Ren's Brain (The Ren & Stimpy Show)

"Ren's Brain (The Ren & Stimpy Show)"
Well, this is a brain dead episode.
Series: The Ren & Stimpy Show Part of Season: 5 Episode Number: 4b Air Date: October 7, 1995 Writer: John Kricfalusi Richard Pursel Director: Chris Reccardi Previous episode: Stimpy's Pet Next episode: Bell Hops

Ren's Brain is the eighth episode of Season 5 of The Ren & Stimpy Show, which aired on October 7, 1995.

Plot

Stimpy re-enters the world of science as a "freelance brain surgeon". He soon runs out of good brains on which to conduct experiments and removes Ren's brain. The brain, not knowing he's out of Ren's body, goes on with his life until he notices Stimpy with a new dog: him.

Why It Gives You A Brain Ache

1. While the episode sounded good in the paper, unfortunately, due to John Kricfalusi being fired from his own cartoon in 1992 and the episode was already written prior of his firing for Season 2, the story was changed and is poorly executed. According to John Kricfalusi in the Ren & Stimpy's DVD commentary, he barely remembered what happened in the episode story and some parts of it didn't come across.
2. Stimpy acts like a wanker in this episode, instead of finding Ren's brain, he ends up playing with his body, since it's not funny and is very ridiculous and also annoying.
3. Ren doesn't realize that he is now a brain and thinks that his own body is another Chihuahua and Stimpy's new friend, and tries to destroy his own body, unaware is trying to destroy his own body.
4. Boring scenes where Stimpy and Ren's body are doing stupid things, which leaves the episode frustrating to watch.
5. With Ren all infuriated he tries to fight with his own body, Stimpy tries to calm him down with a syringe with sedative, but ends up doing something wrong with the people who watch the episode...
6. Bad ending: The heads of the people who watched the episode explodes on Earth, making the episode's ending awful.
7. It ended John Kricfalusi's career at Nickelodeon Animation Studio (back then was called Games Animation) at an extremely SOUR note, although he only briefly returned to Nick Animation in the 2000s, but to voice a character called Bowling Alley Guy in the episode "Pinheads" from The X's, since then he can't return to Nick Animation, due of him being blacklisted from the studio, in light of pedophilia and sexual harassment allegations against him in 2018.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The animation and the voice acting from Billy West are still good.
2. Alongside Powdered Toast Man vs. Waffle Woman, Chris Reccardi's direction and visuals have slightly more animation than the other episodes.

Trivia

• This is the last episode of Ren & Stimpy written by the creator John Kricfalusi, after he was fired from his own show on September 25, 1992.
• Originally, this episode was going to be part of Season 2.

External links

• Duckyworth's review

Comments

Loading comments...