Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"

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Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"
Before the days of the later episodes of these atrocities, there was this wretched hive of crap.
Genre: Adult animation Toilet humor Slapstick Running Time: 20-39 Minutes Country: United States Release Date: June 26 – July 17, 2003 (Spike TV) July 18, 2006 (DVD Release) Network(s): TNN/Spike TV Created by: John Kricfalusi Distributed by: TNN/Spike TV Starring: John Kricfalusi Eric Bauza Cheryl Chase Mike Kricfalusi Seasons: 1 Episodes: 6 Previous show: The Ren & Stimpy Show Next show: Ren & Stimpy (2024)

Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" (a.k.a. Ren and Stimpy's All New Adult Party Cartoon) is an American animated television series created by John Kricfalusi and produced in 2003 by Spümcø. It aired on Spike in the summer of 2003. The series is a spin-off of the critically acclaimed Nickelodeon series The Ren & Stimpy Show. The series was not only Spümcø's last animated series before its closure in 2005 but also the last TV show that Kricfalusi ever made before his retirement in 2018 due to sexual misconduct allegations, as well as killing the Ren & Stimpy franchise and preventing the franchise getting a revival or a reboot until August 5, 2020, when ViacomCBS announced a Ren & Stimpy reboot for Comedy Central (one of three reboots for the network) without John Kricfalusi; a new creative team will be involved, though Billy West and a few of the original writers have been confirmed to return. Bob Camp was not involved in the said reboot as evidenced on Twitter. The series had six episodes, but only three aired on its network. The last three were later released on DVD on July 18, 2006. The show also lasted only two months in 2003 before being canceled due to negative reception.

Why It's An EEDIOT!!!

1. The idea of turning a show that was geared towards kids into an adult version sounded like a great idea on paper, in fact, the airing of "Man's Best Friend" proved that the show's ideas could've been like that episode, being an adult themed show, but not too forced and still enjoyable, unfortunately, this show subscribed to what it would become Modern Family Guy and Velma instead of something like Klasky Csupo's Duckman and Immigrants, DNA Productions' Nanna & Lil' Puss Puss, Samurai Jack's fifth season or any of Adult Swim or 20th Television Animation's shows like Rick and Morty, Futurama, Praise Petey, Metalocalpyse, Primal, King of the Hill, Duncanville, Bob's Burgers, Central Park, The Great North and The Simpsons, thanks to its poor writing.
2. Adult Party Cartoon, despite being created by the same guy who created the original, mostly feels like a completely different show (minus Ren and Stimpy), and feels like a complete parody of its original concept and former self. The concept of Ren & Stimpy, in general, is that Ren & Stimpy has been a parody of the Golden Age of American Animation from 1928-1969. That concept is what made Ren & Stimpy also work. Here with APC, it's completely different given the fact (again) that this reboot makes Ren & Stimpy a grotesque parody of its former self, as well as its original concept.
   • For this reason above, despite John Kricfalusi returning to work on this show for the first time since the original Ren & Stimpy's first two seasons, it flopped miserably and ended up canceling the series very quickly.
   • To make matters worse, except for "Altruists", this show's episodes were originally written for Nickelodeon show which were rejected, so they were touched up to be as raunchy as possible without touching up anything of importance.
   • This show is a testament to how John Kricfalusi shouldn't have been the only guy in charge with complete creative freedom.
3. It sucks out the charm of the original 1991-1996 Nicktoon and ruined everything on how special Ren & Stimpy was on Nickelodeon.
   • To be fair, similar to the golden era of Family Guy one of the main reasons that made the original Ren & Stimpy beloved by fans is how Nickelodeon's censorship and restrictions not only controlled its amount of adult and gross-out content, yet it encouraged the writers of the original Ren & Stimpy to be more creative with their comedic gags and story executions, like how in the episode "Rubber Nipple Salemen" from season 2 of the original show Nickelodeon only allowed the episode to mention the "nipples" joke rather sparingly while encouraging the writers to be creative in coming up with other jokes outside the use of "nipples" for the rest of the episode. But since Adult Party Cartoon is aimed at adults and therefore is unaffected by censorship unlike the original show, this resulted in the show losing its creativity in favor of the overuse of gross-out and raunchy humor without any network censorship interference whatsoever. Additionally, there are lot of swearing which was not a thing in the original series, while this can usually be used in a better way, here it feels forced.
4. Much like the original show, this show suffered the same Development hell issue, but worse, to the extent of John pulling the episode back from airing just to touch up some more and add more content, because of this, the last 3 episodes couldn't air because of how bloated they turned out.
5. With the sole exception of "Ren Seeks Help", the episodes of this show are nothing more than a bunch of unfunny jokes with no setup or punchline, with obnoxious and loud cartoon sound effects, Altruists being the biggest offenders. While Ren and Stimpy aren't exactly known for its plot, even its episodic plots are nonsensical and come off as an excuse to make jokes John thought were funny.
6. With the sole exception of "Ren Seeks Help", while the animation is still fluid, but subdued in other episodes, and in some instances, some scenes have a dialogue and the character's mouth not moving, also, some scenes were lazily animated like one of the girls in "Naked Beach Frenzy" did not have any animation of turning left and right, only mirrored, Ren's dancing in the flute dance also had Ren moving his arms in 2 frames and also only mirrored without any animation.
   • The characters, while they do look like the original show, their designs are different and a nightmare for the animators to replicate.
7. Episodes like "Stimpy's Pregnant" and "Fire Dogs 2" contain false advertising and misleading titles at the same time because in "Stimpy's Pregnant", Stimpy actually isn't pregnant, he is just constipated and they had to have him bring out the poop baby anyway just for the sake of it. "Fire Dogs 2" had nothing to do with the first "Fire Dogs", it had nothing, but pointless filler and focused more on a character who is an obese unfunny version of Fireman Sam who makes Homer Simpson look like a railway engine driver.
8. Although the theme song is catchy, it reuses the same intro as the original 1991 show without any attempts at changing the animation except the title card, which is incredibly lazy and uncreative, and the theme song is somewhat pitched up. In addition, it is misleading for the most part, as it deceives viewers into watching the original Ren & Stimpy when it is Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon".
9. The Slapstick went from clever and funny to mean-spirited and cruel, the biggest example being Ren endlessly beating Stimpy for no reason.
10. The titular duo was massively flanderized beyond recognition. Ren becomes more bitter, abusive, and violent and does not care for his best friend Stimpy, similarly, Stimpy has become more stupid and became a doormat for Ren's abuse, which is cringe to watch.
    • Ren suffers the ABSOLUTE WORST flanderization and character derailment of all the characters of Ren & Stimpy, as he is portrayed as a monstrous, unpleasant, and psychopathic moron who tormented animals and bugs in his childhood to inflict pain on others, he murdered his therapist after being called crazy, acted like a mindless pervert to bimbo women with no good qualities, has shown no reasons why he is scary and cruel like how he had his right reasons to act the way that he was in the old show, and seemed to care a lot less about Stimpy. This is an example of doing a sour-tempered character backward.
      • Speaking of Ren, the episode Ren Seeks Help, has been considered one of the worst episodes in cartoon history because it portrays Ren as a tormentor who murders and harms helpless animals for his pleasure (as mentioned above). There was no reason for Ren to act the way he is other than for shock humor, but in the old show, he had his right reasons to be scary and cruel because of the way he is, and in Adult Party Cartoon, it was done all backward. Ren is portrayed even more crueler and unfunny as it is as of Ren Seeks Help. Why did Matthieu Cousin and Butch Hartman ruin Ren's character? No seriously, what have they done?
    • Stimpy, who was portrayed as ditzy, dumb, and happy-go-lucky in the original series, now he is portrayed as a stereotypical gay character who is a huge doormat and punching bag for Ren for no reason, and acts extremely stupid to the point that it's more irritating and frustrating than funny, does pointless things to show how effeminate he is, and served no purpose to the show whatsoever.
11. Many cruel moments are hard to stomach, such as the animal abuse scenes. This show takes the violence and horrid slapstick of The dark age of Tom and Jerry and amplifies it to eleven, in addition to the fluid animation, these moments are even more cruel.
12. Many things in this show make no sense even by Ren and Stimpy standards.
    • The widow's headless son, while he looks disturbing, is a subverted trope of faceless characters.
    • Stimpy developing female features in "Stimpy's Pregnant", despite him being male.
    • Plucky Duck having sex with Stimpy disguised as a female duck, giving birth to 3 cat/duck hybrids, which doesn't make any sense, as duck and cat DNAs are too different.
    • Furless Stimpy looks less like a cat, and more of an uncanny human-cat hybrid, this is even more obvious in "Onward and Upward" when Ren punches him causing his bulbous nose to fall out and reveal a human nose in addition to human ears. While he did remove his nose occasionally in the original show and Altruists to reveal an empty spot, the human nose makes zero sense.
    • The entirety of the episode "Stimpy's Pregnant", is about Stimpy, a male cat, literally getting pregnant with a poop baby and even gender-swaps himself from male to female because of it.
    • In Altruists, a duck has sex with Stimpy while Stimpy pretends to be a female duck. And Stimpy, for some reason, gives birth to three duck and cat hybrids.
    • In Ren Seeks Help, Ren somewhat screeches like a cat while killing Mr. Horse, even though he's a chihuahua.
13. None of the recurring characters from the original show (save for the titular characters, Mr. Horse, Mr. and Mrs. Pipe, and the Fire Chief) such as Mr. Announcer Salesman, Muddy Mudskipper, Sven Hoek, and Powdered Toast Man make an appearance in this series. Not even George Liquor, a character John Kricfalusi uses in most of his projects.
14. In some episodes, the actors would improvise their lines outside of lip-sync (in the tradition of the Fleischer Popeye shorts), which can look off-putting to fans of the original series.
15. The infamous "Naked Beach Frenzy" is the worst in terms of content and "Altruists" in terms of pacing, while the latter did not have as much content and only is bloated because of the random jokes John K thought were funny, the former depicts one of John K's victims as one of the girls you're supposed to gaze on, which is borderline creepy and disturbing.
    • Both episodes feature porn scenes disguised as jokes, while the gay sex in "Onward and Upward" was somewhat clever, in "Naked Beach Frenzy", there's the Shampoo Master with a faucet on his crotch, spilling white Shampoo to make it look like it's semen, also Ren putting towels on his aroused boner. In "Altruists", the infamous scene of Ren sawing a log on Stimpy's butt with a saw strapped to his crotch to simulate anal sex.
16. There is a massive over-usage of stock sound effects (particularly from Hanna-Barbera) which are even often used at inappropriate times, unlike the original show. They sound weird too, like the pizza-eating one for example.
17. Misleading title and false advertising: The word "party" in the title makes no sense as there is no indication that this show is made for adult parties and you could very well see it at any time. In the series' title card, you see a martini glass, a box of cigarettes, and a sentient condom and you will think they are characters from the series, but they are nowhere to be seen. Most likely the reason they are on the title card is to show that this is an adult cartoon, but then there are no martini and condom scenes in any of the episodes.
18. Awful and unfunny episode ideas, patched up with ignorant jokes in some of them.
19. Lots of scenes are drawn out and go on for way too long to the point that they often come off as nothing more than unneeded filler in general, like the toilet scenes in Fire Dogs 2 and some jokes in Altruists, for example.
20. There are some jokes in some episodes that might seem boring or bad at first glance, but since most of them are references to John Kricfalusi's act of grooming minors, they come off as disgusting and disturbing. (I.e Ren bragging about how he impregnated Stimpy In "Stimpy's Pregnant", alluding to John impregnating Robyn Byrd when they had sex back in the Nickelodeon era, one of the girls in Naked Beach Frenzy is modeled after Katie Rice, even voiced by Katie Rice....)
    • To make matters worse, the unproduced The Succubus episode, was supposed to portray Ren and Stimpy as John and Byrd respectively, in an attempt to get her to come back to him, the outlines themselves were atrocious and disgusting.
    • According to Anne Marie, there was going to be a scene in Stimpy's pregnancy where Stimpy would coerce Ren into BDSM sex, ultimately, such a scene never ended up in production.
21. While Ren beats up Stimpy for his stupidity in the original show, it was funny, here, he just beats Stimpy for no reason, with the only instance in one episode where it felt like the original show, "Fire Dogs 2" was the biggest offense.
22. This show overall killed the entire franchise.
    • Even John Kricfalusi didn't like this show as well since, in several interviews, he mentioned that while he does like the freedom that this show had due to lack of censorship, he was also just as disappointed as the others since he thought that the pacing is not good as well.
      • This is also the show that killed its studio as Spümcø filed for bankruptcy after this show was canned, and did not receive any financial compensation from Spike TV as John Kricfalusi completely exhausted the allocated budget.
    • This show completely vanished from mainstream TV after several reruns on Spike TV following its cancellation.

Redeeming Qualities

1. At least the original series creator, John Kricfalusi despite being a horrible person, was involved, despite this show being different from the original series as mentioned above.
   • After the series cancellation, John Kricfalusi was no longer involved with the Ren & Stimpy franchise, with a reboot currently in development as of 2024, which might be a slight improvement.
2. The voice acting was decent despite how bad the show was. Eric Bauza's performance as Stimpy was good (when he's not crying, at least), and sounded pretty close to his old voice actor, Billy West. John Kricfalusi reprises his role as Ren and still does a good job voicing Ren.
3. A handful of jokes were kinda funny, like "You're the pitcher, I'm the catcher!" in Onward and Upward.
4. Thanks to the series being animated by Carbunkle Cartoons and Big Star Enterprises as well as Bob Jaques who is the animation director, the animation is still very detailed and fluid-like in the original.
5. Mr. Horse, like in the original show, is a great character and is probably the only character in the series who was consistently good.
   • He says what we've been all thinking about the show: "YOU NEED TO BE LOCKED UP, AWAY FROM DECENT NORMAL PEOPLE! WHAT KIND OF A LUNATIC ARE YOU?! YOU JUST WALK UP TO STRANGERS IN THE STREETS AND TELL THEM 'HEY MISTER, YOU WANNA HEAR SICK STORIES OF MY TWISTED YOUTH??'"
   • Some of the other characters from the original show also returned such as Mr. and Mrs. Pipe in Altruists and Stinky in a brief cameo in Stimpy's Pregnant.
   • Stimpy is a bit likable and is the most tolerable of the main duo.
6. A few good scenes:
   • The flute dance Tiger Rag from Fire Dogs 2 was entertaining and the only thing about Adult Party Cartoon that is memorable and passable and it also become the taunt for Ren and Stimpy in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (Although the devs did state that it was unintentional).
   • The scene at the beginning of Altruists where Ren beats up Stimpy felt pretty close to the old show.
   • Ren remembering the first time meeting Stimpy was charming, but decent as said in Ren Seeks Help.
   • "PSYCHOLIGIST? ARE YOU NUTS?! I'M A HOOOOORSE!", and then another slapstick segment of Mr. Horse beating up Ren (he deserved it) for a little bit, which also felt pretty close to the old show.
7. The theme song from the original series is still catchy and makes a comeback.
8. "Ren Seeks Help", while it's not good, and it's a bit disturbing, is still better than the non-Man's Best Friend episodes since it has a plot and it doesn't drag too much with unnecessary jokes, while Altruistrs had an interesting idea, it was butchered in the execution.
9. There are 2 good episodes found in the show, but only if you count Man's Best Friend and the first "Fire Dogs".
10. This show at least has well-designed title cards, except for Fire Dogs 2 and Ren Seeks Help.
11. Despite being a huge departure from its original series, it is somewhat faithful to the source material, unlike other certain reboots.
12. Despite being an awful reboot, it is nice to see another Ren and Stimpy-related media after 7 years.
13. Despite its flaws, the 2024 reboot, is a major improvement over this one as mentioned in RQ# 1.

The Entire Series (Unless "Man's Best Friend" & "Fire Dogs" Counts as an Episode of This Show)

1. "Onward and Upward" (which started the series horrendously)
2. "Ren Seeks Help (probably the most infamous; though not the worst)
3. "Fire Dogs 2"
4. "Naked Beach Frenzy" (arguably the worst episode of the show)
5. "Altruists"
6. "Stimpy's Pregnant" (which unsurprisingly, ended the series terribly, also counts as the worst)

Cancelled episodes

1. "Life Sucks" - Ren explains to Stimpy that life sucks, much to Stimpy's horror. After that, they have an extensive look at life's past tragedies like the Children's Crusade. According to John Kricfalusi himself, this was meant to be a prequel episode to Ren Seeks Help. This suggests that this episode was the cause of Ren and Stimpy's argument, as it is never stated in Ren Seeks Help what Ren had done exactly. Production had begun on this episode, with some voice work and roughly a third of the storyboard completed at the time of the show's cancellation. This episode was also originally written for Nickelodeon.
2. "The Big Switch" - The supposed sequel to Ren Seeks Help, with it beginning with Stimpy no longer being tolerated by Ren's abuse as the two argue over which is better by being an idiot or a "psychotic asshole". They finally settle the argument by making a bet that they can switch roles for a day. The episode's basic premise would somewhat be loosely made into the Games Animation era episode, Who's Stupid Now?.
3. "Fishing Trip" - Ren & Stimpy go on a fishing trip in search of the elusive foul-mouthed bass. The episode's basic premise is loosely related to the season 3 episode Bass Masters and the unproduced Spümcø episode The Wilderness Adventure.
4. "The Wilderness Adventure" - George Liquor takes Ren & Stimpy hunting in the deep woods. The episode was originally written for Nickelodeon but was rejected several times. Michael Pataki was made to reprise his role as George Liquor. The storyboard for the rejected episode, however, was completed back in the 90s, as far as before the show started production, as one of the ideas would later used in the Season 2 episode The Great Outdoors. Two small portions of some of the storyboards of this episode had some voice work, sound effects, and music completed and put into part of the episode before the show's cancellation.
5. "My Little Ass" - A fake commercial that was supposed to be parody the series, My Little Pony. The script for the commercial was written when Kricfalusi was working on the new episodes for Spike, but it never came to fruition. (Source: John K. Interview - 08/19/03, WGN Radio)
6. "Powdered Toastman's Rolling Tobacco" - A second fake commercial. The commercial was going to mark the return of Powdered Toastman. The idea for the commercial was conceived, but the commercial itself was never fully produced. (Source: John K. Interview - 08/19/03, WGN Radio)
7. "Log for Moms" - A third fake commercial. This commercial was possibly going to be about a log specifically targeted to mothers. This commercial was planned, but it was never completed.
8. "The Succubus" - The plot of this episode was going to be based on some of Kricfalusi's experiences with Robyn Byrd.
9. "Untitled Shampoo Master Episode" - The character named Shampoo Master first appeared in Naked Beach Frenzy, and Kricfalusi was planning on making an entire episode dedicated to him.
10. "Untitled Mike Barrier Episode" - An episode about Mike Barrier's interests and fears that was planned to be made, though it never began production.
11. "Untitled Father Episode" - Another episode was going to be about the specific tastes and phobias of someone, this time being Kricfalusi's father. The episode was left unfinished.

Reception

Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" was universally panned by both critics, audiences and longtime Ren and Stimpy fans. It currently sits at 5.5/10 on IMDb. According to Wikipedia, Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" has been listed as one of the worst TV shows of all time. PhantomStrider despises this cartoon and considers it to be the worst. Billy West (Stimpy's voice actor) rejected the series, calling it the worst thing that he had ever seen. Ren Seeks Help is heavily despised by the majority of the fans of the original series.

This show ruined both the reputations of Ren & Stimpy and Kricfalusi, because of the poor reviews that "Adult Party Cartoon" received, and the reason why Ren & Stimpy didn't come back for their animated movie to Nickelodeon nor were even set to appear in the canceled Nicktoons movie. Paramount Pictures, one of the subsidiaries of Paramount Global, also rejected a proposed theatrical short for Ren & Stimpy in the Spring of 2017, because they refused to let Nickelodeon do anything with the franchise. This show botched Spümcø, the studio that created Ren and Stimpy for Nickelodeon shutting down in 2005, due to Carbunkle Cartoons' lawsuit against Spümcø.

On January 28, 2020, a crowdfunded documentary about the original show and Kricfalusi called Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story, was released at the Sundance Film Festival and was released both theatrically and video-on-demand on August 14, 2020. The documentary has no involvement from Nickelodeon and ViacomCBS, but they were credited in the documentary's end credits under "Special Thanks".

On August 5, 2020, ViacomCBS announced a reboot of Ren & Stimpy produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studios for Comedy Central without the involvement of Kricfalusi; according to Variety, he will not have financial remuneration or creative input from the reboot, due to his allegations in 2018. This caused various fans and people who worked in the original show, including Cheryl Chase, to speak out against the idea (due to Bob Camp not being involved with the reboot), while various animators also disliked the idea of rebooting existing franchises, instead of studios greenlighting their original ideas. One of the two victims of John Kricfalusi, Robyn Byrd, made a petition on Change to urging ViacomCBS cancel the reboot on Comedy Central, as according to her, it would "cause trauma and endanger fans and crew members who worked in the original series". Despite the petition (which failed, mainly because of inaccurate information against the reboot that the petition has) and negative reaction to the reboot's announcement, mainly from the animation industry, according to Billy West, the reboot is still happening, but development was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trivia

• The show was so bad that Billy West, Stimpy's original voice actor (as well as Ren's actor for some of Seasons 2 and Seasons 3-5), refused to work on the show saying that it would ruin his career and he called it one of the worst things that he's ever seen. He later stated in a tweet his reason for not doing the show was he did not want to work with Kricfalusi, but wished all the luck in the world to him in "APC". As a result, he was replaced by Eric Bauza.
• Because West refused to voice Stimpy again in "Adult Party Cartoon", some people auditioned to voice Stimpy in "APC" before Bauza took over the role as Stimpy. One of these people who auditioned to take the role of Stimpy was the late voice actor Joe Alaskey, who came close to Billy West's voice, but his voice was a bit too deep for Stimpy.
• While this show was hated by Ren and Stimpy fans, old and new, this show, for unknown reasons, had stronger fanbases in Eastern Europe (mostly in Poland).
• Billy West also predicted the show would get canceled, and a couple of days later the prediction came true.
• While the last three episodes Naked Beach Frenzy, Altruists, and Stimpy's Pregnant didn't air on American television, they aired in other countries and continents like Latin America (MTV), Brazil (Multishow and VH1), Russia (2x2), Poland (MTV), and Italy (Fox), while in America they were only released in The Lost Episodes DVD in 2006.
• A petition was made by the now defunct Ren & Stimpy forum, The Members of the Loyal Order of Stupids (aka MOTLOS) in 2003 on the also now defunct petition website, PetitionOnline, in the wake of saving "Adult Party Cartoon" for getting cancelled and be renewed for a second season.
• People who worked on the show such as Richard Pursel stated that they hated working on the show and working with Kricfalusi.
  • Richard Pursel (one of the writers) later works on SpongeBob SquarePants in Season 5 for his first episode "Fungus Among Us".
• The show was originally going to have nine episodes. However, due to similar issues with production at Nickelodeon, only six episodes ended up being produced, with Spike declining to renew the series.
• All the episodes except Altruists were originally planned to be released as episodes of the original show. This includes the canceled episodes too.
• Butch Hartman (the uncredited writer) is the creator of The Fairly OddParents

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