John K. made it a rule that only people who knew how to animate could write anything for the show.
here’s the video Spumco did for Bjork. you just can’t top that combination.
I still have log.
I’m surprised there was no mention of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures which Bakshi produced and which had many episodes directed by Kricfalusi, just that Kricfalusi worked for Bakshi.
While not nearly as far out or original as Ren & Stimpy the earlier show was a zany bright spot in that dark period of kids’ cartoons. I especially loved the sometimes nonsensical parodies, like “Elway And The Tree Weasels”, riffing on Alvin and the Chipmunks.
With the best board game ever:
DON’T WHIZ ON THE ELECTRIC FENCE
I still have log.
Donald Trump, either to his wife after taking a Viagra or at any given debate.
I never had cable, so I didn’t see R&S until my buddies’ VHS in college. But my homie Matt in my HS physics class saw R&S and was gushing about it the next day in school. “It looks like it was drawn by Picasso!”
“Oh, that sounds like the New Adventures of Mighty Mouse.”
yep.
I can still sing all the words to the log song.
Ohhhhh . . . you like the game, huh? Do you REAAALLLLLY like it?
My favorite part was that Nickelodeon apparently forgot what happens when you let an insane genius run his own cartoon under the thin pretense of “children’s programming”. A decade later, we got Invader Zim, which is second only to Firefly in the category of “Shows That Got Cancelled Too Soon”.
Oh man, Ren & Stimpy was a pioneer in comedy in general. These days there’s plenty of shows with weird humour that are successful, but R&S was pulling some crazy stuff decades ago. It’s gross, insane, has great style and animation. I love it
Call the police!!!
I forget where I heard the interview but one of the creators of Rugrats described Nickelodeon in the early days as a shack in the middle of nowhere. That may be a slight exaggeration but it fits with what I remember of cable TV’s early days. There were all these pop-up networks looking for anything to fill airtime. Nickelodeon was only on from, if memory serves, 7am to 7pm and then became A&E which shared the same station.
Nick was a full-fledged network by the time Kricfalusi came along and they were lucky to get him but I think even then they would have taken just about anything. They were showing reruns of Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp.
I can still sing all the words to the log song.
Es rumpelt und kracht
drum gebt gut acht
bevor’s euch überrollt
Er schmeckt grandios,
macht Muskeln ganz groĂź!
Klotz, Klotz, Klotz!
Klo-hotz, Klo-hotz, alle lieben Klotz!
Klo-hotz Klo-hotz, groĂź und schwer aus Holz!
That show had excellent dubbing and great German speakers. Some shows are ruined in the translation, e.g. the German Simpsons’ translation was abysmal for many years, although they have good speakers. Sadly, the voice of Marge died a few years ago.
Nickelodeon really did Kricfalusi wrong. I love the original Ren and Stimpy but to say that everything before it was awful is a bit off. The American animation renaissance had already begun.
Dragonball 1986
Transformers: The Headmasters 1987
Beetlejuice 1989
Simpsons 1989
Rugrats 1990
Spike & Mike’s [Classic] Festival of Animation 1991
Much forgotten is the 1980’s version of Mighty Mouse, which was just as equally weird and surreal as Ren and Stimpy and made by the same people. It was during the golden age of Saturday Morning Cartoons on Network TV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRq9y8Hptyc
This is my go-to whenever I need a video clip for anything. Or if I want to say call the police. Or if rubber nipples are mentioned. Yeah, any time I can possibly use it really.
In the words of the immortal GIR:
I remember the first time I saw Nick at my mom’s bf’s house. They had one show: re-runs of the UK Black Beauty show (for years, all their programming was importing kids shows from other countries.) nobody bought any ads, so they had this epic 5 minute long station ID that was like a music video with kids in it to show between episodes. this was maybe 81 or 82. silver ball not red silhouettes.
