The Ren & Stimpy Show, also known simply as Ren & Stimpy, is an American animated comedy television series created by John Kricfalusi for Nickelodeon. The series follows the misadventures of Ren Höek, an emotionally unstable and psychotic chihuahua; and Stimpy, a good-natured and dimwitted Manx cat. Originally produced by Spümcø, the series was shown on Nickelodeon from August 11, 1991, to December 16, 1995, with its last episode running on MTV on October 20, 1996, spanning a total of five seasons and 52 episodes (93 segments). The third to be shown of the original three Nickelodeon animated series known as "Nicktoons", alongside Doug and Rugrats, it is one of the progenitor series of the brand.
The series received widespread critical acclaim for its visuals, animation, and surreal nature. However, it generated significant controversy for its dark humor, sexual innuendo, adult humor, violence, and shock value, contributing to Kricfalusi's termination in 1992, due to altercations with Nickelodeon's Standards and Practices and production delays. Games Animation produced the show's remaining three seasons, which received criticism for a perceived decline in quality.
An adult animated reboot, Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", was produced by Kricfalusi and Spümcø and aired on Spike TV in 2003, being canceled early due to production delays. On August 5, 2020, Comedy Central announced a second adult reboot of the series without Kricfalusi's involvement.
Premise
The series centers on Ren Höek (voiced by John Kricfalusi in seasons 1–2; Billy West in seasons 2–5), a hot-tempered, psychotic, "asthma-hound" chihuahua, and Stimpson J. "Stimpy" Cat (also voiced by Billy West), a dimwitted and happy-go-lucky Manx cat. The duo fill various roles from episode to episode, including outer-space explorers, Old West horse thieves, and nature-show hosts, and are usually at odds with each other in these situations. While the show was sometimes set in the present day, the show's crew tended to avoid "contemporary" jokes about current events. The show extensively features off-color and absurdist humor, as well as slapstick akin to animated shorts of the 1950s.
The show features a host of supporting characters. Due to the nature of the show, they do not have consistent appearances or even designs; those who do appear repeatedly have different roles in each appearance, being either a part of the storyline or making cameo appearances with little bearing on the plot. Some, such as Mr. Horse, are exclusively cameo-based, spontaneously appearing as a running gag. George Liquor makes his first appearances in the show through cameos or as a supporting character, as demonstrated in "Dog Show" and "Man's Best Friend".
Development and history Conception According to animator Bill Wray, John Kricfalusi created the characters Ren and Stimpy in 1978 for "personal amusement" while studying at Sheridan College. He was inspired to create Ren by an Elliott Erwitt photograph, printed on a postcard, titled "New York City, Circa 1950", showing a sweatered chihuahua at a woman's feet. Stimpy's design was inspired by the cat duo from the 1945 Merrie Melodies cartoon A Gruesome Twosome, who had big noses.
Approached by Nickelodeon for ideas for a show, Kricfalusi presented three. One was a variety show called Your Gang or Our Gang in which children presented cartoons, each parodying a different genre. Ren and Stimpy were pets of one of the presenters, and their cartoons would be in the style of Tom and Jerry. Vanessa Coffey, vice president of animation production, was uninterested in the ideas, but liked Ren and Stimpy, singling them out for their own series.
Production of the pilot, "Big House Blues", began in the summer of 1989, after The Ren & Stimpy Show was successfully pitched to Nickelodeon, and it was conducted by Spümcø, Kricfalusi's Los Angeles-based animation company. A few months later, after the pilot had been screened at film festivals, it was announced that the show would be one of the channel's first Nicktoons.
Kricfalusi mainly credited Bob Clampett for his series as well as other animators such as Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Jay Ward and Max Fleischer. He additionally liked the comic artists such as Frank Frazetta, Johnny Hart, Jack Kirby and Charles M. Schulz as well as Hanna-Barbera and Mad Magazine.
Spümcø (1991–1993) The series premiered on August 11, 1991, alongside two other Nicktoons, Doug and Rugrats. Spümcø continued to produce the show for the next two years while encountering issues with Nickelodeon's Standards and Practices department. The show was known for its lack of early merchandising; according to Wray, the initial lack of merchandise was "the unique and radical thing" about The Ren & Stimpy Show, as no toy company planned for any merchandise for the show, and Nickelodeon did not want to use "over-exploitive" merchandising.
Kricfalusi described his early period with Nickelodeon as being "simple", as he got along with Coffey, the sole executive of the program. When another executive was added, they wanted to alter or discard some of the Ren & Stimpy episodes, but Kricfalusi says the episodes stayed intact since he did a "trade" with Coffey: he would have some "really crazy" episodes in exchange for some "heart-warming" episodes. Kricfalusi also said that the program was the "safest project [he] ever worked on" while explaining the meaning of "safe" as "spend a third of what they spend now per picture, hire proven creative talent, and let them entertain." He estimated Spümcø's run of The Ren & Stimpy Show cost around $6 million to produce.
The relationship between Kricfalusi and Nickelodeon deteriorated to the point where Kricfalusi would communicate with Nickelodeon only through his lawyer. News outlets and several of the series' staff ascribe the tension to episodes not being delivered promptly." Author Andy Mangels, writing for Wizard magazine, commented that "Kricfalusi's lax treatment of deadlines angered not only the networks, but his loyal viewers as well." However, some of the delays were attributed to Nickelodeon's prolonged approval process and withdrawal of approval from scenes and episodes that had been previously approved. Another point of contention was the direction of the series. Kricfalusi cites the episode "Man's Best Friend" as the primary reason for his dismissal; the character George Liquor is depicted in the episode as an abusive father figure, and Nickelodeon did not want the show to be so frightening and dramatic.
Games Animation (1992–1996) Nickelodeon terminated Kricfalusi's contract in late September 1992 and offered him the position of consultant for Ren & Stimpy, but he refused to "sell out". The network moved production from Spümcø to its newly founded animation studio, Games Animation, which later became Nickelodeon Animation Studio. Bob Camp replaced Kricfalusi as director, while West, having refused Kricfalusi's request to leave along with him, voiced Ren in addition to Stimpy.
Fans and critics felt this was a turning point in the show, with the new episodes being a considerable step down from the standard of those that preceded them. Ted Drozdowski, resident critic of The Boston Phoenix, stated that "the bloom faded" on Ren & Stimpy. Animation historian Michael Barrier writes that while the creators of the Games episodes used crude jokes that were similar to those used by Kricfalusi, they did not "find the material particularly funny; they were merely doing what was expected".
In late January 1995, Mary Harrington came to Games from New York to tell the studio that the show was "ceased indefinitely" rather than "cancelled"; production would wrap up by August 1995. By the end of the series, each segment was produced at around $500,000 each.
The series ended its original run on Nickelodeon on December 16, 1995, with "A Scooter for Yaksmas", and had a total of five seasons and 51 episodes, although one episode from the final season, "Sammy and Me/The Last Temptation", remained unaired. Almost a year later, the episode aired on Nickelodeon's sister network, MTV, on October 20, 1996.
Production Process The animation production methods used in The Ren & Stimpy Show were similar to those found in Golden Age cartoons of the early 20th century, where a director supervised the entire process. These methods are in contrast with animation production methods in the 1980s, where there was one director for animation and a different director for voice actors, and the cartoons were created with a "top-down" approach to tie in with toy production.
Animator Vincent Waller compared working on Ren & Stimpy and SpongeBob SquarePants in an interview: "Working on Ren and Stimpy and SpongeBob was very similar. They're both storyboard-driven shows, which means they give us an outline from a premise after the premise has been approved. We take the outline and expand on it, writing the dialogue and gags. That was very familiar."
Animation The show's aesthetics draw on Golden Age cartoons, particularly those of animator Bob Clampett from the 1940s in the way the characters' emotions powerfully distort their bodies. The show's style emphasizes unique expressions, intense and specific acting and strong character poses. One of the show's most notable visual trademarks is the detailed paintings of gruesome close-ups, along with the blotchy ink stains that on occasion replace the standard backgrounds, reminiscent of "holes in reality or the vision of a person in a deep state of dementia". This style was developed from Clampett's Baby Bottleneck, which features several scenes with color-cards for backgrounds. The show incorporated norms from "the old system in TV and radio" where the animation would feature sponsored products to tie in with the cartoon, but in lieu of real advertisements, it featured fake commercial breaks advertising nonexistent products, most notably "Log".
Kricfalusi cited Carbunkle Cartoons, an animation studio headed by Bob Jaques and Kelly Armstrong, for their work on the show's best episodes, improving the acting with subtle nuances and wild animation that could not be done with overseas animation studios. KJ Dell'Antonia of Common Sense Media describes the show's style as changing "from intentionally rough to much more polished and plushie-toy ready."
Notably, a handful of episodes from the second season onwards were also animated not with cels but with digital ink and paint, which was very rare for television animation before 1998. The majority of episodes were still animated traditionally with cels.
Voice acting Kricfalusi originally voiced Ren, styled after a demented Peter Lorre from the film The Maltese Falcon. When Nickelodeon terminated Kricfalusi's contract, Billy West, already the voice of Stimpy, took the role using a combination of Burl Ives, Kirk Douglas, and a slight "south of the border accent" for the rest of the Nickelodeon run. West voiced Stimpy for the Spümcø and Games Animation episodes, basing the voice on an "amped-up" Larry Fine. Some notable artists and performers who voiced incidental characters on the show were Frank Zappa (in his final public performance before his death), Jack Carter, Stan Freberg, Tommy Davidson, Randy Quaid, Gilbert Gottfried, Rosie O'Donnell, Dom DeLuise, Phil Hartman, Mark Hamill and Soleil Moon Frye.
Music
The Ren & Stimpy Show features a wide variety of music, spanning rockabilly, folk, pop, jazz, classical music, jingles, and more. The opening theme, "Dog Pound Hop", was performed by a group of Spümcø employees under the name "Die Screaming Leiderhôsens"; they include developer Jim Smith, animator Chris Reccardi and production assistant Scott Huml. Three Ren & Stimpy albums have been released. In 1993, a compilation album,You Eediot!, was released as a soundtrack album.