How Season Three of Ren & Stimpy Broke the Mold, Part I
Excerpt from the Stefanimania interlog, 13 October 2013
So, the year is 1993, and Spümcø is now humming along. And with Season 3 production just exploded, as in, we meet production deadlines at warp speed compared to before. Back in Seasons 1 & 2 we were
constantly playing deadline parkour with the episodes, hell, I think we were late on the second-ever week of the show’s run. And in the end we only got 6 and 12 episodes
respectively to each season.
Not very efficient, I know. But after Nick bailed us out one last time and we got a raised budget, we took every advantage we got to fix everything wrong about the studio - every nook and cranny - when John didn’t have swaying power on the CDB of course. And because of that, Spümcø had
tripled its size by the time Season 3 began production. Nickelodeon had ordered 20 episodes for Season 3, and we were on track to meet those expectations for the Fall.
Granted not all of this was a good thing. Even though we had to move more slowly in hiring a bunch of people on board after some rough ones last season like “Stimp Racer”, the animation quality took a noticeable hit compared to the earlier seasons. John Kricfalusi’s ego may have made each and every episode
painful to make, but it was that same ego that produced a cartoon that stood apart from the rest with its off-the-walls expressions, ultra detailed backgrounds, and shocking boundary-pushing.[1] These latest episodes admittedly were a slight step down from previous ones, not helped by the fact that the writing became more of a mixed bag after adopting the visual script process.
Take the episode “Bloody Union Scabs” for example, which was written by Vincent Waller, George Meyer and John Swartzwelder. Basically, after a 1900s worker’s strike gone wrong, Ren and Stimpy are hired as non-union workers at the “Dog Water” factory. But after realizing that collecting canine drool is dehumanizing work, they side with the unions and this gets them arrested by the feds. There’s a
lot of very dry and intellectual humor about how the United States treated workers and leftists in the early 1900s - which while great for a more smart-cracking show like
The Simpsons - felt
very out of place in a manic, grotesque cartoony show like
Ren & Stimpy. The thing that saves the episode from being a stinker though is this
hilarious running gag that Kricfalusi and Dutch concocted, where after the feds get the duo - they’re confronted by this parody of J. Edgar Hoover who hates the unions because he thinks they’re after his literal scab collection, to which after learning the factory owners give in to the strikers’ demands - he goes totally insane and rips off all his scabs from his skin and hides with them deep underground in a bunker.[2] It even goes further to the far future where Ren and Stimpy are seen as these idols for creating a communist utopia and when Hoover wakes up to this - he isn’t horrified by communism, he’s horrified by how
sparkling clean and scab-free everyone’s skin is. Even today, I can’t stop laughing when I see that joke every time I rewatch this episode, it’s pure comedic gold.
Still, John K was absolutely livid. Beforehand, when Spümcø was the house of John K worship, he could easily shoot down any expansion plans or an episode that would air on time would get entangled in his desire for purity to his insane standards. And I would convince John time and time again “the layouts look fine” or “the animation looks fine” he just wouldn’t budge and would complain about how the sketches or colors look like they were done by “a f*gg*t with arthritis”. But Spümcø was no longer
just Kricfalusi’s studio - it was now Bob Camp’s studio, it was now Lynne Naylor’s studio, it was now the studio of a group of talented people working together to make the world of animation a far more vibrant place. Yet John wanted that control back, and he was gonna try with the sequel episode to “Yodelin’ Yaks” - “The Yodelin’ Yaks Strike Back”.
Kurt Cobain and his associate Steve Albini would come into the studio all roughed up. I would look outside the studio and there was this swarm of paparazzi outside the building. And then Kricfalusi - already stressed by the situation would just peak out the door and yell “FUCK OFF, SCRAM” to the crowd. I even overheard Albini say “Finally someone with balls!” To which Kricfalusi responded “and I have nothing but my old man to thank.”[3] Anyways, Cobain and Albini would come into the studio to drop off a recording of the song that would be for the episode - “The Watchman”. Since “The Watchman” was a bit more of a challenge to write around - this would involve a group effort. And so we got to work asking the question -
how the hell do you top Yodelin’ Yaks? John - who insisted on working on this episode - would also add his own little touches that were absent in the first “Yodelin’ Yaks”.
Last season, we had plans for a Yak episode that had nothing to do with Yander, Rex or Pex. I believe it was something along the lines of “Kilted Yaksmen” or something like that.[4] But sadly, it didn’t get to be made because of the studio being touched up and different episodes like “Stimp Racer” and “Star Chores” being greenlit instead. But going into producing Season 3, we figured since it was about “KILTED Yaksmen” - we just went “hey, this would be a great idea for a Yaks sequel.”
We tossed around some ideas to tweak the story to fit Nirvana, since the original script was about Ren and Stimpy trekking across Canada on Yaks to claim unclaimed land in the middle of nowhere. Dick Dutch pointed out the implications of the band members being “submissive”, much to my annoyance. “Kilted Yaksmen” was thus changed to be more like the last Yaks episode. Of course we risked the sequel being a repeat of the first Yaks. With all the rough drafts some writers like Chris Reccardi and Richard Pursel were giving us, it honestly seemed underwhelming and disappointing to us that some of us on board just seemed to give us the first Yaks but in Canada and with Canadian stereotypes. Luckily however, Dick Dutch came up with the idea of having them get the magical object - the Mythical Moose-Track Poutine - and for them to go on this ridiculous adventure to force feed it to everyone in order to make everyone happy. This was a huge improvement, but it still felt derivative of “Stimpy’s Invention”. And that’s when Kricfalusi came in.
Kricfalusi - ever the tryhard - would not let the opportunity to inject his usual brand of censor bending to the show. He commented that the whole “making everyone happy with poutine” plot was “pinko commie nazi propaganda” and had the balls to suggest that Canada would become this Nazi-esque tyranny. He acted out these scenes of Mounted Police goose stepping across the world - shooting globs of poutine into people’s mouths. He even went as far as to have a gag where they place a badge with the American flag onto people who are rude, which Dutch and I desperately tried to talk Kricfalusi out of. Kricfalusi - remembering his father’s military history - thankfully agreed and pulled out that joke. Yet the whole “Evil Canada” stuff was kept in since Dutch and I agreed that it had the potential for comedic genius.
We had multiple references to the Nazi propaganda film
Triumph of the Will put in the “Canada takes over” sequence, especially the shot of the Mounted Police marching across the globe and the Canadian Maple Leaf being turned into a Swastika-like symbol. Dutch also had the brilliant idea to reference the “Springtime for Hitler” sequence from Mel Brooks’
The Producers - particularly its end shot with the cannons and Evil Canada flags going up and shooting the baffled audience with the poutine to make them applaud. Finally, Kricfalusi and Reccardi used the remaining “Kilted Yaksmen” material to put together a silly song that contrasted with the visuals well about how Kilted Yaksmen often keep big dirty yaks, wear women’s clothing, and how they’ll probably go to hell. Though sadly, that last part was censored everywhere except home media releases.[5] Yet even then, it finally felt like we were making magic together once again.
The Yodelin' Yaks Strike Back
Excerpt from ALLmanac, the online encyclopedia
Plot
It starts with Ren and Stimpy searching in a snowy Canadian village for Yander the Yak - disturbing hibernating animals (including a moose that says "FREAK OUT, SCRAM!!!") and not getting help from the overly nice and polite Canadians. They need Yander once again to find another mythical food item - the Mythical Moose-Track Poutine. After Ren insults their love of hockey, he gets beaten in a game of hockey as if he were the hockey puck before he is smashed through a log cabin window - complete with a grotesque closeup of his glass-bruised face. Yander finds that it is Ren, who proceeds to take care of him. Stimpy then finds Yander and convinces him and his minions Rex and Pex to join him once again. Yander is hesitant, given how everywhere he goes people mock him for his yodeling - much like the real life Kurt Cobain after "The Yodel Song". But after Stimpy promises to "get his horns sharpened", Yander agrees on the spot.
Much like beforehand, the group encounters a series of great challenges - including a long trek through the Canadian tundra and "snow jungles" - the latter of which Ren steals the water canteen from Stimpy, only to swallow a swarm of stinging bees. When the group finally finds the poutine in an unmarked cave, they become scared and paranoid that guards like last time will try to kill them, so they fight over it. But after a chunk accidentally flies into Ren's mouth, he becomes uncharacteristically nice and compassionate. Stimpy takes a bite and so do the rest, and they all feel a rush of euphoria and Canadian pride. They decide to spread the joy of the Moose-Track Poutine while singing the Kilted Yaksmen anthem - a goofy take on "God Saves the Queen" that includes lyrics about keeping after dirty yaks, wearing women's clothing and dealing with harsh wild life. All the while, Canada transforms into an ultra-happy, totalitarian, fascist dictatorship that takes over the entire world by force-feeding people the poutine.
After the song's end, the episode cuts to a bleak world where everyone has forced smiles and all buildings look like brutalist log cabins. Armed, smiling guards with fat Americans acting as vicious guard dogs patrol the streets.[6] Anyone who isn't happy enough is exiled to "the meanest place on Earth": America. Ren and Stimpy are starting to get sick of being happy all the time and they start frowning. However, this catches the attention of a guard resembling a mix between Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who has his American Guard Dog kick them like a football while screeching like an Eagle.[7] The pair are beaten apart by football quarterbacks, before being further beaten with batons by pigs who are police in a dirty street. The Yaks - all disguised as the Sex Pistols - come up to the duo and claim they have a plan to take down the Canadians - by singing a song that would bring in the Great White Rumble. Yander and the Yaks perform a song - specifically Nirvana's 1993 folk/hardcore punk single "The Watchmen". This summons a horde of vampiric Polar Bears that suck the fat out of all Americans while beating every Canadian with a hockey stick - destroying the dictatorship.
Everyone now feels rather sad and grumpy. This is when Ren feels comfortable enough to say: "You know what? I think the Maple Leafs are a bunch of hot dog lickers!!" This causes a huge physical brawl in a cloud of cartoon fighting. As the Yaks look on, Rex and Pex shrug and say "Yakety yak, don't talk back!" before they all join in on the fighting as the episode irises out.
The Trouble With Kricfalusi and Dutch
Excerpt from Win, Lose, or Drawing: Secrets of Animation Past (2022)
I understood what John was thinking when he tried putting in a Holocaust joke in
Ren & Stimpy. He wasn’t trying to make light of the Holocaust - he was trying to make fun of how evil and tyrannical a society that makes forces everyone to be happy would be. And to be honest, I at least had respect for how he realized that joke wasn’t appropriate - because at least it showed he had limits and standards like the rest of us, no matter how twisted they might be.
What I
didn’t understand was why John leaped head first into blatant gay jokes like “You’re the pitcher, I’m the catcher” in “Onward and Upward”.[8] I cooked this episode up with John and Vincent Waller, basically it was an episode making fun about how rich, snobbish people weren’t as prude and classy as they pretended to be. But the script that John and Vince made at first was… well I don’t know where the fuck to begin. I mean the only jokes are basically Ren and Stimpy are eating literal vomit and shit as they try to move up from low class life to high class life. So I got a hold of John and told him, “John, this is a fantastic turd nugget of genius we’re workin’ on, but I
think we need to do some turd polishing.” And he was happy to take my advice.
So we changed up a lot of things about “Onward and Upward”. We figured that since the duo were trying to act like old money rich folks, we figured that it would be cool to set this episode in Victorian England - to really drive home the contrast between stuck-up Victorian attitudes and extremely raunchy and grotesque humor. We had the duo act like very snobby upper class lords - looking down on the lower classes for their disgusting behavior and ignorance. Meanwhile, the duo would fancily dine out in a room made entirely of gold - eating all the fancy dishes they can get. But then there’s the twist - the two have actually been in a spittoon in an English pub this whole time - with the implication being that they’ve been eating the spit, mucus and vomit of commoners this entire time, before they’re chased out of the bar by British Policemen.[9] Although my favorite joke of the episode is actually at the beginning, where it starts with the two living in a homeless bum’s mouth and them being disturbed by the loud snoring. Stimpy keeps telling Ren he is scared and needs a goodnight kiss, only for Ren to push him away. Finally, Ren gives in and tells Stimpy to close his eyes for a surprise, only to pull a live rat out of nowhere and trick Stimpy into kissing its anus offscreen. Stimpy then turns to the camera with relief, but his lips are colored brown. I still can’t believe the scene went past the censors, even by
Ren & Stimpy standards.[10]
The episode as a whole struggled to get past censors, with many small scenes getting cut. This includes the part where the two ask for dessert, and it’s “salty chocolate ice cream” with visible stench trails. But it’s still one of my favorite
Ren & Stimpy episodes that I’ve had the pleasure of working on.
[1] If you want an idea of what the animation looks like with more of an emphasis in quantity over quality compared to the first two seasons, imagine the Season 5 episodes and early Season 3 episodes from OTL - but better due to the inclusion of Carbunkle Cartoons keeping the downgrades in check and the worst of the Games era from creeping in. Kricfalusi-directed episodes are an exception though - being closer to Season 2’s quality.
[2] I should also mention that this
totally-not-J. Edgar Hoover is voiced by Charlie Adler, so imagine his voice as being somewhere between Ickis from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters and The Red Guy from Cow and Chicken.
[3] That’s not a good sign with the little we know about John Kricfalusi’s father.
[4] This episode is basically TTL’s closest version of “The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen”. Albeit greatly overhauled as to be barely recognizable from OTL. One of the things it shares in common with OTL’s version is the Kilted Yaksmen anthem.
[5] Speaking of which, the Kilted Yaksmen anthem also had the word ‘hell’ censored IOTL. Except IOTL, just about everywhere has it censored except for some rare online recordings ripped from MTV during the time Ren & Stimpy reran on that channel.
The uncensored version can be found here.
[6] If you want a picture of what they look like, imagine the Lummox from OTL’s Season 3 episode “Lair of the Lummox” - basically every negative stereotype about Americans.
[7] I should also mention that he is voiced by veteran voice actor/character actor Hal Smith in one of his final voice acting roles before his death in 1994. Just some interesting facts from TTL.
[8] YEP, that line is still in TTL’s version of the episode.
[9] IOTL’s
Adult Party Cartoon version of “Onward and Upward”, it’s way less funny. The jokes simply show the spittoon and bar already while Ren and Stimpy dine on bodily fluids that are clearly shown to be from people vomiting and spitting on them. The punchline being - it’s funny that they’re eating vomit and boogers.
[10] IOTL’s
Adult Party Cartoon version of “Onward and Upward” - the execution of that joke was way worse. In the OTL version, Stimpy asks Ren to kiss him, saying “I have needs.” Ren responds by saying he “doesn’t give a rat’s ass about [his] needs.” After he relents and does so, he does this obnoxious muttering as he slowly has a rat’s anus towards Stimpy’s lips by saying something along the lines of “Tee hee, I have him kiss the rat’s ass! See! Rat’s ass!” And yes it shows the actual thing happening.