrounding John K.
65* DuelingDubs: In Russia, the show had two translations. There was a dub that aired on TNT in the mid-late 2000's, and a more recent VoiceoverTranslation on Paramount Comedy (the Russian equivalent of Creator/ComedyCentral).
66* DVDCommentary: A few commentaries on the DVD sets feature John Kricfalusi and Eric Bauza in character as Ren and Stimpy.
67* EditedForSyndication: When R&S was rerun on Creator/VH1 and Spike TV, there were commercial fades in the middle of a cartoon, which disrupted the action. There were also time cuts in some episodes. Sadly, these are the versions which made it onto DVD.
68* ExecutiveMeddling: Considering what ''did'' get on the air, it's no surprise that Nick at least attempted to reign it in, though not quite as badly as rumor may have one believe.
69** While the producers were on the losing end of far more content arguments than John K. insists they were (their only real complaints were the "psychodrama" plots and the violence in "Man's Best Friend"), they did insist that Ren's psychosis be toned down into more of a JerkWithAHeartOfGold and that the show have more heartfelt moments to balance out the violence and depravity. Most stories involving George Liquor were DOA, as the executives hated the character.
70** Nickelodeon's biggest issue with the show's content were George Liquor and Anthony's dad from "A Visit To Anthony", both of whom were [[WriteWhatYouKnow partially based on John K's own father]] and Nickelodeon felt that both characters were too psychotic and too close to real-life AbusiveParents.
71** As mentioned below, their biggest gripes were about how expensive and long production on each episode was, largely due to the John K.'s perfectionism and his steadfast insistence that all of the show's layouts be done stateside to achieve the level of detail he wanted in the animation. After trying and failing to get Spumco to pick up the pace, they dispatched an intern over to personally check on the progress.
72** The only real straight example of this was John K.'s firing from the series when it was clear that his relationship with Nick wasn't going to get better, at which point production moved to Nick's in-house production facility so they could better supervise and Vanessa Coffey outright forbade the staff from creating any more psychodrama episodes, pushing the later episodes in a distinctly LighterAndSofter direction. Even then, they were mostly hands-off with content.
73** After John K. was given ProtectionFromEditors on ''Adult Party Cartoon,'' many fans began to side with Nickelodeon, saying that their "meddling" was what kept the show from being so depraved that it became unfunny.
74* ExiledFromContinuity:
75** Was one of the only original Nicktoons that Nickelodeon outright stated would not receive a reboot, as the higher-ups felt that it could never be made appropriate for children again after ''Adult Party Cartoon'' (the character still occasionally appeared as playable characters in video games, such as ''Attack of the Toybots'' and ''Nicktoons MLB''). Nickelodeon removed ''any and all'' mention of ''Ren and Stimpy'' from all of their online services, save the occasional Website/YouTube video, and even pulled reruns from ''Nick Splat'' after news of John K.'s sexual abuse history broke in 2018. As of 2019, the reruns have returned, however.
76** Within material for the show itself, George Liquor was omitted from later seasons of the show, as John K. was granted the rights to the character upon his leave to use for spin-off material. Allegedly Nickelodeon were quite willing to let Liquor be taken from the show, having already limited his appearances due to disliking the abrasiveness of the character, along with the surname "Liquor". George would have reappeared as a ''Ren and Stimpy Show'' character in the ''Adult Party'' revival were it not for its cancellation.
77* FlipFlopOfGod: Creator/JohnKricfalusi seems to change his mind whenever people ask about the main duo's sexuality. He goes from saying that "it's none of his business", to saying that Ren is bisexual, to that they are canonically gay. Heck, even when he made them explicitly gay in the adult spin-off, he still beats around the bush regarding this topic. The straightest (no pun intended) response he's ever given is that they're only Gay "when it's [[RuleOfFunny funny]]."
78* FollowTheLeader: This show inspired the wacky animal GrossOutShow that would be often imitated in the 90s. ''[[WesternAnimation/TheShnookumsAndMeatFunnyCartoonShow Schnookums and Meat]], WesternAnimation/TwoStupidDogs,'' and ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'' are a few notable examples, many of which were created by former ''R&S'' staff. John K. himself gave ''Cow and Chicken'' glowing praise and provided what he called "tidbits of bad taste" for ''Dogs''.
79* GenreKiller: While MerchandiseDriven cartoons continued to be produced for most of the nineties, just about everyone not called ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' flopped after this show proved that creator-driven cartoons could sell just as well, if not better. It wouldn't be until the success of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' that networks would take more chances on toy-driven or IP-based cartoons again, for better or worse.
80* GenrePopularizer: Though not the first creator-driven animated series, its success officially turned it into the new standard for TV animation for 20+ years.
81* GodDoesNotOwnThisWorld: Bob Camp, Chris Reccardi, Bill Wray and other Spumco-ites from the first two seasons chose to stay with Nickelodeon and the show after Kricfalusi was fired. Unlike most examples, Kricfalusi later got [[WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpyAdultPartyCartoon a second chance with the characters]].
82* HostilityOnTheSet: It's no secret that John Kricfalusi made working on the show a blessing and a curse. When he wasn't holed up in his office to avoid confrontation and leaving others to the heavy lifting on his cartoons for him, he was an outright terror of a director to work for.
83** Many of the artists working on the show noted how his directions were not only hostile but often vague, with Kricfalusi often frequently ripping up artists' drawings for no better reason than it wasn't exactly what he saw in his head and forbidding them from ever deviating from the layouts. When he tore up one background because he didn't like the bright colors, calling it "fucking candy cane lane," several artists decorated the studio with a sign that read "Candy Cane Lane" and drawings of Ren and Stimpy with candy canes up one another's butts as a form of passive-aggressive protest.
84** He pushed Creator/BillyWest to his limits and beyond, with West even getting damage to his vocal cords from the grueling recording sessions, and would often give vague directions like "You're 98% there." West could also not be swayed by bullying (he had grown up with an abusive father), which drove Kricfalusi madder than he would already be.
85** Worst of all was John's complete lack of professionalism and willingness to make his baggage other people's problems, such as firing storyboard artist Chris Reccardi solely for dating John's ex-girlfriend Lynne Naylor (Reccardi and Naylor married two years after John was fired and [[HappilyMarried remained together]] until Reccardi's fatal heart attack in May 2019, proving what little good this did). Kricfalusi also rewarded Bob Jacques for his hard work on "Sven Höek" by [[UngratefulBastard spending hours chewing him out over the phone for how "Disney like" the cartoon looked, and only began praising the cartoon when it became a fan favorite episode.]] And when ''Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksman'' initially only credited Reccardi for directing after John was fired from the show, John was so enraged that he threatened to sue Nickelodeon for millions if he wasn't properly credited on the film (Nick relented and put his name on the credits). The day that most of the crew moved into Games Animation, he personally followed members around and verbally abused them to their faces.
86** Relations between John K and everyone else on staff during the first two seasons eventually became so unbearable that Bob Camp would invite staff members into his office to [[PunchAWall kick the wall]] (with a sign over it reading "John's Knees") to get aggression out. By the end of Kricfalusi's run on the show, the wall had been reduced to a massive hole.
87* InspirationForTheWork: John K. came up with the series through separate circumstances; Ren came about from a 1940s postcard with a picture of a chihuahua in a sweater, while Stimpy was inspired by the big-nosed cats from Creator/BobClampett's short ''WesternAnimation/AGruesomeTwosome''. A friend suggested to him that he pair the two together and the rest is history.
88* KeepCirculatingTheTapes:
89** Due to the scandals surrounding John K's sexually predatory behavior, Nickelodeon removed everything ''Ren and Stimpy'' related from ''Nick Splat'' and all of their online streaming services until 2019, and it seems extremely unlikely that the series will ever get another home video rerelease in the present future.
90** The short "Chicken in a Drawer", which was absent from the second DVD set for some reason. A large number of episodes on all the DVD sets of the original series featured cuts, ranging from only a few seconds to a minute in some instances. This was due to Nickelodeon tampering with footage from the negatives after Kricfalusi's firing for the reruns of them. Although he got the episodes as close to the originals as he could for the sets, he couldn't get all of the original footage back. This is also due to the fact that the footage used comes from airings on Spike TV, MTV and [=VH1=] which cut even more scenes to make room for commercials as evidence by the seemingly random commercial fade-ins/outs.
91** While the Creator/ParamountPlus prints of the series lack many of the edits from the [=DVDs=], they’re still missing a good chunk of the series.
92** The Creator/MarvelComics series is this in its entirety. The main culprit would probably be the fact that Creator/{{Disney}} had bought Marvel years after their publication, while the ''Ren & Stimpy'' franchise is owned by Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}, and they're essentially Disney's competitors, which probably makes a reprint of any sort difficult, if not impossible. Not helping matters is that issue #6 has ComicBook/SpiderMan as a main character. With the John K. scandal hurting the ''Ren & Stimpy'' brand as a whole, it likely only further hurt a potential reprint's (already low) chances.
93** The original full version of ''Stimpy’s Cartoon Show'' hasn’t been aired or released since its initial premiere on SNICK. Several scenes have been removed (such as Ren and Stimpy editing the film with a bicycle pedal) and various scenes were rearranged with a different sound mixing.
94* KidsMealToy: In Fall 1994, Hardee's released a set of eight race cars based on this series, ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}} (1991)'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'', with each franchise having two characters. The toys based on this series depicted Ren and Stimpy on rockets.
95* MagnumOpusDissonance: A weird case of this being an episode that was never created. "Life Sucks" was an unproduced episode where Ren tries to convince Stimpy about how much life sucks by showing him all the horrible things in history like the Children's Crusade. Many Spümcø employees considered this the best Ren and Stimpy episode ever written but fans who have seen the animatic are just completely baffled by its existence, Seeing it as pointlessly cruel. The fact the episode was planned to be made for ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpyAdultPartyCartoon'' season but that was abandoned has not helped the episode's reputation.
96* MissingEpisode: While all episodes are now on DVD, a few episodes from the Games era were banned after one or two broadcasts. "Man's Best Friend" also went unaired for years, until finally airing once on Spike TV in 2003. Allegedly, the censors objected to Ren repeatedly hitting George Liquor with a boating oar. It can now be seen on the Seasons 1 & 2 DVD set (and formerly Netflix under the Adult Party Cartoon series). Clips of it also appeared on [=NickSplat=]'s [=YouTube=] page.
97** Roughly 1/3 of the series rarely, if ever airs on syndication from any of the 3 networks due to either being banned or otherwise unknown reasons.
98** A number of episodes are also absent from Creator/ParamountPlus, although Bob Camp has confirmed that in this case it's due to [[ScrewedByTheLawyers music licensing issues]].
99* NoExportForYou: In a very strange case, the complete series got a standard definition Blu-ray release in Germany, but not the U.S. Strange for two reasons: One, the German release contains the English audio, and two, this was years before the Kricfalusi scandal or the ''Happy Happy Joy Joy'' documentary.
100* NonSingingVoice: When Games Animation took over production, Billy West provided Ren's speaking (and laughing) voice, while Bob Camp would provide Ren's singing voice (most notably in the "Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen" anthem.)
101* OnlyBarelyRenewed: The series was originally not going to air past its first season due to scheduling issues but because to the popularity of "Stimpy's Invention" and the song "Happy Happy Joy Joy", Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} renewed the show for a second season.
102* TheOtherDarrin:
103** Creator/BillyWest was both this trope ''and'' TheOriginalDarrin, as he was originally cast as both leads when the show was being pitched before John Kricfalusi changed his mind and decided to do Ren instead (although Billy West generally would provide Ren's signature maniacal laughter). West took over the role of Ren, as well as Mr. Horse and Mrs. Buttloaves following Kricfalusi's termination. West also recorded lines for season 2 episodes which began production at Spumco but finished at Games and, therefore, Kricfalusi was unable to finish himself.
104** Gary Owens replaced Darrin J. Sargent as the voice of Powdered Toast Man after the first PTM bumper. In Powdered Toast Man's final appearance, "Dinner Party", he was instead voiced by Creator/BillyWest.
105** Harris Peet originally voiced George Liquor in "The Boy Who Cried Rat" (in the short scene of George chasing Ren and Stimpy away from his trash) before being replaced by Michael Pataki.
106** In "Hard Times For Haggis", Haggis' butler Marvin was voiced by Creator/StanFreberg. Billy West took over as Marvin's voice in his next appearance, "A Hard Day's Luck".
107* RealitySubtext:
108** ''Ren and Stimpy'' premiered at the tail end of the AIDS crisis, and a big part of its controversy was American parents not only finding the show disgusting but fearing the ramifications of children laughing at bodily fluids at a time when most of the country was outwardly afraid of them.
109** It's no accident that many episodes are centered around Ren's mental instability, considering its come to light that John K has suffered from bipolar disorder and ADHD (which he self-medicated with alcohol) that went undiagnosed for years.
110** Any episodes which feature hardass fathers were described by Bob Camp and Billy West as "a primal scream" against John K.'s own hypermasculine, disciplinary father and the rough childhood he put him through.
111** "Reverend Jack Cheese" is basically the Games Animation crew telling the audience what it was like working under John K in the first two seasons.
112* RoleEndingMisdemeanor: There are a couple of conflicting accounts as to why Creator/JohnKricfalusi was fired from the show, but both of them fall under this trope. According to Kricfalusi himself, he was dropped due to his refusal to censor "Man's Best Friend", which featured scatological humor, brief cursing, and above all else, a lengthy sequence where Ren beats George Liquor with an oar. According to everyone else, his dismissal was the result of Kricfalusi's tendency to significantly delay the production of numerous episodes, which came to a head during the second season when he sent Nickelodeon executive Linda Simensky a StronglyWordedLetter saying that his episodes would "cost what they cost and take as long as they need"; Nickelodeon promptly terminated his contract as a result.
113* SameContentDifferentRating:
114** When America adopted the TV rating system in the late 1990s (when ''Ren and Stimpy'' reruns were more or less still going), the show was rated TV-Y7 for comedic violence and scenes considered too gross or scary for children under 7 (there was even an announcer who prefaced the show with this warning, only the comedic violence was called "silly slapping"). Years later, with the short-lived ''Adult Party Cartoon'' series and ramped-up concerns over content, you have MoralGuardians like Common Sense Media branding this series as suitable for '''ages 12 and up''', and the UK's [=DVD=]s have rated this a 12 (not suitable for children under 12) for the same reason it was rated a TV-Y7 -- and this was ''after'' they edited an episode to remove a Western song about the joys of hanging yourself ("The Lord Loves a Hangin'"). The American DVD releases are not rated but have a parental warning on the set saying the series has "explicit content" (!) and is for mature audiences only.
115** On Spike TV, reruns were rated TV-PG, likely due to some of the censored content being restored. However, reruns on [=NickSplat=] were rated TV-G for unknown reasons.
116* ScheduleSlip: The main reason Spumco and John K were fired from the show. From the very beginning, episodes weren't being completed in time thanks to Kricfalusi's perfectionism, forcing Nick to re-air the first episode "Stimpy's Big Day/The Big Shot" in the time slot designated for the second episode. "Black Hole/Stimpy's Invention" was delayed ''a full year'' before finally airing in in February of 1992 (and [[AnimationBump it shows]]). Not only did it kill any chance of syndication, it wasted a lot of the station's money from advertisers. Several of the Spumco artists were forced to do work on ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' just to stay on Nick's payroll, if they weren't being paid out of Kricfalusi's pocket. Season 2 improved only marginally and Kricfalusi's bad attitude did nothing to convince Nick that it was worth their time and money to keep letting this happen. When Kricfalusi outright bit the hand that fed him by sending Nickelodeon a StronglyWordedLetter saying "Spumco episodes will cost what they cost and take as long as they need," Nickelodeon finally got fed up and fired him. Even after the move to Games, the staff couldn't catch up fast enough to prevent further delays.
117* ScrewedByTheLawyers:
118** Nickelodeon intended to reanimate and recut "Man's Best Friend" to remove some of the more offensive material and make it suitable for their broadcast standards. The new animation was nearly finished by the time they found out that John K. still owned the rights to the George Liquor character, meaning that even if they wanted to, Nick couldn't air the episode without his permission.
119** Around 1/3 of the show was removed from circulation in the early 2010s due to the license to show Raymond Scott music expiring; this extends to the Creator/ParamountPlus streams. Some of these episodes aired for the first time in years on Creator/NickRewind.
120* ShortLivedBigImpact: At 5 seasons and a spin off (the last two of which and the spin off are barely talked about nowadays) this show did not last so long as the two other shows in the original Nicktoons line up, WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}} and WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}, which continued in some form or another for the better part of a decade. And yet, ''R&S'' is among one of the most influential cartoon shows of the last twenty years, spawning dozens of imitators and being the {{Trope Maker|s}} for the GrossoutShow genre.
121* ShrugOfGod: Creator/JohnKricfalusi answered the question of whether Ren and Stimpy were gay with "I don't know, it's none of my business".
122** Of course, then ''Adult Party Cartoon'' made them out-and-out gay, but most people exposed to that show throw it out of continuity...
123** On the ''Adult Party Cartoon'' DVD, John K. states that Ren and Stimpy's sexuality varies from episode to episode. The show ran on NegativeContinuity from day one.
124* StarMakingRole: For Creator/BillyWest, alongside fellow Nicktoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}''.
125* ThrowItIn: The scene in "Stimpy's Breakfast Tips" where Stimpy inexplicably has BlackBeadEyes just for one shot was an animation mistake by Fil-Cartoons--the scene was supposed to have Stimpy's eyes over them and the cork eyes were left in as a joke since they would've been covered up by the eye drawings, but that bit of animation inexplicably got thrown out by them. Spumco had the option of doing a retake for it, but John K. [[ActuallyPrettyFunny was so amused by the error]] ("That's weird shit even ''we'' would never come up with.") that he decided to just leave it in as is.
126* TieInCereal: ''Ren & Stimpy'' had Powdered Toastman Cereal, which is essentially a version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
127* TwoVoicesOneCharacter:
128** While Creator/JohnKricfalusi provided Ren's voice in the first two seasons, Creator/BillyWest would provide Ren's insane laughter. Certain episodes in production at the time of Kricfalusi's firing will have him providing the majority of Ren's lines, but West providing odd lines (as in "A Visit To Anthony").
129** A number of Games episodes had Nickelodeon censors [[ExecutiveMeddling demanding last-minute changes]] to odd lines of dialogue. Because West was unavailable to [[LoopingLines provide ADR]] for these lines, show artists would redub Ren and/or Stimpy instead. This include "Here's your pasta, '''big shot!'' (From "Ol' Blue Nose"), "My first grownup possession" (from "I Was a Teenage Stimpy") and changing all references to "immigrants" to "new Americans" in "Travelogue".
130* UncreditedRole: Season 1's "Black Hole" and Season 5's "Dinner Party" have no director credits. John K. said that the former doesn't have one because "there just isn't".
131* UnfinishedEpisode:
132** Prior to Creator/JohnKricfalusi's firing, several more episodes had been scripted for Season Three by Spumco's staff. Some were produced into episodes of the Games Animation seasons and the Adult Party revival, though often retooled to some degree. In addition, at least nine episodes were scheduled for ''Adult Party'', however Kricfalusi's ''second'' firing led to its cancellation after only six episodes. Among the three planned episode, "Life Sucks" had already been storyboarded and its dialogue recorded.
133** There was an episode planned that was meant to star George Liquor, but it quickly got shot down by Nickelodeon, which prompted the staff to [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants improvise the episode "Fire Dogs" in an afternoon.]]
134* WagTheDirector: "Reverend Jack Cheese" was directed by Craig Bartlett, though he admitted that he mostly was just there to see it through to completion and had no vested interest in the storyline, nor did he understand all the in-jokes about John K. (as he had come in later in the show's production). Thus, it could be argued that the ''real'' directors of the short were the writers, who had been with the show from the beginning.
135* WordOfGay: John K's confirmation on whether Ren and Stimpy are a gay couple is a bit flip-flopped. Answers from John K. range from "It's none of my business" to "Only when/if it's funny" to "Both of them are desperate and/or bisexual." He ''finally'' confirmed their status as a gay couple in an article back in 1997 (which can be seen [[http://www.angelfire.com/wi/RenStimpy2000/SFKircIntv.html right here]]), and they are quite clearly portrayed as a couple in ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpyAdultPartyCartoon.''
136* WorkingTitle
137** The show was originally called ''Ren Höek and Stimpy''.
138** "The Last Temptation" was originally going to be called "The Last Temptation of Ren."
139* WriterRevolt
140** John K. unfavorably compared Games Animation taking over the production of the show to giving "an unedited cartoon to the milkman and have him finish it for ya." In response, the Games logo for the show (designed by Mike Kim) depicted Stimpy dressed as a milkman.
141** Ren in "Stimpy's Cartoon Show" and the character of Rev. Jack Cheese were both unflattering caricatures of John K.'s dictatorial habits by the Games staff. Notice that both of the characters wear horn-rimmed glasses (as Kricfalusi does). Interestingly, despite the common belief that "Stimpy's Cartoon Show" was done without Kricfalusi's knowledge, he was actually involved in the initial writing and while he was aware of the comparison, and was even okay with it, he did feel like Games bungled the "Artists vs Executive" message of the episode by changing Stimpy from an executive to a producer (to further emphasize the comparison to Kricfalusi), though he admits at the same time it was probably for the best to keep the ''actual'' executives off their backs.
142* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: The episode "Fire Dogs" was improvised in an afternoon to fill in for a rejected George Liquor-centered episode.
143* WriteWhatYouKnow: The gag of Rev. Jack Cheese putting cold cuts on Ren and Stimpy's heads came from a staff party where a very drunk Bob Camp put cold cuts on an equally drunk Kricfalusi's head. The characters' incantations ("This is perfectly good lunch meat," "I'm sure you want to waste it," "What are ya?") were Kricfalusi's bemused reaction.
144* WriteWhoYouKnow:
145** Most of the father characters, including George Liquor and Anthony's Dad, were based on Kricfalusi's own father. [[DaddyIssues Make of what what you will]].
146** Ren & Stimpy's relationship was based on John K. and his then-girlfriend Lynn Naylor. She was also apparently the basis for Stimpy as a whole.
147** The fire chief in "Fire Dogs" and the InNameOnly sequel "Fire Dogs 2" is based on Creator/RalphBakshi, whom Kricfalusi worked under for ''WesternAnimation/MightyMouse: The New Adventures''.
148** Rev. Jack Cheese, as mentioned above, is the Games Animation staff's interpretation of John K. himself.
149* WrittenByCastMember: Many of the early episodes were written by John K., who initially played Ren. Later, "Ol' Blue Nose" was partially written by Billy West, who at the time voiced both Ren and Stimpy.

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