industry animation fate closed due to lawsuit filed against the company founded 1988 ; 28 years ago 1988 1 original company april 2016 as sp mtwo 2 founder john kricfalusi bob camp jim smith lynne naylor 3 defunct july 18 2005 ; 11 years ago 2005 07 18 original company headquarters los angeles california united states key people john kricfalusi president and co founder stephen w. worth producer and animation historian kevin kolde vice president and general manager products animated series flash animated series music videos animated shorts animated commercials comic book website spumco s wonderful world of cartoons sp mc inc. was an american animation production company based in los angeles california . the studio produced three traditionally animated series two flash animated cartoon series two music videos five animated shorts and a comic book . the company also went on to produce content for a few animated spots and commercials . 4 it won several awards including an annie award for best animated short subject for the bj rk music video i miss you . 5 sp mc was founded in 1988 as a small office facility in the heart of hollywood . 6 the company name was claimed to have been derived from the name of animation pioneer raymond spum . 7 only a few short months after sp mc s founding nickelodeon announced that they were looking for new cartoons . 8 a concept claimed to be revived by then president of nickelodeon geraldine laybourne was that of creator driven cartoons . 3 8 sp mc co founder and then president john kricfalusi sold the ren & stimpy show to nickelodeon in 1988 which became sp mc s first original animated series production . 8 the golden age of american animation like the 1940s cartoons by bob clampett and tex avery to name a few served for inspiration for the surreal and highly expressive house style for which sp mc became well known . 9 10 the sp mc headquarters were located in los angeles west of paramount studios . amy harmon of the new york times said that the not quite underground headquarters was a nondescript building . 11 in 2016 it was revealed on tumblr that kricfalusi and cartoon network storyboard artist gabe del valle are reopening the company under the name sp mtwo to produce bigger projects and are now looking for employees . 12 the new studio s first project is a short film starring ren and stimpy to appear in front of spongebob 3 13 with the possibility of reviving the series . 14 contents 1 history 1.1 the beginning 1.2 the ren & stimpy show 1.3 after nickelodeon 1.4 return to television 2 documentary 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit the beginning edit john kricfalusi head of sp mc . prior to the founding of sp mc two animators john kricfalusi and lynne naylor would spend their time attempting to sell original cartoon ideas throughout the 1980s while working for various animation studios like filmation . 7 one of their ideas was ren & stimpy but the show would be turned down by the three major television networks in the process . 7 the idea of original animated cartoons created by actual cartoonists and not by tv network executives whose ideas were solely based on toy products and comic books would not happen again for some 25 years until sp mc was founded and would eventually make history as the first animation studio of its kind . 7 the company was officially founded in 1989 as a small office facility in the heart of hollywood by a small group of cartoonists disappointed in the state of animation during the 1980s . 7 john kricfalusi lynne naylor bob camp and jim smith who all co founded the company were cartoonists who were either laid off by animation companies or willingly decided to quit . 7 a few short months later nickelodeon announced that they were looking for new cartoons created by cartoonists . 8 this would be a concept claimed to be revived by then president of nickelodeon geraldine laybourne that being the concept of creator driven cartoons . 8 kricfalusi explains the name sp mc well it s a weird coincidence . the word sp m is the word for quality in danish . but it s actually named after raymond sp m the guy who invented animation in 1856 . 15 the ren & stimpy show edit main article the ren & stimpy show the ren & stimpy show title card after only a few months of the founding of sp mc john kricfalusi decided to fly to nickelodeon s headquarters in new york where he would pitch five ideas for cartoons . geraldine laybourne the president of nickelodeon at the time picked two of the five ideas ren & stimpy and jimmy the idiot boy . ultimately kricfalusi decided to sell ren & stimpy which led to sp mc s first animated series production the ren and stimpy show . 8 because nickelodeon had no original cartoon material prior to the hiring of john kricfalusi the company was unaware of the basic process of an animated cartoon . 8 kricfalusi had volunteered to give nickelodeon executives an informative background of cartoonists using storyboards for storytelling in animated cartoons rather than a script . 8 vanessa coffey who became the executive for the ren & stimpy show listened to kricfalusi s lessons and background briefing of the animation industry and was pleased to learn about how the process works . 8 coffey agreed with kricfalusi that if storyboards were good enough for bugs bunny they were good enough for her . 8 kricfalusi s animation company finished the pilot big house blues in october 1990 and the first episode of the show aired on august 11 1991 premiering alongside doug and rugrats . 16 sp mc continued to produce the show for the next two years while encountering issues with nickelodeon standards and practices . over the next couple of years a number of episodes were censored . kricfalusi described nickelodeon in the earliest period as being simple as there was one executive vanessa coffey whom kricfalusi said that he got along with . kricfalusi said that another executive who came during a later period in the show tried to prevent some of the ren and stimpy episodes from being produced . according to kricfalusi the episodes continued production since he did a trade with coffey which would be the exchange of having really crazy episodes for some heart warming episodes . 17 bill wray a production artist for the show stated on some occasions kricfalusi completed an episode in eight months . other occasions he completed an episode in two or three months . wray described kricfalusi s ideal production period per episode as four half hour cartoons per year and added that the arrangement would not jibe with our production schedule . 18 after nickelodeon edit at this point in time kevin kolde became a key figure of the company he worked in the capacity of a vice president and general manager . it was because of kevin that spumco was able to continue producing content for over a decade after the original run of ren and stimpy . nickelodeon fired john kricfalusi in 1992 and nickelodeon moved production from sp mc to games animation . 19 kricfalusi confirmed that the primary reason for the nickelodeon executives decision seemed to be due to the level of violence in the show . kricfalusi made remarks specifically to the episode man s best friend which features ren beating the character george liquor with an oar which may be the cause for his firing . 20 nickelodeon banned the episode from airing ; the episode did not air in north america until ren & stimpy adult party cartoon began in 2003 . 20 bill wray a production artist for ren and stimpy described the main issues regarding kricfalusi s conflict with nickelodeon as not being able to meet deadlines for production . wray stated that kricfalusi attributed the delays to nickelodeon not approving things fast enough and nickelodeon staff members changing their minds over what can or can not be produced . wray said that kricfalusi believed that the product s quality holds more importance than meeting deadlines and that he perceived nickelodeon as slowing him down . 21 according to wray kricfalusi believed e very step after the storyboards weakens the process and that he fought for the integrity of the storyboards and lengthened production time because he wished to salvage the quality of the series . 22 in 1997 john kricfalusi directed a music video for bj rk titled i miss you a single that was released the same year . 23 it was animated by the entire staff at sp mc . 5 it premiered on mtv as well as canada s muchmusic channel . 5 i miss you won an annie award for best animated short subject in 1997 from the international animated film association asifa hollywood . 5 bj rk and jimmy the idiot boy in the music video for i miss you . a variety of techniques were used for the production of the video traditional 2 d cel animation by sp mc and colorkey productions ; 3 d computer animation supervised by charlie gibson at rhythm & hues ; real time motion capture animation by house of moves ; and blue screen mattes brought live action into the mix . 5 the live action sequences with bj rk were shot in a los angeles studio in one day . 5 the entire music video took nine months to complete . 5 bj rk who confirmed to be a long time fan of kricfalusi s work insisted that he do a video for her when they met at one of her concerts . 5 she was claimed to be very pleased when she first saw john s storyboards and she apparently proclaimed it s just like christmas and did not ask for any changes . 5 george liquor being used in macromedia flash in a commercial for tower records . during 1997 john kricfalusi and his staff at sp mc launched their web site whose goal was to provide cartoons for audiences without the censorship of television networks . 24 kricfalusi decided to use george liquor a cartoon character he created to star in the flash internet cartoon series the goddamn george liquor program created by kricfalusi himself . 24 the series premiered on october 15 1997 . 25 the goddamn george liquor program was the first cartoon series to be produced exclusively for the internet . 26 george appeared on the series with his nephew jimmy the idiot boy ; jimmy s cousins slab and ernie ; jimmy s love interest sody pop ; and george and jimmy s pet dog dirty dog . sp mc produced eight one minute shorts . 27 in 1999 the goddamn george liquor program won an annie award for outstanding achievement in an animated interactive production . 28 in 1999 sp mc created its second internet only cartoon series weekend pussy hunt . 29 the series would last for 12 episodes with four unfinished cartoons due to budget problems . the series starred characters dirty dog who also made an appearance on the goddamn george liquor program and cigarettes the cat . when asked about the style of the cartoon series creator john kricfalusi made the following statement its style was a 1940s live action film noir movie and we based one of the characters dirty dog on one of my favourite movie actors robert ryan . wph weekend pussy hunt was basically a chase movie ; a really dark hardboiled thriller . 30 john kricfalusi interview tv freak feature in 1999 sp mc produced and animated a yogi bear tv special titled