Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"

The original Ren & Stimpy Show premiered alongside Rugrats and Doug as one of the original Nicktoons on children's network Nickelodeon in 1991. The show's creator, John Kricfalusi, had many altercations with the network,^[3][4] eventually culminating in his termination.^[5] In 2002, about a decade after Kricfalusi's termination, Viacom (which owns Nickelodeon) contacted him to produce a new version of his series for an updated version of TNN, Spike TV, which was devoted to programming for male audiences. Kricfalusi said that TNN wanted an "extreme" version of The Ren & Stimpy Show.^[6] TNN gave Kricfalusi greater control of the writing and contents of the episodes, and he produced six new episodes aimed at adult audiences.^[7] As in the original series, Kricfalusi ran into problems with meeting production deadlines and budgetary limits, with only three out of the nine episodes ordered by the network being completed on time^[8] at the cost of the entire nine-episode budget initially allocated by Spike.

Several artists from the original series, such as Jim Smith, Vincent Waller, Eddie Fitzgerald and Richard Pursel, returned to work on the new episodes, as did animation studio Carbunkle Cartoons, which had provided animation services on several notable episodes of the original series (among them "Stimpy's Invention" and "Son of Stimpy"); Ren & Stimpy alumni who had joined Games Animation in the wake of Kricfalusi's 1992 firing, most notably series co-creator Bob Camp, had become estranged from Kricfalusi and thus were not involved with the revival. Some of the original voice cast members returned, with the exception of Billy West, original voice of Stimpy and second voice of Ren and Mr. Horse, who turned down several offers to reprise his role as Stimpy as he did not consider the series to be funny and felt that participating in it would damage his career.^[9] Eric Bauza was hired to replace West as Stimpy, while Kricfalusi reprised his roles as Ren and Mr. Horse. Cast members Harris Peet and Cheryl Chase also returned, and Kricfalusi's father Mike Kricfalusi and long-time childhood friend Tom Hay provided some voices.

The new series began airing in June 2003 as part of an animation block also featuring Gary the Rat, Stripperella,^[10] and digitally remastered episodes of the original Ren & Stimpy series, subtitled "Digitally Remastered Classics". Kricfalusi wrote the first episode, "Onward and Upward", based on requests from fans from the Nickelodeon era.^[7] The episode portrayed the characters as bisexual. Advertisers objected to some of the new show's content, particularly that of the risqué episode "Naked Beach Frenzy", which did not air in the show's original run, causing trouble with scheduling. The show stopped airing after three episodes when TNN's animation block was "put on hold".^[11]

The remaining episodes were set to resume in August 2004 along with the premiere of Spike's new animated series Immigrants but both shows were pulled and never aired again.^[12]

Kricfalusi shut down Spümcø shortly on July 18, 2005, thereafter following a lawsuit filed by Carbunkle Cartoons for failing to pay the animation studio for their services. In 2005, he announced that all of the Adult Party Cartoon episodes that were fully produced were coming to DVD, which was released on July 18, 2006.^[13]

All episodes of the series were directed by series creator John Kricfalusi, credited as "John K." for the first five episodes and "M. John Kricfalusi" for the final episode.

A scrapped episode called "Life Sucks" was going to be on the DVD, but it was never produced on time. Only the first half was finished, while the other two acts weren't. In the episode Ren explains to Stimpy that life sucks, much to Stimpy's horror. After that, they have an extensive look at life's past tragedies like the Children's Crusade. According to John Kricfalusi, this was going to be the prequel episode to "Ren Seeks Help". This was the cause of Ren and Stimpy's argument, as it is never stated in "Ren Seeks Help" what Ren had done exactly. Production had begun on this episode, with some voice work and roughly a third of the storyboard completed at the time of the show's cancellation. This episode was also originally written for Nickelodeon.^[14][15]

The episode "Man's Best Friend" was originally set to air in the original series' second season, but the episode was rejected by Nickelodeon due to disturbing violence, a brief joke about feces and references to tobacco.^[16] The episode did not air on television until 2003.^{[citation needed]}

Unlike its predecessor, "Adult Party Cartoon" was universally panned by critics and audiences, as well as fans of the original series.^[17][18] Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described it as "just plain gross. ... They don't pay me enough to watch cartoon characters eating snot."^[19] Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times criticized the show as "'adult' only in the sense that you wouldn’t want kids watching them."^[20] Tucson Weekly and Exclaim! both labeled it "disastrous".^[21][22] DVD Talk praised the show's animation, "but the weak stories epitomize empty, heavy-handed shock value."^[23] Matt Schimkowitz of Splitsider opined that the show's intended audience was "the 16-year-olds who grew up on the [original] show and are ready to handle such hilarious topics as spousal abuse and eating boogers."^[24]

PopMatters, however, was more favorable, writing: "With snot as side dishes and vomit as gravy, the foulness is overwhelming, yet also clever. Kricfalusi's satire may be obvious, but he's not just making puke jokes for nausea's sake."^[25]

Comic Book Resources, in 2018, called it "perhaps the most hated animated reboot ever."^[26]

• "Man's Best Friend" (The Ren & Stimpy Show)
• Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren and Stimpy Story – the 2020 documentary film

 

Wikiquote has quotations related to Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon".

• Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" at IMDb