As a millennial born in the year 1988, I remember the very early days of Nickelodeon quite well. The network was still fresh and trying to establish itself, and honestly, they must have been desperate for animators because I cannot imagine a show like Ren and Stimpy getting approved today for Generation Alpha. A lot of the humor completely flew over my head as a kid, and while I liked the show, it was never one of my absolute favorites.
The series centers on Ren and Stimpy, a pair of cartoon animals with completely opposite personalities. Ren is a short-tempered Chihuahua who is constantly on the verge of snapping, while Stimpy is a dumb but lovable overweight red cat.
A lot of cartoons back then included hidden jokes that kids would never understand, but most of those jokes were subtle. In Ren and Stimpy, the innuendos and gross-out humor are front and center in almost every scene.
I also remember when they made a revival for Spike TV aimed at the original audience, who had grown into teenagers or adults by that point. The creators often complained about all the things Nickelodeon would not allow them to do, but after rewatching parts of the original series, I am honestly surprised they got away with as much as they did during the original Nickelodeon run.
Ren and Stimpy became classic Nickelodeon characters, and I think the only other character from the series who made a fairly lasting impression was Powdered Toast Man. There is even an episode where he saves the Pope, which apparently led Nickelodeon to rename him something like the Pointy-Hatted Man.
And of course, the “Happy Happy Joy Joy” song is legendary. For older millennials and the Oregon Trail generation, it was basically some kind of collective brain reset. We did not even fully understand why we found it so funny, but suddenly everyone was running around singing “Happy Happy Joy Joy.”
Still, Ren and Stimpy was never one of my personal favorites, and like every cartoon eventually does, it stopped getting new episodes. I was not especially upset when it ended, but I do remember being genuinely excited for the Spike TV reboot, only to be massively disappointed by how bad it turned out to be. Nickelodeon’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, was reportedly preparing another reboot for Comedy Central and Paramount+ a couple of years ago, but it was canceled during merger-related cost-cutting. Even if it had moved forward, though, I honestly cannot picture it becoming the kind of phenomenon the original Nickelodeon cartoon once was.