Why The Original Creator Of The Ren & Stimpy Show Was Fired From His Own Series

It should be stated right away that back in 2018 John Kricfalusi — a.k.a. John K., the creator of "The Ren & Stimpy Show" — was accused by two of his former employees of sexual grooming. When they were teenagers in the 1990s, John K. hired them at his animation studio Spümcø, having already engaged in inappropriate sexual chatter with them. The statute of limitations had expired on Kricfalusi's crimes, so he was never arrested, but he has stepped out of the public eye ever since. "The Ren & Stimpy Show," as was reported back in 2020, was once gearing up to be rebooted, only this time without any of Kricfalusi's input, and without him receiving any revenue. The reboot has yet to happen.

Of course, the reason why Nickelodeon wants to reboot "The Ren & Stimpy Show" is because of how overwhelmingly influential it was. John K., inspired by the works of madcap animator Bob Clampett, came up through the animation industry of the 1980s, which he found was a very cynical time. The industry, he has said, was obsessed with what they called "marquee value" (what we would call "I.P." these days), and would only greenlight a show if it had a recognizable character or potential toy product involved. John K., sick of that thinking, pushed to create a semi-surrealist comedy series about a chihuahua named Ren (Kricfalusi, doing a Peter Lorre impersonation) and a dumb cat named Stimpy (Billy West, doing a Larry Fine impersonation). This was going to be comedy-forward, and dispense with obnoxious '80s ideas of "cool." It was also — and this was the coup for the animation industry — creator-forward. It wasn't about I.P. It was about the artist. 

John K. worked on "Ren & Stimpy" until 1992, when he was abruptly fired from his own show. The story was covered by the Los Angeles Times, which stated that, despite his artistic ambitions, Kricfalusi simply couldn't meet deadlines. 

To further explain the importance of "The Ren & Stimpy Show": Debuting in 1991, John K.'s series was wild, violent, edgy, and a little sick. Ren was caustic and wrathful, while the dimwitted Stimpy coughed up hairballs and had conversations with farts and boogers. The series didn't adhere to the static limited animation of most TV shows, preferring to animate its lead animals with thousands of expressions and bodily movements. It employed cutaways to complex — and revolting — paintings of the characters, and made use of 1960s commercial music, giving the show a tone of retro-kitsch. It didn't hold back. When Ren went insane, he really went insane, eating bars of soap and slapping Stimpy to within an inch of his life. 

Episodes first began screening at animation festivals, and buzz started in earnest. MTV showed some in special time slots. Eventually, Nickelodeon picked it up as a series, and the rest is history. 

"The Ren & Stimpy Show" was unique among its peers, and it received a great deal of media attention for how striking and strange and off-putting, and yet how aggressively funny it was. The world was definitely ready for a kooky series like it, and it became a hit. John K. had struck a nerve. Not only was the show celebrated, but it proved to the industry that trite, commercial efforts were a thing of the past, and that weird, outsider creatives were now the source of their hits. Within a few years, the industry had pivoted to allow in more creativity and quality. 

Of course, John K. proved to be a capricious creator. He thought of himself as a rebel, and frequently butted heads with the higher-ups at Nickelodeon. Kricfalusi has spoken at screenings and live events about his days on "The Ren & Stimpy Show," and he said that the execs hated a lot of his work. They hated one of his supporting character, George Liquor, and hated his angry calls about artistic details like coloring, editing, and pacing. The relationship was never warm. 

When John K. couldn't meet deadline, per the Los Angeles Times, he was fired from his show. It was taking him months to complete episodes that should have been finished in weeks, and he didn't much care. This, of course, was an issue for Nickelodeon, who needed to fill their allotted schedule. Indeed, they had already reduced Kricfalusi's original work slate from 26 episodes down to 13. Even then, he was missing deadlines. In the Times, an unnamed Nickelodeon exec was quoted as saying:

"The main problem has been with production. [...] We aren't getting new episodes. So it isn't even a content problem. We are a network. We have a big audience for this show. And we need to get episodes on the air."

Pretty simple, really. When Kricfalusi was fired, he was replaced with his partner, Bob Camp, who oversaw the bulk of the series. One can see a shift in the aesthetic when Camp took over. While the series remained assertively gross, there was an element of anarchy missing. John K. wanted things to be fast and loose. Bob Camp was better about actually getting the show made. Vincent Waller, one of the star animators on "Ren & Stimpy" has gone on to work on "SpongeBob SquarePants," and one can see the parallels. SpongeBob would not exist without "Ren & Stimpy."

John K. revived "Ren & Stimpy" in 2003, this time under the banner of the adult-oriented Spike TV. The new series, billed as "Ren & Stimpy 'Adult Party Cartoon,'" featured on-screen bodily fluids, live pooping, animated nudity, and sex. Ren and Stimpy weren't mere animals buddies, but lovers. It's a wild show, but may take a strong stomach. 

Then, in 2018, John K.'s sexual crimes were revealed, and his career abruptly stopped. "The Ren & Stimpy Show" was hugely influential, and changed the course of animation forever. It's a pity that it was created by a creep.