Any self-respecting ‘90s kid knows the pure dumb power behind Ren and Stimpy.
Even though it might not have been the most progressive show on television by any stretch, the show was much more entertaining than almost anything else on Nickelodeon, and there’s a good shot that “Happy Happy Joy Joy” is still seared into many a viewer’s minds until the end of time.
If things had gone a little bit differently though, there was a good chance that the show could’ve gotten a grunge makeover from Kurt Cobain.
During a podcast, Billy West, the voice of both Ren and Stimpy at different points, talked about how chaotic it was in the early ‘90s with fans coming in and out of the studio, mentioning that there were a few times where a bunch of hangers-on were coming in hoping to sink their teeth into what the show was up to.
A certain grunge icon got lost in the shuffle though, saying “one time this scraggly kid comes in and said he wanted to write a song for Ren and Stimpy and they said ‘yeah, that’s great’ and they threw it in the trash… and it was Kurt Cobain.’”
It’s not like the story doesn’t hold any water either, with Kurt actually having a few plush toys of Ren and Stimpy at the time.
That wasn’t even the last time that the world of Nickelodeon crossed paths with the world of rock and roll, with resident weirdo Frank Zappa getting a speaking role on the show for a little while and a later episode of Spongebob being soundtracked by Pantera well after the fact.
Even though the people at Nickelodeon had no time for this “scraggly kid,” it’s not like Nirvana was hurting after that either, going on to blow the lid off of the entire rock scene and leaving Nickelodeon in the dust.
If the creators had been a little more lenient though, they may have gotten a cosign from one of the greatest artists of their generation.