Very, very tragic. We've lost someone who was a huge part of R&S history. Chris was responsible for some of the show's most iconic moments (he storyboarded "Space Madness," wrote the Happy Happy Joy Joy song in "Stimpy's Invention," and was one of the musicians for the opening and closing themes) and the episodes he made at Games have some of the most distinctive artwork and direction of the entire series. This is a terrible, terrible loss. My condolences go out to his wife.
Is this day trying to depress me? Between this and the Jim Cummings accusations... just, what the hell.
Give "Hermit Ren" a watch/re-watch for some of Reccardi's finest work, IMO.
It's interesting how drastically opinions can change over time. When I first watched that episode on the Seasons Three and a Half-ish DVD, I thought it was utterly terrible and seemed like a poor imitation of the "psychodrama" episodes from the first two seasons, but I've since come to appreciate it for its surreal atmosphere and unique art style, and it's become one of my favorite episodes of the series. It's possible my initial opinion was influenced by the bad reputation the Games episodes still had at that time.
Chris was also one of the few directors to experiment with using characters other than Ren and Stimpy ("Hard Times for Haggis" is a very underrated episode in my opinion) and his artwork, while noticeably different from the John K/Spumco house style of the first two seasons (very stylized and abstract as opposed to grotesquely detailed), still suited the show in its own way and had a ton of character, which gave his episodes a clear identity and made them stand out from what the other Games directors were doing.
John K offers his condolences:
This may not be entirely genuine, considering some of the details revealed in
Sick Little Monkeys - apparently, John was angry at Chris for dating his ex-girlfriend Lynne Naylor and fired him over it (shortly before John was fired himself). Still, I can honestly say I wasn't expecting him to post something like this.
