Hey, animation fans, John Kricfalusi has posted some clips from the upcoming DVD release of Ren and Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon on his blog. The set is actually being called "The Lost Episodes" and will contain cartoons from the short-lived SpikeTV series which brought Ren and Stimpy out of the confines of children's animation and into a more ribald setting. Essentially, once the duo was re-imagined for SpikeTV very little remained of their Nickelodeon days. This was either a welcome change or utter blasphemy, depending on your stance as a fan. Personally, while I enjoyed the original Ren and Stimpy, I loved seeing them brought back, even if it wasn't quite the same as before. Besides, I've never seen an animation studio push the boundaries of TV cartoons the way Spumco does. See the clips here.

I'm a great admirer of Looney Tunes and animation from that era, so it's no surprise that I found Amid Amidi's blog about style and design in 1950s animation to be quite interesting. He also has a new book, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation which comes out this year. Amidi has written extensively on animation and design for several publications, and in 2003 he worked on Ren and Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon for Spike TV. Given the opportunity to speak with someone who has worked in the industry and who has a knowledge far exceeding my own, I asked Amid to sit down for a brief e-mail confab. Here's what we talked about: