The Cat That Laid the Golden Hairball

Plot

Ren and Stimpy live in a birdhouse. Ren wakes to find the house covered in Stimpy's hairballs. After watching television, Ren learns that feline hairballs are useful in spaceflight, curing conjunctivitis, as clothing material, and as a breakfast cereal alternative, making them more valuable than gold. Greedy for pectoral implants, Ren forces Stimpy, who works as an aircraft pilot, to produce hairballs on a factory line.

Ren grades the hairballs while his nephew by marriage, Bubba the Lummox, boxes them; Bubba secretly hides one for himself. Stimpy exhausts his fur, then uses Ren's fur and Bubba's body hair without success. Bubba initially balks but accepts the arrangement for money. Stimpy is exploited until he vomits bones, implying cannibalism, and Bubba enters Stimpy's body to find his hairball gland ruined to powder.

Stimpy collapses from exhaustion. Ren and Bubba mourn the loss of production, then realize they have enough hairballs to buy anything and celebrate by dancing.

Production

Spümcø began the episode in 1992, but it fell behind schedule and over budget. The script came from a fan-made comic sent to Spümcø; Bob Camp and Vincent Waller adapted it to fit the runtime. To save costs, layout was done at Rough Draft Korea in Seoul, which also handled animation, rather than at Spümcø in Los Angeles. After series creator John Kricfalusi was fired on September 21, 1992, Games Animation took over. Ron Hughart, considered reliable by both Kricfalusi and Nickelodeon executives, was assigned director after Vincent Waller left production while working on "The Great Outdoors" at Rough Draft Korea. Billy West voices Ren, as voice acting had not been completed before Kricfalusi's departure.