I'm not discussing the politics of Bob Camp's career but it is nonetheless true that the Games Ren and Stimpy cartoons, which he de facto symbolizes, even the ones he had relatively little to do with, are more an insight into the psyche of their creators (Camp as well as others) than the characters. With little respect to the viewer's psychology these post-Spumco cartoons swap straightforward, no bull, gag-ridden character development for base cruelty, hideous grossout humor, awkward and silly verbal jokes, and the occasional indulgence in pop-culture satire (extending to other cartoons) that was better left to the Simpsons.

The tragedy is, several of these Games episodes had the potential to be GREAT, but their material, which must have been extremely funny in production, was worked out with reckless abandon for the principles that made the classic 40's shorts (and thus, Spumco Ren and Stimpy) watchable, with either too much talking, tasteless visual gags, or no variation in mood and intensity, not to mention sloppy production values plaguing even the decent episodes, some of which try to look retro 60's and end up looking like watercolor piss.

Curiously, these Games cartoons are closer to the classic 40's shorts in form and structure than crap like "Rocko's Modern Life" and other sitcom-esque, moral-ridden dung like "Doug", and they are indeed visual-driven cartoons, even the most unbearable ones, which you could never say about "Animaniacs" with its go-nowhere-go-everywhere animation and witless writers who know too much trivia. This is why I respect the Games cartoons enough to review 'em - They were done by cartoonists with real pedigree and not by the poor, nameless souls who were stuck animating "Captain Planet and the Planeteers".

On the flipside, if you're a Spumco purist who won't even watch a cartoon made after Sept. 1992, there are a few Games episodes worth your while...the third season of R&S, though it does contain the biggest duffer, had several episodes that turned cartoondom on its head, remaining decently watchable while keeping one's interest with their incredible eccentricities. The fourth and fifth seasons are more painful overall but they have their share of lost gems like Egg Yolkeo and Ren's Brain.

As for Camp's directing career before Games, he made a handful of cartoons that are actually funny and watchable, even though they tend to get by on his drawings. Moreso than any cartoon series many of the Ren and Stimpy artists have earned cult followings in their own right based on their individual styles, and we're only talking about how they draw the characters without animating them. Camp has become the most reverred in this highly competitive gaggle due to his drawings from Stimpy's Invention, In the Army, Big House Blues, Black Hole, and others, giving Ren and Stimpy a larger girth and a more expressive frame. When they grin, snarl, pout, stare, glare, relax, or whine the angles are more twisted, the curves are pushed farther, and the expressions are more direct than any Ren and Stimpy artist.

I don't want to say Camp is the best cartoonist ever, Ren and Stimpy or otherwise, but he's the most distinct, the difference between cartoons from the same series where he made and didn't make an impact a wider gap than even the classic LT&MM. It's little wonder that he ended up taking over the show, and it's a tragedy that he served as more of a supervisor for the Games cartoons, even though onscreen evidence - From Ren and Stimpy cartoons without him to Cow and Chicken cartoons with him - prove this is his style and no one else's.

He had a sense of humor to go along with the drawings, and his Ren and Stimpy cartoons at Spumco hold up to any frivilous exercise from Warner Bros. Mad Dog Hoek beats out the two Bugs Bunny boxing films for my money, In the Army gets increasingly bizarre, and Monkey See Monkey Don't, well, sucks but has Stimpy's "I'm gonna be a monkey" dance. And the gags he contributed to other Spumco classics like Ren's Toothache and Robin Hoek ensure his place alongside great animation sidemen like Warren Foster and Mike Maltese (Did I say Mike Maltese? I meant Norm McCabe.).