Hard Times for Haggis

Plot

Haggis MacHaggis, a narcissistic and bad-tempered Scotsman, stars in The Scotsman Show, a program consisting of him beating his dog Whacky with a shillelagh. Haggis considers this the height of humor. He lives in a Gothic Scottish castle recreation in California, rewatching his own episodes. While berating his butler for preferring Rocky & Bullwinkle, Haggis learns that ratings for The Scotsman Show have plummeted due to the greater popularity of The Ren & Stimpy Show, and his show is cancelled.

Enraged and jealous, Haggis goes to destroy the television but discovers Ren and Stimpy have taken over his castle and his former agent, the Salesman, has abandoned him for them. Haggis swears revenge. He tries to unite his fans but finds he has none; everyone watches 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 for sale.

Haggis attacks a fan and is beaten by the fan's father, the Fire Chief, for resembling a circus midget. Reduced to living in a park, Haggis pretends to be a pigeon fed by an old woman. Gangster pigeons threaten him for his meal, and he is beaten by both the pigeons and the woman. Meanwhile, Ren and Stimpy live peacefully in the castle; Stimpy plays with a sword, accidentally slicing the butler's clothes, while Ren reads a censored book by Geoffrey Chaucer.

At dinner, Stimpy passes salt to Ren while walking on food, spilling all the salt on the chicken, enraging Ren. Haggis discovers a doll of himself discounted from $29.99 to $5.25 and eventually free. A cloaked figure takes the doll to an alley; Haggis finds it is Whacky, who has gone insane from abuse and destroys the doll. Haggis escapes but is nearly run over by Muddy Mudskipper.

He goes to a bridge to commit suicide but is dissuaded by an ad for Rent-A-Thug. He acquires two thugs for the price of one.

Production

The story that became "Hard Times for Haggis" was conceived in May 1993 by Chris Reccardi, who initially titled it "The Scotsman"; the episode was one of the few Reccardi worked on after Spümcø was fired. The title was changed shortly before airing because it might be taken as anti-Scottish. The character Haggis closely resembles George Liquor, who could no longer be used on The Ren & Stimpy Show because Viacom International had sold the rights to John Kricfalusi.

Like George Liquor, Haggis is immensely arrogant, crass, and sees violence as the preferred means to solve problems, with a total inability to understand others' viewpoints. Unlike George Liquor, Haggis falls into depression and self-pity when confronted by setbacks. As part of an effort to improve ratings after the controversy of Kricfalusi's firing in 1992, new showrunner Bob Camp recruited veteran British character actor Alan Young in 1993 to voice Haggis as a recurring guest star.

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, depicted as much superior. Reccardi wanted to do more dramatic tales inspired by Star Trek and the works of James Stewart, saying he was attracted to psychodramas like William Shatner in "The Enemy Within" and Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, and that the scenes in "Hard Times for Haggis" were the logical result of character arcs.

The way the asinine puppet version of The Ren & Stimpy Show replaces the genuine article was intended as a metaphor for how television show quality declines over time. Reccardi focused on Haggis's psychology, exploring his hubris, rage, and self-destructive tendencies, making him a more complex cartoon villain.

Reception

American critic Thad Komorowski gave the episode four-and-a-half out of five stars, praising it as one of the series' best. He commended Reccardi's gift for delving into the drama of the diseased mind and noted stirring sequences reminiscent of Spümcø's better set pieces. Komorowski singled out the scenes of Haggis's depression and suicide contemplation as remarkably unsettling. However, he stated that Reccardi's comedic attempts misfired, as his jokes tended to fall flat.