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“Ren & Stimpy” Missing From Nicktoons Reboot?!
No happy, happy, joy, joy…
We’ve written about the gruesome, disgusting delight of Nickelodeon’s “The Ren & Stimpy Show” on many occasions.
John Kricfalusi’s creation, which also featured Billy West‘s voice as Ren Höek and Stimpson J. “Stimpy” Cat, aired from 1991-1993 before getting a short-lived revival series in 2003 called “Ren & Stimpy: Adult Part Cartoon”. The latter, allegedly, is the reason Paramount will never revisit these two horrific but lovable characters ever again.
While speaking directly to ScreenGeek at Wizard World Cleveland, co-creator Bob Camp gave some insight on what exactly is going on with the characters:
“They’re rebooting the Nicktoons without Ren and Stimpy. We actually pitched a Ren and Stimpy movie to Paramount, they wanted nothing to do with it. [Adult Party Cartoon] poisoned the well. I think it really left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. I had nothing to do with that one. And now, someone [at Paramount] doesn’t want anything to do with Ren and Stimpy.”
When asked if he’d be interested in bringing the characters back, Camp said:
“I’m always interested – but no one else seems to be.”
Ren & Stimpy was challenging television for the early 90’s, pushing the boundaries alongside another Paramount-owned property, MTV’s “Beavis & Butt-Head”. It was THE show that changed Nickelodeon’s demographic, skewing to an older crowd that ate up shows like “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” and “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”. It’s one of the shows that put them on the map, which makes this news incredibly disheartening. You’d have to assume that the executive in charge of making these decisions would be of the age who grew up on the show, so you have to wonder if there’s some sort of strange vendetta against the show’s creators that’s keeping them from partaking in this new adventure? Kricfalusi was fired from “Ren & Stimpy” early in the show’s success, so who knows?
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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