Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story

This is a documentary about the envelope-burning Nickelodeon cartoon, The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991). It broke animation out of its toy-selling corporate mandate into a more outrageous adult era. Its creator John Kricfalusi became an overnight sensation. The show ran into problems after Nickelodeon ups the second season order to twenty episodes and John turns into a tyrant. The story takes an even darker turn with the 2018 BuzzFeed article about John's relationships with teenagers Robyn Byrd and Katie Rice.

To be fair, the filmmakers were probably blindsided by the 2018 story and had to do some fast editing. It takes ninety minutes before the movie gets to Robyn Byrd and they never interviewed Katie Rice. I wouldn't be surprised if the movie was already done with a ninety minute cut before the revelations turned everything upside down. There are downside consequences to this. This movie has a few famous faces heaping praises upon the show. I bet some of them would like to add to their interviews by tackling the question of separating the creator from the creation. While a few insiders do mention John's fascination with young girls, some more in-depth discussion on the subject matter is needed. Quite frankly, that should be the central issue of this documentary. It may not be possible but the filmmakers need to make another ninety minutes on that.

It was really entertaining. I was a kid when the show came out and watched it religiously. It was cool getting the inside perspective on the show. Unfortunately it was new to me hearing about the abuse by John. It does take away from the nostalgia of the show for me because what he did was disturbing. Hearing him acknowledge what he did only made it worse.

Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren and Stimpy Story is a huge love letter to everyone, and everything involved with The Ren and Stimpy Show. The movie starts off slow in the beginning but speeds up when it starts talking about the production of the show. It gets a little slow again when they interview fans and celebrities like Jack Black, or Bobby Lee, a Weird Al interview was also recorded but didn't make the cut, the celeb interviews seem a little forced for runtime, but I get why they were added in. There is many controversies or other news involved with John K. (like his relationship with Billy West, his kickstarter cartoon, and suing the South Park creators for their poop character) that didn't make the cut due to the documentary already being almost 2 hours long, and I get why, they are only focusing on stuff related to Ren and Stimpy, and they only go for the major controversies. The main focus of the movie is the legacy Ren and Stimpy created, if we didn't have Ren and Stimpy, we wouldn't have Spongebob, The Simpsons, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, almost every current show is influenced by Ren and Stimpy, and that's the message the movie signs off with. If Ren and Stimpy didn't exist, I wouldn't be a cartoonist and draw as much as I do daily. This whole movie is perfect for any fan of animation, tv, or comedy, I absolutely adore this movie, and everyone who just thinks about John K.'s terrible life decisions when Ren and Stimpy is mentioned, give this a watch and learn that John K. isn't the only person who worked on this show. So please give this a watch, it's $0.99 to rent and it's arriving on DVD and Blu-Ray later this year.

A look into the development and legacy of Red and Stimpy but also the story of John K and his... issues.

There's lots to like here with a look at how the cartoon was created, pitched, made, and received. Although it skips out on talking much about the seasons after John K left and how those were taken. It's really a love letter to the show but then you have to address the story of what happened with John K and the allegations of his actions. This only briefly touches on them and probably should have done more, but I can see why they didn't want to soil the movie with too much of that. Overall a strong watch for those that loved the show.

It's odd how many times someone faces accusations of something horrible around the time of a reboot. It's almost as if major companies want more profits so they know the court of public opinion quite often removes the word "alleged" and pronounces people guilty immediately. Turns out most people are terrible so they need to believe anyone successful is worse to feel better about themselves.

Some things John admits to doing and some are just allegations and should be taken as such. You would not want people believing everything people say about you so give others the same courtesy.

That said, it's a good documentary from an age when cartoons weren't trying to indoctrinate children but letting them be kids and enjoy being silly.