When the Nickelodeon network began searching for original animated content that would distinguish it from other outlets in the early nineties, executive Vanessa Coffey saw promise in the work of idiosyncratic John Kricfalusi. Along with colleagues like Bob Camp, he had formed Spumco Studios in 1989 with the aim of recovering the type of imaginative, artistic work that had marked America’s golden age of animation, represented by such Warner Brothers figures as Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, and Chuck Jones in the 1940s—a contrast to the cheap, dreary cartoons that dominated television at the time, often produced to promote toy brands.
He pitched several ideas to Nickelodeon, and Coffey and her colleagues suggested a program starring two of his characters—Ren, a rage-filled Chihuahua described as a demented Peter Lorre, and Stimpy, a dumb but good-natured cat. Spumco’s small band of artists, operating under Kricfalusi’s direction, duly made surrealistic episodes, featuring lots of violence, exaggeratedly gruesome close-ups, and subjects that deliberately challenged notions of good taste—along with plenty of screaming from Kricfalusi, voicing Ren—that attracted an audience of fanatical adherents, turning the show into an immediate pop phenomenon.
But trouble quickly arose between Kricfalusi, who was obsessive about controlling every minute detail of the operation, and his brow-beaten staff, and well as with the network, which objected to some of the more outrageous, envelope-pushing aspects of the show. Kricfalusi’s perfectionist attitude also led to production delays and repeated failure to meet deadlines in the delivery of episodes. He was fired in the fall of 1992, and though production continued in other hands (including Bob Camp’s), the show lost much of its original absurdist, anarchic appeal.
It fell off the Nickelodeon schedule in 1996 and attempts to revive it have failed. Ron Cicero and Kimo Easterwood’s documentary—titled after Stimpy’s repeated expressions of good cheer—does more than cover this entire unhappy chapter in television history, though it does that well, with extensive clips from the show and interviews with Kricfalusi, Coffey, Camp, and other Spumco artists.
It also offers an excellent sketch of Kricfalusi’s childhood and growing fascination with animation technique, while covering the sad post-Ren & Stimpy part of Kricfalusi’s life, which includes accusations of abusive relationships he developed with teenage girls, one of whom discusses the years she spent under his thumb. Kricfalusi apologizes for his conduct but seems genuinely oblivious to how his personality might have colored the tenor of the program he was so instrumental in making and help explain how it crashed and burned so quickly. The result is a fascinating portrait, alternately poignant and infuriating, of the man and his influential off-the-wall creation.
Extras include a trailer and nearly two hours of additional interviews. Recommended. Aud: C, P.