Ren & Stimpy (2024)

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Ren & Stimpy is a 2024 adult animated series based on the original 1991 Nickelodeon television series of the same name that aired on Comedy Central, created by John Kricfalusi, who had no involvement in this reboot due to his pedophilia accusations in 2018. The reboot first premiered in France on July 1, 2024, with no premiere date in the USA as of now. However, the entire reboot got leaked on July 21, 2024 on 4chan.

Ren & Stimpy

Congratulations, Comedy Central, even though you made a Ren & Stimpy adult reboot that's better than Adult Party Cartoon, it's not strong enough.

Genre:	Black comedy Sitcom Satire Slapstick Adult animation
Country:	United States Philippines (overseas animation) South Korea (overseas animation)
Release Date:	July 1, 2024 - present (France)
Network(s):	Comedy Central
Created by:	John Kricfalusi (characters)
Distributed by:	Paramount Media Networks
Starring:	Billy West Michael Kohler
Seasons:	1
Episodes:	10 (26 segments)
Previous show:	Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"

"You EEDIOT!" Qualities

Mediocre Toon Boom animation by Awesome Inc. and Snipple Animation from the Philippines, which not only sucks because of the poor use of very light colors, but also traces poses from the original series (which broke a rule from the original series when it was made by Spümcø where you could not draw the characters' same poses under any circumstances), which they look very terrible and when they do the original poses, they look really awful and badly drawn, such as Ren screaming with his teeth and tongue, which looks horrible and very on-model.
- Despite having some people from the original series and even from Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon and Owen Fishback of all people in the reboot, it couldn't decide to use either the art style of the characters from the original series or APC, creating some confusion.
  - While Big Star Enterprises' animation is slighty better than other two, especially for ones that Awesome Inc. animated, their animation in this reboot is a bit lacking over-the-top poses.
- There's even a reason why Snipple's animation is terrible (despite the decent animation in Looney Tunes Cartoons, Tiny Toon Looniversity, Hamster & Gretel, The Proud Family: Louder & Prouder): it's because the studio is a terrible place to work and mistreats its former animators, who have already reported the studio for toxic working conditions.
  - Some of the background and new characters (like the Clear Toliet Woman) have bland designs (more precisely they don't have the Ren and Stimpy art style) and fit more in shows like The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. They also rip-off designs of characters from other shows, such as Tiffani (Stimpy's mom) from the episode "The Mother of the All Yaksmas" rip-offs Eris' design.
The new theme song, while not terrible, is less than memorable contrary to the original series theme song, "Dog Pound Hop". It is rumored that they did not want to pay royalties to John K. for the original theme song, even though the original theme song wasn't even composed by him, it was composed by the original series crew like Jim Smith and the late Chris Reccardi.
- To add salt in the wound, some Ren & Stimpy veterans like Bob Camp, Bill Wray and Jim Gomez got unjustly fired and harassed during the production of the reboot, because of the reboot's staff saw them as "old white men", which is discrimination (racism on this case), ageism and misandry. And yet, the other original Ren & Stimpy staff like Billy West, Bob Jaques, Kelly Armstrong and Vanessa Coffey (who hadn't produced and worked on a cartoon for 25 years since Rayman: The Animated Series was cancelled in the case of the latter) who are also old and got kept in the reboot just for money, which makes the producers look like hypocrites. Ironically, Vanessa Coffey was one of the producers of this reboot along with Ashley Kohler and Jenny Jafre.
  - There are rumors that Bob Jaques and Kelly Armstrong were also fired from the reboot due to harassment and discrimination from the reboot's team. Even though their episode credits are retained in the reboot, it's horrible that they were fired from the reboot despite having worked on the reboot itself.
    - The reboot team hired Robyn Byrd, one of John K.'s victims as a consultant on the reboot and receiving remuneration in John's place for being his victim, despite she previously tried to cancel the reboot with a fake news petition against John K. by falsely accusing him for allegedly using the reboot to abuse minors again, which is completely false, insulted a user on her old Twitter account who debunked her misinformation that the reboot was "cancelled" thanks to her petition saying "Your moms" and having possible involvement in the firing of Bob Camp and some other Ren & Stimpy veterans in this reboot due to the reason above, being reasons why she did not deserve to be hired in the reboot due to her wrong actions against the reboot and her and the reboot team's harassment of the original series' veterans.
      - This reboot had a very troubled production, plagued with problems such as the production being delayed due to the COVID pandemic, to the departure of Nickelodeon Animation Studios (which would originally be involved in the reboot and would be their first adult animation if they hadn't dropped out of it) and being replaced by Awesome Inc. to the dismissal of some Ren & Stimpy veterans. The reboot also had a shortage of news during its troubled production of almost four years, where there was little news about the reboot and even due to poor publicity from Paramount and Comedy Central.
The reboot is writer-driven (similar to SpongeBob SquarePants starting with season 9b) instead of being storyboard-driven, which while being writer-driven is not bad thing, it hurts the reboot due to the unnecessarily large number of writers who writes the reboot's episodes who had never worked on the Ren & Stimpy franchise before. Not helping is that it is extremely rare to get any funny moments in this reboot.
Billy West's voice acting for Ren and Stimpy is rather poor due to his advanced age and having caught COVID-19 during the production of the reboot (due to his anti-vaccine stance and him supporting Ivermectin as a "COVID cure" instead). His voice role of Ren turned into a grumpy version of Stimpy and his portrayal of Stimpy is not that happy anymore.
- Ironically, West doesn't reprise as Mr. Horse, who he did the voice of him in the original show, replacing John Kricfalusi as the said character in the Games Animation era, possibly due to his old age. Mr. Horse is instead voiced by Michael Kohler in the reboot.
- Some of the voices like Satan (Sam Richardson) from "Aw Hell No!" sound very horrible.
- The reboot overuses celebrity voices, which is not always a good idea for animated productions and it can negatively affect some of them, which unlike the original 1991 show which didn't overuse celebrity voices and they were only used in the episodes when celebrities voiced characters in the original show.
The end credits is very dull, not only for not having a background with Ren and Stimpy themselves like the original series and APC's end credits, is also plain black.
Some characters like Sven Höek (who didn't appear since his cameos in the Games Animation era) still haven't appear on this reboot.
It uses modern technology like cell phones (or more precisely, a smartphone) in the episode "Screentime" and in a scene where Stimpy is a woman using a modern cell phone, which makes the reboot run the risk of becoming dated in the years to come.
It also teaches bad morals: like in "Screentime", where using modern cell phones and being addicted to them can "turn you into a monster", as what happened with Stimpy in the episode, which is not true.
Ren and Stimpy no longer sleep together in the same bed like in the two previous series, which annoys those who saw no problem with that since it was actually seen as a good thing by some fans of the series. This is probably due to a bad decision made by the reboot team of not wanting them sleeping in the same bed.
- This is also disappointing for those who ship Ren and Stimpy as a couple, who were eagerly awaiting moments of love between the two as a gay couple, which unfortunately will never happen in this reboot, despite the characters being confirmed to be gay shortly after the end of the original series in 1997 through the words of John K. himself in an interview. The reason for that change isn't even explained, implying that the writers are homophobic.
Some episodes rip off plots from the original series and even from Adult Party Cartoon, such as "Screentime", which rip-offs "My Shiny Friend", "Renhattan" which rip-offs "Onward and Upward" (due of both episodes having the same plot of Ren and Stimpy living in a horrible place and they try to improve it and being the first episodes of both reboots).
- Some of the reboot's episodes has bad endings like in "Screentime", where Ren gets stuck in Stimpy's belly at the end of the episode and even wasted potential like "Aw Hell No!", where it doesn't do anything fun with the idea of Ren torturing sinners in hell.
Although it was intended for mature audiences, it feels rather safe and hallow to be considered one and aside from mild-swearing, it maybe seen as some typical kids show.

"Happy Happy Joy Joy!" Qualities

It's nice to finally see another Ren & Stimpy-related media after 21 years outside of Nickelodeon crossovers (or 18, if you count APC's The Lost Episodes DVD).
- On that topic, the Ren & Stimpy reboot can feel quite nostalgic, especially for longtime fans who were children who grew up in the 1990s and loved Ren & Stimpy.
Despite its flaws, it's still a huge improvement over Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon".
Big Star Enterprises and Bob Jaques, who worked previously in Adult Party Cartoon thankfully returned for this reboot, although despite their animation for few segments (by Kelly Armstrong) got overshadowed by the animation from Awesome Inc. and Snipple.
- While the segments by Snipple Animation weren't good to look at, there's some moments where the animation gets a bit smooth.
This reboot still has well-designed title cards just like other R&S-related media.
Despite they no longer sleep together in the same bed, Ren and Stimpy are still likable and, thankfully, had gotten their personalities back after the awful APC reboot, especially Ren himself, as he no longer acts bitter, abusive, violent, and unlikable (from APC). Although they can be out-of-character sometimes (like Stimpy spanking Ren on the floor) and the controversy of the removal of a trait of Ren, due for being traumatic to John K's victims which was criticized by Ren and Stimpy's fans on 4chan.
- Many characters (who wasn't here on APC reboot) like Muddy Mudskipper, Kowalski, Eugine and Shawn, Old Man Hunter and Powdered Toast Man make returns.
There are a few episodes that were alright at best, such as "All About Log" (which brings back the Log commercial after being not seen in APC), "Bad Stimpy" and "A Stimpy is Born".
Despite the voice acting not being as good as the original series, it's nice to see Billy West reprise his role as the titular characters, even despite his controversial takes on Twitter such as being against the COVID vaccine and ignoring his former wife, Violet Benny, who Billy was married with her between 1992 until 2009, when they divorced in favor of other women during the production of the reboot.
Although extremely rare as mentioned before, there's still occasionally funny moments, like the ever famous quote "This whole journey reminds me of a Beatles song."

Recpetion

The Comedy Central reboot received negative reception from longtime fans, due to various problems such as its poor-quality animation, some episodes being leaked, Billy West's weak performance as Ren and Stimpy as a result of his old age and him getting COVID during the end of the production of the reboot, being writer-driven instead of being creator- and storyboard-driven, and infamously the unfair firing of Bob Camp and some of the other Ren & Stimpy veterans during the reboot's production. However, some fans liked the reboot despite its many problems, and they consider it better than Adult Party Cartoon, although not too much.

Bill Wray criticized the reboot in a post on his Facebook account and denounced the writers of the reboot (mostly composed by women) for harassing and firing him, Bob Camp and Jim Gomez from the reboot.

Bob Camp also expressed disappointment to the reboot, saying that "the folks making the new series are dealing with trying to remake the original in a woke world and trying to make up for John K's sins." However, he encouraged fans to "give the show a chance to find its own voice" and expressed no ill will towards the reboot's staff.

Like Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", it garnered an ironic cult following on social media comprising of people making memes based on perceived bad jokes of this reboot such as Ren mentioning his love for the Beatles, which John Kricfalusi hated the band by saying "This whole journey reminds me of a Beatles song" and an incidental female character (loosely based on one of the writers of the reboot) describing how the piano teeth joke would play out to an audience member.

Trivia

Before the reboot officially premiered, some episodes got leaked on 4chan, resulting in criticism from fans who disliked the reboot. The entire reboot would be leaked later also on 4chan.
Unlike other Ren & Stimpy media, it does not credit John Kricfalusi for creating Ren & Stimpy, due to the pedophilia accusations against him on March 29, 2018, but he does make a cameo appearance in the episode "Aw Hell No!".
The reboot was going to premiere in Latin America and CIS on July 12, 2024, but for unknown reasons, the premiere was cancelled and it was infinitely delayed. However, the first two episodes premiered in France.
The quote of the episode A Stimpy is Born, "This whole journey reminds me of a Beatles song", became an internet meme on Twitter/X in August 2024, and has been used to mock this reboot.

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