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Rae Naylor is a Canadian animator, artist, designer, television director, television producer, and voice actress. She is best known for co-creating DreamWorks' The Mighty Ones, co-founding the animation studio Spümcø with John Kricfalusi, Bob Camp, and Jim Smith, and co-developing The Ren & Stimpy Show for Nickelodeon. She also worked on , The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and Wander Over Yonder
After Kricfalusi was fired in Taiwan for his practice of redrawing already finished cartoons, she followed him back to Hollywood. In 1986, Ralph Bakshi was hired to direct a music video for the Rolling Stones song "Harlem Shuffle". Bakshi in turn assigned Kricfalusi to direct the animated portions of the video for "Harlem Shuffle", and he in turn assigned Naylor to do the design and much of the drawings for the video. Naylor drew the buxom Afro-American girl featured in the video. The cartoon for "Harlem Shuffle" featured a black girl in Harlem being avidly pursued by two tomcats, both of which display stereotypical behavior commonly associated with sexually aggressive black men. The success of the "Harlem Shuffle" video led to Bakshi becoming interested in doing animated films again, and he decided to direct an animated sex comedy set in the 1960s titled Bobby's Girl. Both Kricfalusi and Naylor were heavily involved in the drawings for Bobby's Girl, but the film was aborted in early 1987 when the Tri-Star studio decided not to cut its funding for the film. In 1987, Bakshi won the contract to draw Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures for the CBS network, and made Kricfalusi one of his directors. Naylor was assigned by him to work as one of his cartoonists.
She co-founded Spümcø along with her then-boyfriend John Kricfalusi, Jim Smith and Bob Camp in 1989. She was involved in the development of Ren & Stimpy. Kricfaulsi based the character of Ren on himself and Stimpy on Naylor. About Kricfalusi's admission in the documentary that he based Stimpy on Naylor, the American critic Gary Kramer wrote: "Stimpy seems to love Ren no matter how much he is slapped around and abused. Their codependent relationship is obviously steeped in painful truth." In 1989, the Spümcø studio was commissioned by the producer Vanessa Coffey to do a pilot episode for what was then known Ren Höek & Stimpy. Coffey stated if the pilot did well, she would commission a TV series. Starting in December 1989, Naylor was heavily involved in drawing the pilot Big House Blues. In the Big House Blues, Kricfalusi drew the "wild" scenes, Camp drew the comedic scenes, Smith drew the "manly" scenes and Naylor drew the "cute" scenes. The success of Big House Blues, which was shown as a short film at various film festivals in 1990, led to a TV series being commissioned in September 1990. Naylor played a key role in streamlining and simplifying the design of Ren and Stimpy from how the characters were shown in the Big House Blues to how they were portrayed in the TV show as the original design took too much time to draw in frame by frame. Kricfalusi has expressed criticism of the simplified design of the characters that Naylor established as a degradation of quality.
Naylor was famed at the Spümcø studio for her drawings of "sexy girls" as her fellow Spümcø cartoonist and future husband Chris Reccardi praised her ability to "exude pure sensuality and innocence at the same time" in her drawings of female characters. Ren & Stimpy was criticized for violence with adult, bathroom, dark and sexual humor that TV scarcely uses; it received critical acclaim and inspired more innovative satirical cartoons such as Beavis and Butt-Head, Rocko's Modern Life, South Park, Family Guy, and SpongeBob SquarePants.
During the production of the episode Stimpy's Big Day, Naylor's relationship with Kricfalusi experienced serious strains as she accused him of not doing enough to meet the deadline for the premiere set for 11 August 1991. David Koenigsberg of the Spümcø studio recalled: "She was building up with all this tension because she felt the deadlines much more oppressively than John did." Koenigsberg recalled that the other animators would laugh and joke while working, but Naylor "was like the uptight librarian reminding everyone 'we have to go back to work now'. She was serious, it was not a joke. I remember talking to her one day about how we should laugh at this, and she really couldn't". In March 1991, Naylor broke up with Kricfalusi and left The Ren & Stimpy Show. Naylor had completed the layout drawings for Stimpy's Big Day at the time she left the show. Kricfalusi spread rumors that Naylor "was just the girlfriend" who had done nothing for The Ren & Stimpy Show in an attempt to deprive her of employment in the animation industry. On 18 May 1993, Kricfaulsi's lawyer sent a letter to the Nickelodeon network threatening to sue if Chris Reccardi was credited as the co-director for The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen. Jim Ballantine stated that the letter was due to jealousy as Reccardi was dating Naylor. Ballantine stated: "Since Chris was in a serious relationship with Lynne Naylor, anything having to do with Chris made John extra nuts."
She also produced and directed the film . Her biggest roles in character designs were for The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, , Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, and more. Naylor and Sunil Hall created the DreamWorks series The Mighty Ones for Hulu and Peacock in 2020.
She co-created the failed Nickelodeon pilot The Modifyers with her husband Chris Reccardi in 2007.
| 1982 | The Smurfs Christmas Special | Layout Artist |
| 1990 | Roller Coaster Rabbit | Story |
| 1992 | Layout Artist | |
| 1993 | Nick and Noel | Model Designer |
| 1998 | Director, Art Director, & Producer | |
| 2009 | Monsters vs. Aliens | Additional Character Designer |
| The Haunted World of El Superbeasto | Character Designer | |
| 2018 | Storyboard Artist | |
| 2019 | Visual Development Artist | |
| Lucky | Character Designer | |
| 2020 | Herself |
| 1984 | Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats | Assistant Character Designer | N/A |
| Snorks | Layout Artist | ||
| 1985 | The Jetsons | Layout Artist & Character Designer | |
| 1987 | Layout Artist | ||
| 1988 | The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil | Character Designer & Layout Artist | |
| 1991–1996 | The Ren & Stimpy Show | Developer Voice Actress ("Big House Blues") Animator (1990; 1992) Layout Artist (1990–1991; 1994) Big-Shot (1991) Character Designer (1991–1992) Background Designer ("Ren's Retirement") Director (1994) Writer (1994) Storyboard Artist (1994) Story (1994) | Mom |
| 1992 | Tiny Toon Adventures | Character Layout Artist | N/A |
| 1992–1993 | Character Designer | ||
| 1993 | Animaniacs | Model Designer | |
| 1995 | The Shnookums & Meat Funny Cartoon Show | Art Director | |
| 1995–1996 | The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat | Writer (1995) Character Designer (uncredited) (1995) Layout Artist (uncredited) (1995–1996) Background Artist (uncredited) (1995–1996) Director (1995) | |
| 1996 | What a Cartoon! | Additional Layout Artist ("Buy One, Get One Free") | |
| 1998–2001 | The Powerpuff Girls | Modeler, Storyboard Artist Writer ("The Headsucker's Moxy/Equal Fights") | |
| 1998–1999 | Cow and Chicken | Storyboard Artist | |
| I Am Weasel | |||
| 2001 | The Cartoon Cartoon Show | Background Artist, Clean-Up Artist, Layout Artist, Modeling, & Art Director ("IMP Inc.") | |
| 2001 | The Ripping Friends | Layout Artist (Uncredited) | |
| 2001–2004; 2017 | Samurai Jack | Character Designer | |
| 2003 | Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" | Animator, Designer, & Layout Artist | |
| 2003–2005 | Character Designer | ||
| 2004–2005 | Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends | ||
| 2004–2006 | Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi | ||
| Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! | Art Director Character Designer ("The Stranded Seven") | ||
| 2005 | My Life as a Teenage Robot | Character Designer | |
| 2008–2009 | The Mighty B! | Storyboard Artist ("Season 1") | |
| 2008–2010 | Chowder | Art Director & Story writer ("The Garden") | |
| 2010 | Breaking the Mold: The Re-Making of Mighty Mouse | Herself & Special Thanks | |
| Character Designer | |||
| 2010–2013 | Fish Hooks | Production Designer (Seasons 1-2) | |
| 2014 | Wander Over Yonder | Character Designer ("The Bounty/The Ball") | |
| 2015–2016 | SpongeBob SquarePants | Storyboard Artist ("Season 9") | |
| 2020–2022 | The Mighty Ones | Co-creator Executive Producer (Seasons 1-2) Story (Seasons 1-3) Storyboard Artist ("Naked Mole Wrath") Creative Consultant (Seasons 3-4) |
| +List of awards nominations. ! scope="col" | Award ! scope="col" | Year ! scope="col" | Category ! scope="col" | Work(s) ! scope="col" | Episode ! scope="col" | Fellow Nominees ! scope="col" | Results |
| Primetime Emmy Awards | 1994 | Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less) | The Ren & Stimpy Show | Ren's Retirement | Bob Camp, Jim Gomez, Ron Hauge, Bill Wray, Vanessa Coffey, & Jim Ballantine | ||
| Annie Awards | 2002 | Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production | Samurai Jack | Jack and the Warrior Woman | N/A | ||
| 2004 | Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production | Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends | House of Bloo's |
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