West declined to voice Stimpy in the Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" because he believed that the series was not funny and that voicing Stimpy in it would damage his career. Consequently, Eric Bauza would instead voice the character and reprised the voice role in the Nicktoons MLB video game. West will reprise his role as Stimpy (along with voicing Ren) in Comedy Central's reboot of the show. History In a 1993 interview by a comics magazine, Bill Wray stated that he believes that Kricfalusi created Ren and Stimpy around 1978 for Kricfalusi and his friends' personal amusement in college; Kricfalusi attended Sheridan College in Canada. Wray said that he had initially "forgotten about" the characters. When Nickelodeon requested a new series, Kricfalusi assembled a presentation called "Your Gang", similar to a children's show with a live action host presenting various cartoons. Each cartoon parodied a genre, and Ren & Stimpy parodied the "cat and dog" genre. Vanessa Coffey, the producer of the show, said that she did not like the general idea, but that she liked the characters. Kricfalusi originally created Ren and Stimpy as the pets of George Liquor and Jimmy The Idiot Boy. Kricfalusi received inspiration for Ren from a black and white photograph of a chihuahua in a sweater next to a woman's feet. The original photograph is called "New York City, 1946" and was taken by Elliott Erwitt. He received inspiration for Stimpy's design by a Tweety Bird cartoon called A Gruesome Twosome where the cats in the animation had big noses. The relationship of both Ren and Stimpy was inspired in the relationship of Gandy Goose and Sourpuss from Terrytoons. Sexuality From its start, there were hints at the characters' sexuality. During the Spümcø years of the show on Nickelodeon, a running gag would have Ren and Stimpy engaging in something intimate (such as Stimpy bathing Ren during the episode "Nurse Stimpy"), with Stimpy assuring Ren that "no one will know" about the private and rather embarrassing encounter, only to pan towards a window in the room and showing several characters (including Mr. Horse) witnessing the event. The episode "Svën Höek" shows Stimpy having a romantic affair with Ren's cousin Svën, including an intimate "private" moment in Stimpy's litterbox and scrawling "Svën + Stimpy" all over the walls. This was dropped after Spümcø was fired from the show. Kricfalusi discussed the sexuality of