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?
