The Ren and Stimpy Show/Trivia


 * Author Existence Failure: Not death-related, but many scripts and concepts that John K. pitched to Nick before Spumco was fired were later finished or adapted by the Games crew. Among the episodes fully realized at Games include: "A Yard Too Far" (John K. pitched this as a remake of the Yogi Bear cartoon "Pie Pirates"), "Magical Golden Singing Cheeses" (it was originally meant to be a Stimpy's Storybook Land outing), "Stimpy's Cartoon Show" (Wilbur Cobb was originally visually different than how he turned out, among other changes), and "Ren's Brain".
 * Creator Backlash: John is actually pretty critical of the original show, and he warns his fans not to study his cartoons--"For everything we did right, there were a ton of mistakes."
 * He also hated "Nurse Stimpy" and "Fire Dogs II". The former for all the cuts Nickelodeon wanted and many artistic failings, the latter for its deplorable timing and sluggish pacing, although he admitted it had good characterization.
 * John K dislikes many of the Adult Party Cartoon episodes, both due to the adult content he was asked to include but didn't really want to and their slow pacing.
 * Billy West absolutely refuses to work with John Kricfalusi ever again because he claimed that John was an asshole. At one point on his website he even separated Ren and Stimpy fans from human beings.
 * Executive Meddling: Nickelodeon messed about with this show extensively; when John K. complained, they fired him.
 * John K's firing is a controversial topic subject to much debate. Some comments from Billy West and Bill Wray seem to lean towards the idea that repeated Schedule Slips did John in.
 * God Does Not Own This World: Probably one of the most Shakespearean and operatic instances of this trope, since 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.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Ren (in seasons 3-5, as well as a couple episodes during season 2) and Stimpy are both played by a delivery boy who ended up in the year 3000.
 * Haggis McHaggis, quite fittingly, is Scrooge McDuck.
 * Frank Zappa voiced the pope on one episode. He was also the original Powdered Toast Man, later passing that role down to Gary Owens.
 * Gilbert Gottfried as Jerry The Bellybutton Elf.
 * Ren and Stimpy's Mexican actors are Shrek and Buzz Lightyear.
 * As for Spain, Stimpy is Squidward.
 * In Germany, they're Spongebob SquarePants and Johnny Bravo.
 * They're also Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Ted Schmidt and Emmett Honeycutt, Hitoshi Shinkai and Heiji Hattori, Makabe and Hatomura, Vegeta (first voice) and Zarbon, Wakko Warner and Jerry Seinfeld, and Danny and Flanigan.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: The short "Chicken in a Drawer", which was absent from the second DVD set, likely due to using time-compressed Spike TV masters. Speaking of Spike TV masters, 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.
 * The Other Darrin: Billy West replaced John Kricfalusi as Ren when Spumco was fired. West also took over as the voice of Mr. Horse and Mrs. Buttloaves.
 * Gary Owens replaced Darrin J. Sargent as the voice of Powdered Toast Man after the first PTM bumper.
 * Eric Bauza replaced Billy West as Stimpy in "Adult Party Cartoon".
 * Harris Peet originally voiced George Liquor in "The Boy Who Cried Rat" before being replaced by Michael Pataki.
 * Schedule Slip: Often cited as one of many causes of Kricfalusi's firing, while others claim that it was a smokescreen to get rid of him to placate offended advertisers. However, it did eventually get to the point where The Simpsons was making jokes about it.
 * Shrug of God/Flip-Flop of God: On Ren and Stimpy's sexuality.
 * Talking to Himself: Both main characters were voiced by Billy West after John Kricfalusi, Ren's original voice actor, was fired.
 * Uncanceled: If it counts, "Adult Party Cartoon".
 * What Could Have Been: Obviously, if John K. and his team hadn't been fired. Word is that season 3, had Spumco been kept on, would've mixed in more dramatic outings (similar to "Stimpy's Fan Club" and "Son of Stimpy") with the comedic shorts. Given how good they got at visual acting towards the end of their work on R&S, that would've been interesting to see.
 * Episodes like "A Visit to Anthony", "Fake Dad" and the aforementioned "Stimpy's Fan Club" were only partially finished when Spumco was fired and were mostly completed by Games. How much better these episodes would have turned out if John K. had been able to finish them is unknown.
 * Word of Gay: A bit odd here. After the original show went off the air, Kricalfusi was asked whether or not Ren and Stimpy were actually gay or not. He said "when it's funny."
 * Actually, he has outed Ren and Stimpy as homosexual in a magazine interview released in 1997.
 * In Ren's case he's either bisexual or just desperate.