* The show business newspaper Daily Variety reported in December that John Kricfalusi, creator TV's "The Ren & Stimpy Show," was threatening legal action against the producers of the Comedy Central show "South Park" for ripping off a cartoon character. According to Kricfalusi, his character "Nutty the Friendly Dump," an animated piece of excrement, must have been the basis for "South Park"'s "Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo," a holiday-dressed, singing, dancing piece of excrement. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ WEIRDNUZ.520 (News of the Weird, January 23, 1998) by Chuck Shepherd NEWS OF THE WEIRD, founded in 1988, is a nationally syndicated newspaper column distributed by Universal Press Syndicate. To receive the columns by e-mail, free of charge, send a message to notw-request@nine.org with the Subject line of Subscribe. To read these News of the Weird newspaper columns from the past six months, go to http://www.nine.org/notw/notw.html (That site contains no graphics, no photos, no video clips, no audio. Just text. Deal with it.)