Cult TV classic The Ren & Stimpy Show has been given the green light for a reboot on Comedy Central, with the raunchy series to be reimagined as an adult animation.
According to Deadline, the reimagining of the ’90s children’s show will reportedly now cater to adult audiences as part of a major company push into adult animation, which has already seen Comedy Central announce Daria spinoff Jodie and the reboot of Beavis and Butt-Head.
“I want to thank our partners at Nick Animation as we re-imagine these iconic characters with a new creative team,” said Nina L. Diaz, President of Content and Chief Creative Officer for ViacomCBS Entertainment & Youth Group.”
Chris McCarthy, president of ViacomCBS Entertainment & Youth Group added, “Ren & Stimpy joins our rapidly expanding roster of adult animation including South Park, Beavis and Butt-Head and Clone High.”
The series, created by John Kricfalusi, followed the adventures of title characters Ren, an emotionally volatile Chihuahua, and Stimpy, a stupid but happy-go-lucky cat. It aired for five seasons on Nickelodeon, ending in December 1995.
The show’s revival made no reference of any involvement from original creator Kricfalusi, who had been renowned for his violent temper and erratic behaviour towards staff while working on the series, which lead to him being fired from the show after season two.
“If they toned it down,” Kricfalusi said in the doc, “they’d get what people called ‘a beating.’”
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One worker in the doco even described him as “a Hitler type.”
Things only got worse for Kricfalusi, when in 2018, a Buzzfeed article revealed that in 1997, when Kricfalusi was 42, he began a sexual relationship with 16-year-old Robyn Byrd and later another teen by the name of Katie Rice.
According to a new documentary called Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, Byrd said that she was a fan of Ren & Stimpy and wrote a letter to Kricfalusi when she was 14.
“I was falling in love with her letters,” Kricfalusi said in the documentary. “She was too young. I freely admit that. But she was so convincing.”
Byrd, however, described a different scenario.
“I was isolated from everyone I know,” she said n the film, adding that her “entire adolescence from 14 to 21” was controlled by Kricfalusi.
Kricfalusi, however, denied knowingly wreaking emotional havoc, saying, “[I] felt like the lowest creature on earth.”
