Big House Blues

Did You Know?

• The pilot cost $80,000 US dollars to make and was in production for the entire first half of 1990.
• Billy West was initially recruited to voice both Ren and Stimpy, but John Kricfalusi took the role of Ren for himself; West believes Kricfalusi always intended to voice Ren and misled network executives to gain funding.
• The scene where Ren passionately kisses Stimpy and says he loves him was banned by Nickelodeon because it implied the duo were homosexual.

Plot

Ren and Stimpy, homeless and starving, wander an unnamed American city in the 1950s. A dogcatcher runs them over with his car and sends them to the dog pound, despite Stimpy being a Manx cat. The other dogs live a sybarite lifestyle in their cell, which resembles a prison. A guard takes away a dog named Phil to be euthanized; Ren loses his mind upon realizing Phil was killed and that he and Stimpy face the same fate. Stimpy vomits hairballs, covering Ren and disguising him as a poodle. As they prepare for euthanasia, a young girl tries to adopt Ren due to his disguise. Ren pleads for her to adopt Stimpy as well, and both are adopted. In their new home, the girl's mother gives Ren a sweater and Stimpy a litter box. Stimpy accidentally drags Ren into the litter box, to Ren's discomfort.

Background

Spümcø was founded in 1989 by John Kricfalusi, his girlfriend Lynne Naylor, and friends Bob Camp and Jim Smith. That summer, Kricfalusi met producer Vanessa Coffey, who had worked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to interest her in funding projects he had developed while she located her position to Nickelodeon. These included Jimmy's Clubhouse and a series titled Your Gang. At a focus group meeting, Coffey found Kricfalusi's pitch so charismatic that she felt she had to fund one of his projects.

She disliked Your Gang but felt the supporting characters Ren and Stimpy had potential for their own series. This was part of Nickelodeon's initiative to support animator-driven cartoons, though Kricfalusi viewed this cynically. Coffey brought Kricfalusi to a board meeting in New York; the board wanted to fund Jimmy's Clubhouse, but Kricfalusi would not sell the intellectual rights to Jimmy the Idiot Boy, George Liquor, or Sody Pop. The network insisted on owning intellectual rights to build a permanent library of evergreen cartoons.

Release

Big House Blues played as a short at film festivals starting December 21, 1990. Despite network executive concerns, reception was very positive; Coffey told Kricfalusi that kids laughed more at his cartoon than others. In September 1990, Nickelodeon approved production of The Ren & Stimpy Show, with the first episode set to premiere August 11, 1991. The censored pilot aired on Nickelodeon on September 22, 1991, and again on August 22, 1992, replacing the banned episode Man's Best Friend, which was pulled for graphic violence, leading Nick to terminate Kricfalusi and Spümcø. The full uncensored version aired as part of the first episode of the Adult Party Cartoon on Spike TV on June 23, 2003, along with Man's Best Friend, both rated TV-MA. The episode was also released on the first and second season DVD boxset as a bonus feature.