Stimpy's Invention

File:The Ren & Stimpy Show - Happy Happy Joy Joy scene.webm

Stimpy, demonstrating more intelligence than usual, goes on a spree of creating useless and impractical inventions, and subjects Ren to each one. Ren is annoyed by the inventions; the Cheese-O-Phone is meaningless, while the Remote Controlled Shaver, despite practical, could not be controlled well, hence shaving Ren's fur. Ren is angered by Stimpy's glue-filled Stay-Put Socks despite enjoying the sensation, as the socks do not allow him to walk. Stimpy misconstrues it as unhappiness, vowing to make Ren happy with yet another invention.

Stimpy spends a long time at his laboratory, utilizing machinery and animals for his work while rehydrating himself with tears stored in his glasses. He returns with a helmet-like device known as the Happy Helmet, which can take control of the wearer's happiness via brainwashing. Stimpy forcibly puts the helmet on Ren, who is disgusted by Stimpy's lack of ethics but becomes overwhelmed by the helmet's influence. He does various chores for Stimpy to his apparent enjoyment.

Ren wakes up in a bedroom decorated like that of a child, his eyes bloodshot as he is perpetually pushed to his limits. In an attempt to "improve" Ren's current mood further, Stimpy plays a record of his favorite song, Happy Happy Joy Joy, performed by the Burl Ives-like folk singer Stinky Whizzleteats. Ren and Stimpy dance maniacally to the song, which consists of mindlessly repeating the song's title while uttering statements relating to domestic violence during interludes between choruses. When Stimpy becomes engrossed in the song to the point of distraction, Ren manages to control himself, going to the kitchen, where he finds a hammer and uses it to destroy the Happy Helmet as the song nears its end. Now freed from the helmet's control, an enraged Ren confronts Stimpy and starts to strangle him. Ren realizes that he has truly become happy at his angriest, reveling in his newfound joy. Stimpy is confused by this while Ren maniacally cackles in his mind, ending the episode.

• John Kricfalusi – Ren, Stinky Wizzleteats
• Billy West – Stimpy, Ren's laughs

The episode had a very troubled production, taking a year to complete from the beginning of production in February 1991 until it aired a year later in February 1992.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} The story originated in 1990 when Bob Camp developed the idea of a story called Stimpy's Inventions in which Ren serves as an unwilling guinea pig for Stimpy's impractical inventions.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} John Kricfalusi was greatly taken with Camp's idea.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} Camp later explained that Kricfalusi was deeply invested in the idea, obsessively refining each detail to an extreme degree until he felt it was perfect.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} Kricfalusi changed the focus on the story as Camp stated that he told him: "Look, why don't we have him [Ren] have a real fit and go insane at one point, and then Stimpy decides he's going to make an invention that's going to cure Ren?"{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} Kricfalusi developed the idea of the Happy Helmet that enslaves Ren, and make the focus of the story Ren's struggle for freedom.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}}

The executives wanted to have the scenes where Stimpy uses a duck as a tool, Ren whacks Stimpy with a folded newspaper, and Ren grins so wildly "that the top of his head separated from his lower jaw."{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116–117}} Some of the more extreme elements of the story were removed, despite that much of the material that the executives objected to was not removed and went to air anyway.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117}} In a 2008 interview, Kricfalusi stated he had to strongly persuade producer Vanessa Coffey to approve production on "Stimpy's Invention", as the team lost a month because of issues beyond their control.{{sfn|Klickstein|Summers|2013|p=174}} He mentioned that both "Space Madness" and "Stimpy's Invention" were initially rejected by Nickelodeon before convincing them otherwise—ironically, they went on to become the show's most popular episodes.{{sfn|Klickstein|Summers|2013|p=174}}

Vincent Waller stated that the network executives disliked Stimpy's use of a duck to solder together the Happy Helmet due to concerns that it might inspire children to imitate using ducks as tools and wanted Stimpy to use a woodpecker instead as the tool.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117}} According to Waller, there were concerns that the scene was too painful for the duck, suggesting that having its head interact with hard metal in such a way could cause harm.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117}} Kricfalusi sent out a memo that stated the animation team was going to draw a duck as he recalled: "I just sent them back a note saying, 'No.'"{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117}}

In interviews, Kricfalusi stated that the episode faced significant delays due to prolonged approval processes.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} When the storyboard was originally reviewed, executives didn't understand it and wanted it scrapped immediately.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} He said he had to plead with Coffey, producer of The Ren & Stimpy Show, to move forward with it.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} Despite Coffey approving the story outline, Kricfalusi noted that Will McRobb was against the concept since its beginning, expressing concern over a cartoon about mind control for children—an objection Kricfalusi claimed not to understand.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117}} Coffey admitted to having disagreements with Kricfalusi over the story's content, but denied Kricfalusi's claim that she wanted to veto the episode.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117}} Several scenes were censored by the network executives, most notably a scene where Ren, under the control of the Happy Helmet, submissively licks Stimpy, which did not make it past the storyboard phase, owing to its homoerotic elements.{{sfn|Langer|2004|p=172}}

The storyboard phase of the episode started in late 1990 and was finished by late February 1991.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117}} The animators who worked on the episode have stated that it was Kricfalusi's obsessive perfectionism and micro-management leadership style that delayed the production.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117–118}} The animators who worked on "Stimpy's Invention" have stated in various interviews that the network executives censored several scenes contained in the storyboard phase, most notably the licking scene, but afterward were content to let production proceed after it started in February 1991.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117}}

"Stimpy's Invention" was scheduled to premiere in October 1991, but did not premiere until February 1992 due to the production delays.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=117–118}} Camp described the production as extremely demanding, reflecting that the team exhausted themselves trying to perfect it.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=118}} Constant revisions and fine-tuning prevented the episode from finishing by its deadline.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=118}} According to Camp, the episode was a rare blend of his own drawings and Kricfalusi's dedication, with the latter pushing everyone relentlessly in pursuit of perfection.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=118}}

File:The Ren & Stimpy Show - Stay Put Socks box shot.webp

Kricfalusi's insistence on redrawing many of the scenes himself greatly hindered production. One scene, where Stimpy presents his "Stay-Put Socks" to Ren, took an entire month to complete as Kricfalusi kept changing his mind about the color of the box that held the socks, despite the box being shown for only a few seconds.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119}} The scene's painter, Teale Wang, painted 50 different versions of the box in various colors and shades until Kricfalusi finally chose Wang's first painting of the box.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119}} Wang reported that she felt that Kricfalusi was even then not pleased with the coloring of the box.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119}} Likewise, another animator, David Koenigsberg, recalled that Kricfalusi would explode in rage at him over his coloring of the Happy Helmet and that it seemed that he could never quite color the Happy Helmet in a manner that was satisfactory to Kricfalusi.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119}} Koenigsberg stated: "He [Kricfalusi] comes storming into our workplace, yells at me in front of everybody 'You're wrong!', and storms out. He wasn't kidding around, he was really fucking angry. And I remember looking at Chris Reccardi, 'I don't know what that was for'. And Chris says, 'Welcome to the club.'"{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119}}

Animator Mark Kausler, who drew the scene where Ren and Stimpy dance and the scene where Ren used a hammer to smash his head, stated that Kricfalusi was "not an easy director to please" and that "he didn't always know what he was looking for."{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119–120}} For the dance Ren and Stimpy perform to Happy Happy Joy Joy, in which they repeatedly rub their buttocks against each other, Kausler drew five different versions where Stimpy's buttocks grew progressively more inflated with each drawing.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=120}} The most extreme version of Stimpy's bloated buttocks was rejected by Kricfalusi as too inappropriate for even Kricfalusi's vulgar sense of humor.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=120}} Kricfalusi then changed his mind several weeks later and chose that version for the broadcast version.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=120}}

File:JohnKricfalusi.jpg's studio, Spümcø, under his supervision. The episode took a year to complete due to Kricfalusi's perfectionism and constant revisions.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119}}]]

The production on "Stimpy's Invention" was so far behind in August–September 1991 that Carbunkle Cartoons in Vancouver, that had been hired as a subcontractor for the animation, were forced to temporarily fire much of their staff as there was not enough material arriving from California to justify paying for a full staff.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119}} The scene where Ren, after having the Happy Helmet placed on his head, attempts to resist the effect and goes through a series of contorted facial expressions which show how difficult it is for him to smile, was especially onerous and difficult to draw.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=128}} The task of illustrating the scene was assigned to Kelly Armstrong, the co-boss of Carbunkle and wife of Bob Jaques, who impressed the other animators with her ability to illustrate such a dramatic transformation.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=128}} Armstrong recalled animating Ren in the scene as particularly complex, with the character staggering, transitioning between two poses, and delivering dialogue simultaneously.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=128}} Due to its difficulty, the mouth movements were animated in one sequence but "pinned" onto the head using a radically staggered order—all while matching the exaggerated motion of Ren.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=128}}

Much of production on "Stimpy's Invention" was done at Spümcø in Los Angeles under the watchful eyes of Kricfalusi.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=119}} To the considerable annoyance of the other cartoonists who worked on the episode, Kricfalusi started to personally redraw much of the episode himself in October 1991, at a time when the episode was already supposed to have been aired.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=120}} Koenigsberg stated that Kricfalusi had gone "a little bit nuts" by the fall of 1991 as he started to redraw scenes that already been sent to the Carbunkle studio, a practice that brought production to "a complete halt."{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=120}} Animator Christine Danzo stated that Kricfalusi at one point took the entire draft of the episode, locked it in his office, and refused to "let it out until he had gone though the entire show and had it the way he wanted."{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=120}}

By November 1991, Howard Baker had resigned as the overseas supervisor, and Jaques was hired to go to the Philippines to oversee the inking of the episode by Fil-Cartoons at Manila.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=120–121}} Jaques, who disliked overseeing production in various Asian studios, whose poorly paid cartoonists had a level of craftsmanship not up to American standards, at first refused Kricfalusi's request to work as the overseas supervisor.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} Jaques decided to go to the Philippines before he saw how the drafts of "Fire Dogs" had been vandalized by the staff of the Fil-Cartoons studio.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} The version of "Fire Dogs" that premiered in 1991 was shorter than intended, as much of the footage had been vandalized beyond repair. Jaques was fond of his work on this episode and did not want the episode to get ruined the same way much of "Fire Dogs" had been ruined.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} When Jaques arrived in Manila in November 1991, he reported that much of the footage had been ruined due to incompetence, and he had to redo much of the episode himself using the original pencil drawings.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} Jaques called Fil-Cartoons "the cheapest shithole studio I've ever had the displeasure to work with."{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=60}} American scholar Thad Komorowski wrote that Fil-Cartoons was the animation equivalent of a sweatshop as many of the Fil-Cartoons cartoonists slept outside of the studio as they were unable to pay rent owing to their extremely low wages and the studio had no toilet paper in its washrooms out of the fear that the employees might steal it; he compared its performance unfavorably to Lacewood Productions, another animation studio they hired with similarly abysmal working conditions and performance, though Kricfalusi didn't disapprove of its work.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=60}}

Jaques reported that the Filipino cartoonists of Fil-Cartoons were inept and that many of the visual flaws in "Stimpy's Invention" were due to their poor workmanship.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121–122}} Jaques described an incident where he discovered that a camera move on an exposure sheet was altered from a three-frame move to an eleven-frame move.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} When he questioned the checker about the change, the response was that a three-frame camera move wasn't possible—an assumption Jaques attributed to poor training.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} He emphasized that these misconceptions affected the animation process, stating that skilled animators can control nearly any aspect of a frame when they understand the medium properly.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} Owing to the demands from the network to have the episode finally finished, Jaques had several scenes of "Stimpy's Invention" discarded and only chose to focus on having the staff of Fil-Cartoons ink in and paint the scenes that he deemed essential for the story.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} To save time, Jaques used the workprint rather than the negative for the scene where Ren cleans Stimpy's filthy underwear, which was the reason for the dirt lines that appeared in the final version.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} Throughout November and December 1991, the Fil-Cartoons staff painted and inked in "Stimpy's Invention".{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}}

Jaques reported that the cartoonists of Fil-Cartoons sabotaged much of the drawings of "Stimpy's Invention" out of anger, as he showed them American animation methods much superior to their own.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} The scene where Stimpy has an epiphany and says "I must use my gift of invention to save Ren!" had to be reshot in the United States as it was intentionally damaged in the Philippines.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} Jaques stated that Fil-Cartoons disregarded his instructions by altering the animation, despite being specifically told not to make any changes.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=121}} The problems with Fil-Cartoons in the first season led to the work of inking in Ren & Stimpy Show episodes being subcontracted out to the Rough Draft Korea studio in South Korea for the second season.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=158}} The frequent delays on "Stimpy's Invention" led Nickelodeon to present it as a "lost episode" of The Ren & Stimpy Show when it aired on February 23, 1992.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=122}}

American scholar Thad Komorowski gave the episode five out of five stars, considering it to be among the best of the series with "an ideal balance of genuine turmoil with uproarious comedy."{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=122}} The American journalist Joey Anuff wrote that "Stimpy's Invention" was Kricfalusi's "finest moment".{{sfn|Anuff|1998|p=106}} In a review, the critic Dawn Taylor called "Stimpy's Invention" one of the best of the show, that featured the "dastardly catchy Happy Happy Joy Joy song."{{cite web |last1=Taylor |first1=Dawn |title=The Ren & Stimpy Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons: Uncut |url=http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/r/renandstimpy.season01.shtml |website=The DVD Journal |access-date=30 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041019052313/http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/r/renandstimpy.season01.shtml |archive-date=19 October 2004}} She further noted that "the psychotic rant by the Burl Ives-esque singer Stinky Wizzleteats is actually dialogue spoken by Ives in the film The Big Country." The American scholar Sarah Banet-Weiser wrote that "Stimpy's Invention", when it premiered in 1992, was a refreshing change from the banal and bland cartoons of the 1980s.{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=194}} Banet-Weiser wrote that much of the dialogue in "Stimpy's Invention", such as Ren's threat "You filthy swine, I will kill you!", would not have been aired in a 1980s cartoon.{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=194}} Banet-Weiser noted that the episode cheerfully satirized many of the conventions of modern American culture, such as Stimpy's use of a duck and a beaver as tools which mocked the "no testing on animals" disclaimer often used in American marketing.{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=194}} Banet-Weiser noted that "Stimpy's Invention" lampooned the ideals of happiness and conformity in modern American culture as it is being unhappy that makes Ren happy and the Happy Helmet is a form of slavery as Ren no longer has control of his mind and his emotions after Stimpy places it on his head.{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=194}}

File:The Ren & Stimpy Show - still frames of the Happy Helmet.jpg

Much of the story of "Stimpy's Invention" is a parody of the idea popular in certain quarters that being perpetually happy should be the norm for everyone.{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=194}} Likewise, the story satirizes the belief that any form of sadness is a mental disorder that needs to be whisked away via a regime of drugs and therapy.{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=194}} The Happy Helmet appears to be a metaphor for the way that some American parents have their children constantly take antidepressant drugs, regardless of whether they are needed, as a way to ensure permanent happiness.{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=194}} The overprescription of antidepressants for children, especially in the United States, has been described as a "crisis" with 1 out of every 12 American children taking some form of antidepressant drugs, in many cases due to vague diagnoses of some psychological disorder.{{cite news |last1=Read |first1=John |title=Psychiatry Through the Looking Glass Are Children and Adolescents Overprescribed Psychiatric Medications? |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/psychiatry-through-the-looking-glass/202108/are-children-and-adolescents-overprescribed |access-date=16 January 2023 |publisher=Psychology Today}}

Komorowski noted that the story of "Stimpy's Invention" is about freedom as Ren asserts his identity in the face of Stimpy's efforts to impose his version of happiness on him.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} There is nothing that indicates that Ren likes the song Happy Happy Joy Joy, but he is forced to dance to that song under the control of the Happy Helmet because it is Stimpy's favorite song.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} The notion that Ren might have another favorite song of his own did not seem relevant to Stimpy's way of thinking.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} The way that Stimpy casually assumed that because Happy Happy Joy Joy made him happy that it would also make Ren happy reflected his utter disregard for Ren's feelings that stood in an ironical contrast to his desire to ensure that Ren would always be happy.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=116}} Komorowski noted that Ren under the control of the Happy Helmet was being "tortured, physically and mentally" while Stimpy was completely "oblivious" to the pain that he had inflicted on him.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=126}} Stimpy was quite surprised when he learned at the climax that Ren was angry at him.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=126}} Komorowski argued that Stimpy displayed a parental love and concern for Ren as he only wanted him to be happy, but that he went about helping his friend in a manner that was brutal and callous, albeit only because Stimpy was so lost in his "brainless ecstasy" that he was incapable of understanding the torment that he inflicted.{{sfn|Komorowski|2017|p=126}}

Banet-Weiser noted that Ren, under the dominance of the Happy Helmet, has an unnaturally wide, crazed smile perpetually stuck on his face with bloodshot eyes while he attends happily to Stimpy's utterly repulsive desideratum of needs, such as cleaning Stimpy's filthy litterbox and his equally filthy underwear.{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=195}} Banet-Weiser also noted that the song Happy Happy Joy Joy is, despite its title, rather menacing as the singer threatens at one point: "I don't think you're happy enough. I'll teach you to be happy!"{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=195}} Banet-Weiser wrote: "The transgressing of boundaries of taste and convention in Ren & Stimpy is playful; 'Stimpy's Invention' consciously mocks the authenticity of 'being happy', so that the unofficial anthem of Ren & Stimpy, Happy Happy Joy Joy, is provocatively ironic."{{sfn|Banet-Weiser|2007|p=195}} The 2020 documentary Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren and Stimpy Story took its title from the song. In a review of Happy Happy Joy Joy, the British critic Andrew Pulver wrote: "Here is a documentary whose title contains radioactive levels of irony: happiness and joy are very far from what is to be found within."{{cite news |last1=Pulver |first1=v |date=16 April 2021 |title=Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren and Stimpy Story review – disturbing scenes |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/16/happy-happy-joy-joy-the-ren-and-stimpy-story-review-john-kricfalusi |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416120230/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/16/happy-happy-joy-joy-the-ren-and-stimpy-story-review-john-kricfalusi |archive-date=16 April 2021 |access-date=31 December 2022 |work=The Guardian}}

• {{cite journal |last1=Anuff |first1=Joel |title=The Nearly Invisible Animation Genius |journal=Spin |date=November 1998 |volume=14 |issue=11 |pages=100–105}}
• {{cite book |last1=Klickstein |first1=Matthew |last2=Summers |first2=Marc |title=Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age |date=2013 |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |location=London|isbn=9781101614099}}
• {{cite book |last1=Komorowski |first1=Thad |title=Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story |date=2017 |publisher= BearManor Media |location=Albany, Georgia |isbn=978-1629331836}}
• {{cite book|last=Langer|first=Mark|chapter=Ren & Stimpy: Fan Culture and Corporate Strategy|pages=155–181|title=Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economics of America's Only TV Channel for Kids|publisher=NYU Press|location=Albany|date=2004|editor=Heather Hendershot|isbn=9780814736524}}
• {{cite book |last1=Banet-Weiser |first1=Sarah |title=Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship |date=2007 |publisher=Duke University Press |location=Durham |isbn=9780822339939}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wog-z_Esnw4 Happy Happy Joy Joy]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1rffI2C7Yw&t=284s Review of Stimpy's Invention]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081003003848/https://whiggles.landofwhimsy.com/archives/2008/09/forced_happiness_and_triple_bu.html Non-consensual happiness and triple buttock syndrome Review of Stimpy's Invention]

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Category:1992 American television episodes

Category:Television episodes about technology

Category:The Ren & Stimpy Show episodes

Category:Works about emotions