Stimpy's Cartoon Show
| "Stimpy's Cartoon Show" | |
|---|---|
| The Ren & Stimpy Show episode | |
| File:Ren & Stimpy Stimpy's Cartoon Show title card.webp | |
| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 7 |
| Directed by | Bob Camp |
| Story by | Elinor Blake (uncredited) John Kricfalusi |
| Production code | RS-303 |
| Original air date | January 8, 1994 |
| Guest appearance | |
| Jack Carter as Wilbur Cobb | |
"Stimpy's Cartoon Show" is the seventh episode of the third season of The Ren & Stimpy Show. It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on January 8, 1994.
Plot
Stimpy decides to work as a cartoonist inspired by his hero Wilbur Cobb, a prominent Walt Disney-like cartoonist during the "golden age" of American animation that ran from the 1920s to the 1960s. Ren tells Stimpy he is wasting his time, and then tearfully admits that he is jealous of Stimpy because he cannot draw. Stimpy tells Ren he can work as his producer to console him. As the producer of Höek Productions, Ren behaves abusively towards Stimpy while spending all of his free time next to a pool surrounded by adoring young women in bikinis. Finally, Ren and Stimpy meet Cobb in an attempt to have him fund their project. The elderly Cobb is senile and in bad health and has much difficulty in paying attention. Cobb loves Stimpy's cartoon I Like Pink when he is finally persuaded to view it. Cobb tells Ren and Stimpy that if they continue on their current path, they will end up where he is – which is revealed to be a prison.
Cast
- Billy West – voice of Ren and Stimpy
- Jack Carter – voice of Wilbur Cobb
Production
The episode had its origins in 1992, when showrunner, John Kricfalusi, developed an idea for an story where Ren works as a producer constantly out of touch with the animators as a parody of Nickelodeon network executives whom he constantly fought with.[1] The executives were displeasured with this idea, and Kricfalusi received a memo vetoing the episode that read: "You thought we had a sense of humor about ourselves – we don't."[1] However, the network still decided to buy the rights to the story despite vetoing it after Kricfalusi insisted that it was not about the network executives.[1] On September 21, 1992, Kricfalusi was fired from the series and Spümcø lost the contract for The Ren & Stimpy Show, to be replaced with the newly founded Games Animation studio. Nickelodeon reworked Kricfalusi's script into "Stimpy's Cartoon Show".[2] Bob Camp, the head of the Games Animation who once had been a leading animator with the Spümcø studio, stated in 1993 that, unlike Kricfalusi – whose ideas were often censored –, 95% of the material in the Games Animation scripts was not being censored.[3] As a part of an effort to improve ratings in light of the immense controversy that Kricfalusi's sacking had caused, Camp recruited as a recurring guest star the comedian Jack Carter to provide the voice of Wilbur Cobb, a character first introduced in "Stimpy's Cartoon Show".[3] Camp described "Stimpy's Cartoon Show" as the story of a producer who does nothing but take all the credit for the work of others.[3] Many of the characteristics that Ren has a producer were those often ascribed to Kricfalusi.[2] The script for "Stimpy's Cartoon Show" was written by Elinor Blake, Kricfalusi's girlfriend who would later be notable as a musician in her own right, and she in turn had based her script on Kricfalusi's vetoed story of 1992.[4] Kricfalusi was credited as a co-writer of the episode. Everyone credited on the episode's title card had their names badly rewritten to resemble a child's poor attempt of writing, including "John Krisfaloosy".[2] On May 18, 1993, just before the premiere of "The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen", Kricfalusi sued over the inclusion of Chris Reccardi as co-director in the credits.[5] In the same lawsuit, Kricfalusi asked the credit "Created by John K." be removed from future episodes of The Ren & Stimpy Show.[6] Rough Draft Korea provided animation for the episode.[3] Camp stated in a 1993 interview that The Ren & Stimpy Show was "definitely alien" to the South Korean cartoonists of the Rough Draft Korea studio, requiring him to make a visit to Seoul to make it clear what it was he wanted, despite having worked on the series for a year.[7] Camp stated about Rough Draft Korea's work: "The better the layouts you send, the better the animation you get".[7]
Reception
American critic Thad Komorowski gave "Stimpy's Cartoon Show" three stars out of four, calling it one of Games Animation's best episodes on the series; he considered the final scene to be one of Bob Camp's best work.[8]
Books
- Dobbs, G. Michael (2015). Escape – How Animation Broke into the Mainstream in the 1990s. Orlando: BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1593931100.
- Komorowski, Thad (2017). Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1629331836.
External links
See also
- Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren and Stimpy Story – a 2020 documentary film about the creation of Nickelodeon's animated series The Ren & Stimpy Show and the downfall of the show's creator John Kricfalusi.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Komorowski 2017, p. 150.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Komorowski 2017, p. 385.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Dobbs 2015, p. 150.
- ↑ Komorowski 2017, p. 157 & 386.
- ↑ Komorowski 2017, p. 235.
- ↑ Komorowski 2017, p. 236.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Dobbs 2015, p. 151.
- ↑ Komorowski 2017, p. 386.
