12. The Ren and Stimpy Show

Original Air Date: 1991-1996
Network: Nickelodeon

Who would’ve thought that a series featuring an asthmatic Chihuahua and a mental midget of a manx cat could provide so many gut-ripping laughs? Well, anyone, actually, who is familiar with animation’s long relationship with antrophomorphic animals. Created by John Kricfalusi for his Spumco International cartoon studio, the show began life on MTV before being sold to Nickelodeon, where Kricfalusi and the network soon came to loggerheads over the series’ violence as well as (reportedly) the animator’s many missed deadlines. But the show’s subversive humor appealed to audiences, and even after Kricfalusi was fired from his own show, Ren and Stimpy continued for three more seasons. Eventually the creator of the pair returned for Spike TV’s Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon in 2003, which featured a more overtly adult edge, but the series was cancelled a month after it debuted, with Kricfalusi’s deadline problems again coming into play. A shame, really, because we always loved to see some serious Ren violence...

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