Hard Times for Haggis
A Scottish TV host who's just lost his show spends the whole episode cooking up a revenge plan.
April 30, 1994: 'Hard Times for Haggis' lands as the thirteenth episode of the third season of The Ren & Stimpy Show, airing on Nickelodeon in the United States.
Quick Facts
- Series
- The Ren & Stimpy Show
- Season
- 3
- Episode
- 13
- Director
- Chris Reccardi
- Story
- Jim Gomez; Chris Reccardi
- Production
- RS-308
- Air date
- 30 April 1994
- Guests
- Alan Young as Haggis MacHaggis
Facts from the source article.
Plot
Haggis MacHaggis, a narcissistic and bad-tempered Scotsman, stars in The Scotsman Show, which consists of him beating his dog Whacky with a shillelagh. Haggis believes this is hilarious and spends his days rewatching his own episodes in a Gothic Scottish castle in California. After berating his butler for preferring Rocky & Bullwinkle, Haggis learns that his show's ratings have plummeted due to the popularity of The Ren & Stimpy Show, and his show is cancelled. Enraged and jealous, Haggis swears revenge. He discovers Ren and Stimpy have taken over his castle, and his former agent, the Salesman, has abandoned him for them. Haggis tries to unite his fans but finds none; everyone is watching Ren & Stimpy. He is kicked out of a television store display and becomes livid upon seeing a Ren & Stimpy 3D film and Gritty Kitty litter. He attacks a fan and is beaten by the fan's father, the Fire Chief, who mistakes him for a circus midget. Reduced to living in a park, Haggis pretends to be a pigeon fed by an old woman, but is threatened and beaten by gangster pigeons and the old woman. Meanwhile, Ren and Stimpy live peacefully in the castle. Haggis discovers a doll of himself discounted to free, and a cloaked individual—Whacky, now insane from abuse—destroys the doll as retribution. Haggis escapes, nearly gets run over by Muddy Mudskipper, and goes to a bridge to commit suicide. He is dissuaded by an ad for Rent-A-Thug and acquires two thugs for revenge.
Production
The story for "Hard Times for Haggis" was conceived in May 1993 by Chris Reccardi, who initially titled it "The Scotsman". The title was changed shortly before airing to avoid being perceived as anti-Scottish. The episode was one of the few Reccardi worked on after Spümcø was fired. The character Haggis is similar to George Liquor, whose rights had been sold by Viacom International to John Kricfalusi, preventing his use on the show. Like George Liquor, Haggis is arrogant, crass, and prefers violence, but unlike him, Haggis falls into depression and self-pity when faced with setbacks. As part of an effort to improve ratings after the controversy of Kricfalusi's firing in 1992, showrunner Bob Camp recruited veteran British character actor Alan Young to voice Haggis. Reccardi intended the episode as a metaphor for the animation industry, with Haggis's inane show representing the cartoon industry before The Ren & Stimpy Show premiered in 1991, while the metareferential Ren & Stimpy Show is depicted as superior. Reccardi wanted to create dramatic tales inspired by Star Trek and James Stewart, describing the episode as a psychodrama. The asinine puppet version of The Ren & Stimpy Show replacing the genuine article was a metaphor for declining television quality. Reccardi focused on Haggis's psychology, exploring his hubris, rage, and suicidal tendencies, making him a more complex cartoon villain.
Reception
Thad Komorowski, an American critic, gave the episode four-and-a-half out of five stars and called it one of the series' best. What hooked him was Reccardi's willingness to sit inside the drama of a diseased mind — the depression beats and the suicide-contemplation moments carry a genuinely unsettling weight. Where it lost him was the comedy: Reccardi's punchlines kept misfiring, and the jokes tended to land in dead air.
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