Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/06/the-ren-stimpy-show-is-comin.html
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No John K involvement means people can feel less bad about watching the show. But it could also mean the show won’t reach the fun levels of insanity his episodes did. I’ll take that over his being there, though.
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First Beavis & Butthead and now this? It’s like ancient Jedis waking up to restore balance to this FUBAR year
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It’s still a pass for me, he created the show and i presume he still owns the IP. Even if he wasn’t directly involved its still money in his pocket, and considering what a POS person he is i want nothing to do with anything he’s made. And i say that as a person who loves Ren & Stimpy.
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It was always hit and miss whether a Ren and Stimpy would actually be enjoyable, but what made it so compelling was the exciting feeling it was taking a list of what made appealing television, wiping its bum with it, making a puppet out of the poopy paper, and bursting with manic glee at how many people will hate this puppet show. Fans: Instead of watching an attempt to wring cash out of an old property, find and support new, daring independent artists.
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Totally agree. Although based on the wikipedia article about the old show, I think Nik may own the IP as they basically kicked him out for being bad at doing things on time and being hard to work with (and not for being a pedophile and a creep) and transferred to an overseas animation house for the last couple seasons.
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Man - yeah there is some cool new stuff out there for people who love surreal / lowbrow animation. Midnight Gospel on netflix by some of the Adventure Time people is super interesting and original although not retro style. Even Adventure Time has flashes of surreal brilliant weirdness in pretty much every episode. 10/10.
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Can we just let things die? Not everything needs a reboot every 25 years. Shut it down. And while we’re at it, throw Family Guy, the Simpsons, etc. Get some new blood in there, you might be surprised what resonates.
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I’m not sure Nickelodeon owns the rights considering John K did the Ren & Stimpy’s Adult Party one years later. But regardless who actually owns it i’d rather pass on it, i certainly have no shortage of things to watch.
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Rick & Morty rules,man!
I believe the IP is owned by Viacom/Nickelodeon, that’s usually how these things work. It might have been owned in part by the production company, but Spumco does not exist anymore.
It’s likely Kricfalusi would still get royalties as the original credited creator.
Was on SpikeTV which was a Viacom network.
TV and film don’t generally operate on a creator owned basis. Generally the network or studio owns everything. When they don’t it’s typically the original production company or a producer. The major exception is works that pre-exist. Adapted stuff from industries where the creator does typically own things.
In the spheres of the Internet that I frequent, the reaction to the announcement has been exasperation and frustration that new projects aren’t being considered and that Viacom is just going back to the nostalgia well. The only exceptions I feel were worthwhile was when Rocko’s Modern Life and Invader Zim got new stuff in the form of Static Cling and Enter the Florpus. The former was a 45-minute special and the latter was a movie, both on Netflix. Static Cling specifically lambasted pandering to nostalgia and embracing change and the new in some really awesome ways. Enter the Florpus was, from my understanding, based on a comic book continuation of the series from years later, and Jhonen was at the helm of both the comic book and the movie. That, and Invader Zim was a series that definitely felt like it was cut short and needed at least one last big thing.
But getting back on topic, and a history lesson of a sort: Viacom, through MTV and Nickelodeon, seems like it has the nastiest habit of banking on nostalgia out of the other animation-focused networks. 90s Nickelodeon is held up on this huge pedestal, while shows that have huge promise that were greenlit are shoved into “death slots” at 5AM so that they can be aired to fulfill contractual obligations. I remember they did that with an old series called ChalkZone. They also screwed over C.H. Greenblatt, who created Harvey Beaks for them and was screwed over, and then forced to write a reply to that article I just linked that said that everything was okay.
I remember that, with Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend Of Korra, Nickelodeon execs were already cagey. There were inklings of Last Airbender being treated with the side-eye for costing way too much. Legend Of Korra, though, oh boy, that show was treated like utter trash by Nick. Basically, they were given one season, and if that season did well, they would get another. So we got cliffhangers and Deus Ex Machinas that led to disjointed writing and this caused Korra to sadly become much more divisive than Last Airbender. Nick slashed funding for, I believe it was the last season, and the studio was forced into the decision of either firing staff or doing a clip show episode, and they chose the clip show episode. And the last handful of episodes for the last season of Korra didn’t even air on TV; they got shuffled off to Nick’s website to die. This is assumed to be for 2 reasons: because 1) Nick honestly didn’t care anymore and 2) They didn’t want angry soccer moms to see what happens at the end of it.
Cartoon Network and Disney did their fair share of canceling promising shows around that same time, they wizened up afterward, knew good shows when they saw them, and kept them around, such as in the case of Regular Show Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Gravity Falls. Fun Fact: Adventure Time was originally a pilot that Pendleton Ward pitched to Nickelodeon. He managed to dodge a massive bullet there.
CN and Disney have a killer roster of cartoons these days while all Nick has for new and successful stuff is The Loud House, which luckily survived its creator being rightly fired for sexual harassment allegations so that the rest of the studio could keep on with it. Nick had a show called Glitch Techs that they were planning on airing on TV, but put the series on hiatus and then shoved it off to be a Netflix-only series the first chance they got.
TL:DR
Lots of folks in my social circles are tired of nostalgia pandering and hate the idea of R&S specifically coming back. Cartoon Network and Disney are much better than Nickelodeon/Viacom in regards to allowing new cartoons to have their chance. If you search the hashtag #bettercartoon on Twitter you’ll see quite a few awesome ideas for shows that would be much better deserving of a series than Ren & Stimpy.
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I don’t particularly mind pandering to nostalgia, but of all properties to revive Ren & Stimpy to me is a huge miscalculation. However as you said i would much rather see opportunities given to fresh ideas and new talent than going back to the well on things that already had their moment to shine. I’m also equally confused why Beavis & Butthead is being brought back, their humor was so specific that i’m having a hard time figuring out what relevancy they’d have for current kids/young adults.
And apparently there’s a Daria spin-off in the works which in that case i’m mostly cool with because i feel like Daria was a sleeper hit that should be appreciated more and wouldn’t mind a follow up on. Others might feel differently about it, which is valid.
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Daria was pretty strongly popular from Day 1 ^^'.
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I know it was well liked but its not the sort of show that typically gets discussed or brought up. To me that falls under it being more of a sleeper hit or at least being under-appreciated.
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Pssh.
Call me when they reboot Daria…
I guess I should have scrolled all the way down before commenting.
As long as they do it well, I’m here for it.
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Not a reebot, which i would be against (though i do think the character is interesting enough that she’d neatly fit current events and young adults’ culture). And from what i recall they’ve been trying to do a follow up show for ages, which is why i’m mostly for it. I’m glad they hit on having Jodie as the star, though i would have also loved one about Jane
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Oh no, I meant a continuation into college life and adulthood; not a retread of the exact same premise.
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I’m gonna give the new show a fair chance to prove itself, though it’ll probably be a shadow of the previous material. I really don’t care about the accusations against Kric because the funny thing is that when the IP is owned by the creator and not a big production company, SOMETHING always happens to separate the creator from their creation. All we really know is what info has been fed to us, and I refuse to raise a torch against someone on command.
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