In the late 1980's the cable network Nickelodeon, came up with the idea of creating their own cartoons to air on their network - the catch was that the cartoons would be made by independent companies rather than the station themselves. At that time Canadian cartoonist John Kricfalusi was currently working on a new version of "The Adventures of Mighty Mouse" but after a controversial episode aired that had what many viewers thought was a scene of Mighty Mouse sniffing some cocaine in order to strengthen his powers the show was promptly cancelled. John produced and acted in a short film called "Big House Blues" which dealt with Ren and Stimpy being sent to the pound and being adopted. Nick execs. like the cartoon and John K. and his production company "SPUMCO" were hired to produce new cartoons.

Along with "Ren & Stimpy", Nick bought a show called "Doug" from Jumbo Pictures and "Rugrats" from Kalasky-Csupo" and on August 11, 1991, a new breed of cartoons were born -- Nicktoons!

Out of the three Nicktoons, Ren and Stimpy had the most problems. Many episodes were delayed because Nick execs. didn't like certain scenes and many episodes had scenes omitted due to being too adult.

During the shows second season, many episodes had changes made due to content, especially the infamous "Powdered Toast Man" episode which had many complaints due to Powdered Toast Man burning the Constitution and Bill of Rights. An episode called "Man's Best Friend" was even banned for being too violent and wasn't shown on television until 2003. After many problems with the Spumco studio, Nick fired the studio and persuaded many of the crew to work for them, producing their own episodes and Nick quickly bought the rights to Ren and Stimpy and made new episodes.

John K. felt betrayed when many of the crew left Spumco to work for Nick and after a few seasons, the series was cancelled due to poor ratings. In 2003, the New TNN bought the rights to Ren and Stimpy and hired John K. and Spumco to produce more adult rated episodes. Dubbed "Adult Party Cartoon", the series only lasted 6 episodes, with only 3 airing. Today it's assumed that the show is cancelled for good.