“Happy Happy Joy Joy:” the Abuse and Chaos behind “Ren and Stimpy” (Review)
Even though it was “before my time,” The Ren and Stimpy Show had a major impact on my childhood. Never before had I seen a show as boundary-breaking and zany as Ren and Stimpy. As a child, I was primarily into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other cartoons of that ilk, but stashed in the living room were three VHS tapes my father would watch over and over again: official episode compilations of Ren and Stimpy. I could go on extensively about how much I adored Ren and Stimpy as a kid, even if it ended before I was even born.
Like many other people who had Ren and Stimpy so close to their hearts, the behind-the-scenes scandals and behaviors from show creator John Kricfalusi has soured those once warm feelings. Happy Happy Joy Joy attempts to tackle some of these issues while giving a comprehensive retrospective on Ren and Stimpy, yet oftentimes fails to be anywhere near as interesting or critical as it should be.
On the surface, it’s extremely fun and thought-provoking to witness how the “sausage is made” when it comes to any prominent piece of art. Picking the brains of the creative talents behind prolific pieces of art has always been of great interest to me, so the documentary genre of film peaked my interests (especially those about film and television). Happy Happy Joy Joy picks the brains of some of the creative talents behind Ren and Stimpy quite a lot, which is cool to see, especially since Ren and Stimpy has a storied history of annoying Nickelodeon executives, subtly passing extremely adult jokes in a show made for children, and that the creative processes for episodes were far different than its contemporaries at the time.
Unfortunately, it’s within the attention to detail on breaking down episodes where we see the one major issue with Happy Happy Joy Joy: the film rarely makes any time whatsoever to talk about the hefty baggage that drags behind Ren and Stimpy. Back in 2018, news articles were published stating that two women were sexually assaulted by Ren and Stimpy’s creator: John Kricfalusi. Kricfalusi used Ren and Stimpy as a grooming mechanism to lure two underage girls to work with him on additional creative projects after he was fired from Nickelodeon. John not only used the show’s reputation to pull these girls to work with him, but had also used them for romantic relationships, having them live with him, while additionally being extremely emotionally abusive to them, all while they were underage.
Even outside of the horrific things John did after his Ren and Stimpy career, he was even a toxic person while he was working on the show. Happy Happy Joy Joy goes into a little bit of detail on this by having people who worked on the show commentate about John’s behaviors during production cycles (yet they’re only passing remarks with no context put into them), only to be shoved in last-minute at the tail end of the film. I certainly believe that having the entire hour-forty-five documentary solely being about John Kricfalusi’s character wouldn’t make for a compelling film. My issue is that even though the issues surrounding Kricfalusi are touched on, they’re rarely elaborated on, and in turn, only become a point of discussion within the final twenty minutes of the movie (around fifteen if we’re to include credits).
These issues involving the lack of discussion around John Kricfalusi compound further when there’s rarely any time for one of his two victims to speak about her experiences (the other woman just isn’t in the film at all), and that John gets a lot of the limelight throughout the documentary. John speaks about his experiences with the show, working with Nickelodeon, and his startup from his rough upbringing to hitting it big time in L.A. The film essentially presents this man as something to admire, then crashing all of the hard facts and uncomfortable realities at the very end, making for major pacing issues and the worst case of tonal whiplash I’ve ever had in a documentary before.
To add on top of the lack of criticisms forwarded towards John — including his prominent presence throughout the documentary — there’s rarely any outside voices to speak about the show, and they’re almost entirely White. Most of the people who worked on the show were White, so it would make sense that a large chunk of the cast would make of said people, yet there are many moments where other comedians and people who took influence from Ren and Stimpy speak about their experiences watching the show, and all but one of them are White. There are two people of color featured in this documentary: layout artist for Ren and Stimpy, Ed Bell, and comedian Bobby Lee.
When speaking about something so prolific, generation-spanning, and universally beloved as Ren and Stimpy, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that there’s not a wider range of voices to speak about the show. Offering up a more diverse interviewing cast could’ve presented a few more interesting perspectives we may not have otherwise received, but we have to take what we were given here, and what we were given is barely anything at all, especially when the two people of color have little speaking time.
Outside of the glaring issues involving highlighted subjects, casting, and overall pacing, at the very least, the visual presentation of Happy Happy Joy Joy is pretty good. Happy Happy Joy Joy doesn’t present anything mind-blowing for a documentary, but it remains consistently well-presented for the majority of its runtime, only having slight issues like a camera being out of focus, and the occasional weird edit now and then. Although the overall visual presentation of a film is the most important piece of the equation, it isn’t the only piece. The aforementioned issues with the narrative structure of the film severely damage it, especially when talking about a documentary, which is sold more on its information rather than its visual spectacle.
I’m disappointed to say the very least about Happy Happy Joy Joy. While there’s a lot of cool stuff on offer to learn about, its structural issues and a lack of speaking on the heavy subjects (that are incredibly more important than reiterating the same topics repeatedly) mire what is otherwise an entertaining film. I would approach Happy Happy Joy Joy with caution, not only because of the harsh topics that eventually get spoken about, but that an abuser is prominently featured throughout the film with little criticisms thrown his way. With John Kricfalusi being such a prominent figure of this documentary, I’m more than certain any purchase/rental of this film leads to dollars in his pocket, which is understandably a point of contention.
Thankfully, the future is bright. Even though Kricfalusi is all over Happy Happy Joy Joy, the revival of Ren and Stimpy currently in the works from Comedy Central will not involve him in any way, shape, or form, so we can all enjoy a revival of a great show, without the scummy baggage that would otherwise come with it.
