Created by
John Kricfalusi
Cast
Billy West ………. Ren Hoek/Stimpson J. “Stimpy” Cat
Bob Camp ……….. Effeminate Dogcatcher/Deputy Ewalt
Cheryl Chase ………… Mrs. Pipe/Others
Gary Owens ………… Powdered Toast Man
Alan Young ……….. Haggis MacHaggis
Vincent Waller ……….. Others
The Show
Animation in the 1970’s and 80’s was in a serious decline, especially on television. What was once a whimsical and entertaining art form in the days of Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, had de-evolved into the days of Superfriends and Hanna-Barberra schlock. Animation was no longer driven by great artists wanting to further their craft and bring new ideas to the screen. Animation became cookie cutter episodes of characters with limited poses and faces and writers with little to no new ideas.
In 1991, creator John Kricfalusi decided he wanted to something about this states of affairs. Kricfalusi’s Ren and Stimpy broke many of the rules that had made animation stale during the previous decades. Gone were cuddly bears that stole picnic baskets and in were Ren Hoek and Stimpson J. “Stimpy” Cat. While at first glance Ren and Stimpy seemed to be your typical ambiguously gay couple in the tradition of Yogi and Boo-Boo or Heckle and Jekyll, this cartoon was anything but typical. Ren, a rage filled, homicidal maniac, is a mean spirited chihuahua who receives unending loyalty from his room mate Stimpy a lovable, yet stupid cat. The two went on oddball adventures filled with Kricfalusi’s signature animation of grotesque close-ups and an abundance of emotion.
Classics like Space Madness and Stimpy’s Invention (which contained the classic song Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy) propelled the duo to an avid following. Funny thing is, is that although the episodes ran on kid’s network Nickelodeon, the humor of Ren and Stimpy was anything but intended for younger viewers. With very irreverent comedy, gross out antics and a lot of classical music, the show seemed to be geared toward an older audience than the rest of the network’s programming. Despite all this the show flourished, perhaps due to children also feeling that animation had grown stale.
By the third season of the show, Nickelodeon had taken the show away from Kricfalusi, which is where this DVD set begins. Nickelodeon felt that content for the show was not appropriate for its audience; hence Kricfalusi’s animation studio, Spumco, was replaced by the network’s in house animation department, Games Animation. While the show is still entertaining to an extent due to the sheer weirdness of its plots, the proceedings are watered down from what was previously a stellar show. The series suffered from trying to imitate what had previously worked with the show’s original creators, while toning Ren’s antics down.
While the series demise came with its disastrous fifth season, the decline of the show is evident here in this set. The DVD does contain some highlights though. No Pants Today answers the age old question of what would happen if a cartoon character finally realized they were naked. The episode has some really funny moments as Stimpy realizes in a very “Garden of Eden”-type moment that he doesn’t have any pants on. All of a sudden everyone treats him like a freak, and Stimpy goes on an adventure that puts the odd in odyssey.
Other highlights include An Abe Divided and this set’s funniest episode, Ren’s Pecs. The first of the two has our duo get a job guarding and cleaning the Lincoln Memorial. Things are going swimmingly until Ren hears a rumor that President’s head is filled with treasure. A hilarious moment has Ren day-dreaming of knocking the head of the statue off and driving out with a coach full of money and women. Another chuckle comes as Ren gets stuck while he tries to crawl through the President’s nose. Luckily Stimpy activates the conveniently placed “Watch the President Pick his Nose for a Nickel” lever. The punchline has the statue wipe Ren off his finger on the bottom of the statue where the corpses of several boy scouts remain. The episode ends with Ren and Stimpy trying to construct a new head of everything from hotdogs to pennies.
Ren’s Pecs is a gut-buster of an episode with Ren having his pecs enlarged by the fat from Stimpy’s rear end to get revenge on a bully. The fact that the episode references the old comic book ads where the wimp has sand kicked in his face by a beach bully is very funny, but other moments including separate moments paying homage to Stanley Kubrick classic films such as Spartacus and 2001 are real standouts.
Unfortunately, for every well made episode on this set, there are two or three that are just plain bad. This is very disappointing after the stellar first two seasons of the previous DVD’s. While there is some real shining moments here they are few and far between. For the completist Ren and Stimpy fan this is worth having, for everyone else, not so much.
Score: 6.0/10
The DVD:
The Video
The show looks just as good as it did on TV, the 1:33:1 Fullscreen video transfer is crisp and clear with no degradation.
Score: 8.0/10
The Audio
The dolby digital 2.0 stereo audio track is really nice. Its really nice to hear the background classical music in the episodes as well as Ren pulverising Stimpy with a frying pan come with complete clarity.
Score: 8.5/10
SPECIAL FEATURES:Commentary, Trailers
Commentary from show creators and animators: The commentary track from Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi about is both bitter and very enlightening. The highlight of the commentary is in the episode Stimpy’s Cartoon and also stands as an effective summary for what was wrong with the show at that point in time. The commentary for that episode explains its inception as a scathing satire of modern animation. In the episode Stimpy wants to create his own cartoon and serves as artist and writer for the short. Ren, feeling jealous and untalented, complains that he wants to take part in the episode but has no talent. Stimpy then explains that Ren can be the producer of the short, in which he will absolutely nothing and then take all the credit for the cartoon. While the first half of the episode is quite funny, with Ren taking vacations and rationing Stimpy’s supplies, the second half of the episode goes downhill fast into a series of gross-out jokes with no continuity or purpose. Having no idea how much corporate man handling could effect an animated cartoon about a rude dog and a stupid cat, the commentary is really engrossing.
Trailers: Some other trailers for the previous Ren and Stimpy box set and other Comedy Central DVDs.
Score: 8.0/10
