I love Stimpy's Fan Club, that and Fake Dad and the Carbunkle Cartoon animated episodes are my favorites
. I like know by heart almost every single line from Ren's psycho rants in Stimpy's Fan Club and Sven Hoek (even the cut lines).
According to Joe Murray's book, he did say that Camp Lazoo was indeed a kids show and Rocko was an adult project and was pitched to Nickelodeon because they did say they wanted more risk but it feel apart when advertisers couldn't sell their product. In the words of Krusty the Clown of The Simpsons "That's showbiz for yeah, one moment your on top, the next you some smo working in a box factory" then Bart replies "Boy, showbizness is kind of cruel isn't i..." and Krusty slams the door on Bart. lol Until the day Hollywood is all ran my artists I suppose.
Yeah I think that's probably why most cartoons now a days feature kid like characters so it would easily be aimed toward kids. I remember reading a Nickelodeon submission policy forum for people who wanted to pitch to the network, one of the guidelines is to create either kids characters or animal characters with an inner child which was interesting. Though a lot of the 90s Nick shows were very cutting edge which I loved because I can enjoy these shows as an adult still. Like Doug and Hey Arnold, the characters are kids but it deals with subject matters of romance and anxiety, stuff even adults can relate too. Kenan & Kel and All That were basicly homages to classic vaudeville golden age character comedy with modern twists. Kenan & Kel was Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, straight man and comic. While all that takes kind of a G / PG rated SNL and Monty Python's Flying Circus kind of sketch show. Both had their edgy adult humor yet they had a very surreal element to them which makes it silly enough for anyone to enjoy. I miss family shows like that. There's something about classic character comedy where you can practicably do just about anything and not be too vulgar or political with it. Not that I don't have a heart of R rated / Mature Adult Comedy and Satire which I love when it's done right, but I also like that classic screwball slapstick innocence that's rarely seen today. Now a days, go see a G or PG rated movie and it's just juvinille toilet humor and modern slang "Like whatever!" and all that modern stuff which would be out of date years from now. But character comedy is just timeless, and I like that sort of thing
Though I wanted to respond to the Aloha Hoek episode for a second. That's the one when they were living inside a dead whale right? Full of maggots and bugs. lol Personally I think that's a bit more creative then what John K did with Upward and Onward, the premiere of Adult Party when it's Ren & Stimpy living in a homeless person's mouth. Sure it's a little more surrealistically funny but it's limited for gags in my opinion. It's like Games did several versions of episodes like that, Ren & Stimpy on an island or I'm not sure if it's the same one where There's a father crab that's a spoof of Moe of the Three Stooges that lives in a tree. But yeah, I see what you mean.Games episodes, the plots are just surreal and no story structure like in the Spumco episodes. Games would make the episodes just plane dumb for the sake of it which I think some are funny and some weren't that great. Though I did like the ending with Ren flying away with the giant fly into the sun. lol But bad ones I remember was the Out West revival where Ren & Stimpy are Albert and Ewants Kids, Farm Hicks I think the episode was called. I liked the gag where they smash their teeth and need to swallow rocks just to chew their food just like what chickens do. lol But the rest, UGH! There's an episode where they have a meat truck and they have a meat puppet show, instead of an ice cream truck. lol Chicken in a Drawer was good with the old man with a stick up him, A Chuckie Cheeses parody I believe. But Yeah, I can totally see how it's just a bunch of John K's ex-employees trying to copy the Spumco stuff poorly overdoing the Meat jokes and stuff. I read that after Ren & Stimpy got canceled, Bob Camp appoligized to John K for taking over Ren & Stimpy and asking his job at Spumco back and John didn't give it to him. On the DVDs, John K gets to talk to some of the ex-Spumco crew members like Bill Wray (I love his paintings
), I think Jim Gomez (who has a puppet movie that I can't say the name of, Billy West is in it) but Bob Camp and Billy West weren't in the commentary unfortunately. It would have been nice. And of course the late Michael Pataki (The original George Liqour, he passed away last year, John K is working on "Cans Without Labels" which is probably the last thing Michael did of George. It's an indie short, John raised money online for it and he's going to use Toon Boom software to make it. I'd love to see it, I've seen his pitch on a Comic Con video. Looks funny and kind of back to his roots.