producing an animated cartoon. Kricfalusi volunteered to give Nickelodeon executives an informative background of cartoonists using storyboards for storytelling in animated cartoons, rather than a script. 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. Coffey agreed with Kricfalusi that, "If storyboards were good enough for Bugs Bunny, they were good enough for her." Spümcø finished the pilot "Big House Blues" in October 1990 and it aired on August 11, 1991, premiering alongside Doug and Rugrats. Spümcø continued to produce the show for the next two years, while encountering issues with Nickelodeon's 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, Coffey, whom he 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 & Stimpy episodes from being produced. According to Kricfalusi, the episodes continued production since he had established a "trade" with Coffey of balancing "really crazy" episodes with "heart-warming" episodes. After Nickelodeon Nickelodeon fired Kricfalusi in 1992, and Nickelodeon moved production from Spümcø to Games Animation. Kricfalusi confirmed that the primary reason for the Nickelodeon executives' decision seemed to be due to the level of violence in Ren & Stimpy. He specifically referred to the episode "Man's Best Friend", which features Ren beating the character George Liquor with an oar, as the probable cause for his firing. Nickelodeon banned the episode from airing; the episode did not air in North America until Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" began in 2003. Bill Wray, a production artist for Ren & 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 cannot 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". 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