A ‘Ren & Stimpy’ Doc Exists and It Tells the Fascinating Story of the TV Cartoon

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By Gregory Crofton

The emergence of sharable clips on Instagram of “Ren & Stimpy,” a hilarious 90s Nickelodeon cartoon, led me to a documentary about the show that I didn’t know existed.

“Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Show” is a comprehensive and balanced take on how this wildly influential morning cartoon came to be. The film also deals with the illicit sexual habits of John Kricfalusi, the show’s creator.

In the doc Kricfalusi admits to a past sexual relationship with at least one underage girl, a 14 year old, who began sending him fan letters and videos. Directors Ron Cicero and Kimo Easterwood locked the film and had to remake it after the sexual allegations surfaced.

Learn more about the production process of Cicero and Easterwood in this Film Threat podcast.

The doc, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020, apparently was buried because of pressure from the #MeToo movement, but it has finally emerged on the Tubi platform, where you can watch it for free with ads.

“Happy Happy Joy Joy” — among many details revealed about the evolution of “The Ren & Stimpy Show” — establishes how the cartoon found a home at Nicklelodeon and explains why Kricfalusi was fired after the first season. In part it was due to increased pressure from the network asking him to deliver 20 episodes, instead of 10, for season two.

Most of the Ren & Stimpy team soldiered on with a different director, Bob Camp, and Nicklelodon ended up broadcasting five seasons of the show.

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