The Ren & Stimpy Show (seasons 3-5)

The Ren & Stimpy Show It might still be good and nowhere as bad as Adult Party Cartoon but it's still inferior to John's original vision. Genre: Comedy Slapstick Animated sitcom Running Time: 22 minutes Country: United States Release Date: November 30, 1993 - July 30, 1994 (Season 3) October 1, 1994 - April 1, 1995 (Season 4) June 3, 1995 - October 20, 1996 (Season 5) Network(s): Nickelodeon (1993-1995) MTV (1996) Created by: John Kricfalusi Distributed by: MTV Networks Starring: Billy West Episodes: 10 (Seasons 3 and 5) 14 (Season 4)

The Ren & Stimpy Show is an American animated series created by Canadian animator and cartoonist John Kricfalusi for Nickelodeon. The series follows the adventures of the titular characters Ren, an emotionally unstable chihuahua, and Stimpy, a good-natured but dimwitted cat. It premiered on August 11, 1991, as one of the original three Nicktoons, along with Rugrats and Doug.

However, after the show's creator John Kricfalusi was fired from Nickelodeon on September 25, 1992, due to missing deadlines with the channel, a hostile work environment, the delaying of various episodes, and the episode Man's Best Friend, the series was transferred to Nickelodeon's Games Animation with Bob Camp replacing Kricfalusi as creative director in Season 3 and Billy West taking the role of Ren Höek from John K.

Bad Qualities

1. The main problem with the Games Animation era is that it has less clever episode plots and poor writing, which resulted in a lot of bad and even mediocre episodes. As Nickelodeon fired John Kricfalusi in 1992, Bob Camp took over as showrunner and creative director of the series. While he's not a bad or an awful person, since he wrote great episodes like Stimpy's Invention, he also previously wrote most of the bad episodes from the first two seasons like Nurse Stimpy, The Littlest Giant, Out West, Monkey See, Monkey Don't! and The Cat That Laid the Golden Hairball. As a result, the show went downhill when John got fired.
   • According to the DVD commentaries, the main reason why a lot of episodes of this era are very rushed, was because Nickelodeon only ordered four seasons, not five, and also due of Nick ordered a large number of episodes, so they had to split season 4 into two seasons and the crew of these seasons didn't have time or budget to make them right. Some episodes from this era were written and directed by people who were unfamiliar with the characters and the series themselves, but due to the short time to finish them, some episodes didn't use layouts and when they did, they were done by the overseas animation studios and services of these seasons. Nickelodeon only gave the directors four hours to check the layouts. Instead of Nickelodeon giving the crew a few more months or a year to finish the episodes and train the newcomers, they overworked the series' crew.
   • Out of these three seasons from this era, season four is arguably the worst of them, due to having the worst episodes of the entire series like It's a Dog's Life and Aloha Höek, with the former one being a watered-down version and a rip-off of the banned episode Man's Best Friend.
2. The animation in these seasons, while not terrible and still being a decent effort, is a noticeable downgrade over the animation of the Spümcø seasons as it is more restricted than ever before, even by 1990s standards. This can be explained because some of the overseas animation studios and services (like Carbunkle Cartoons) left the show, and were replaced by other studios like Mr. Big Cartoons from Australia and Toon-Us-In.
   • Speaking of Mr. Big Cartoons, their animation in these seasons was very limited and was also off-model, an example being Stimpy having five fingers in a scene of the episode Travelogue, despite the fact he has four fingers.
   • There are also several animation errors such as in Jerry the Bellybutton Elf, where the Powdered Toast Man's Lovely Assistant is barefoot in the party scene, and Hermit Ren, where it appears that Ren and Stimpy's eyes are closed when Ren's tongue is on fire.
   • In some episodes, the characters are badly drawn, with some examples being Ren's Anger in a scene from the same previously mentioned episode in the BQ #2, Ren himself in various episodes, and Vicky Velcro and Powdered Toast Man in a few shots from the episode Powdered Toast Man vs. Waffle Woman.
3. While Ren and Stimpy are still likable and enjoyable characters, they started to become massive butt-monkeys in episodes such as Superstitious Stimpy, No Pants Today, and most infamously, It’s a Dog’s Life.
   • Likewise, Ren started to act like a much bigger jerk than he did before unlike in the Spümcø era due to Executive Meddling from Nickelodeon, according to Bill Wray in interviews.
   • Stimpy becomes irritatingly clueless in some episodes like A Friend in Your Face!, acts out of character in Pixie King and Stupid Sidekick Union, or is an idiot in a not-good way in I Love Chicken and No Pants Today.
4. Some episodes have bad endings like Ren's Brain, which ends with people's brains ending up exploding and Aloha Höek, which ends up revealing the whole time Ren and Stimpy were Russian spies in disguise.
5. Season 5 jumped the shark, for killing off characters like Powdered Toast Man in Dinner Party and Muddy Mudskipper in Terminal Stimpy, although fortunately Powdered Toast Man was brought back in the game Nicktoons MLB years later in 2011 and Muddy Mudskipper still appeared in the episode A Scooter for Yaksmas.
6. Even though the episode The Last Temptation of Ren was an okay finale, the episode's ending was terrible. In fact, Terminal Stimpy could have been better to be the true finale to the main series as both Ren and Stimpy go to heaven in the end than this episode.
7. Some of the gross-out jokes can be even more disturbing than the Spümcø era had such as a worm eating the insides of Ren and Stimpy and leaving their corpses behind on Ren's Retirement and even more disgusting as shown on Travelogue.
8. Some of the new characters introduced in these seasons are unlikable such as Haggis McHaggis and Granny from It's a Dog's Life.
9. These seasons are filled with bad morals like:
   • Being a jerk
   • Being an idiot
   • Not being yourself
   • Impersonation
   • Not using common sense
   • Not learning from your mistakes
   • Commiting crimes
10. There is a load of bad or mediocre episodes, such as:
    • Ren's Retirement (which started the downfall of the whole series)
    • It's a Dog's Life (arguably the worst episode of the series)
    • No Pants Today
    • Circus Midgets
    • Hard Times for Haggis
    • Jerry the Bellybutton Elf
    • Aloha Höek (also counts as the worst)
    • Ren's Brain
    • Dog Tags
    • School Mates
    • Lair of the Lummox (which badly ended season 3)
    • Superstitious Stimpy
    • Magical Golden Singing Cheeses
    • A Scotsman in Space
    • Double Header
    • Farm Hands
    • Pixie King
    • Prehistoric Stimpy
    • Galoot Wranglers
    • City Hicks
    • Stupid Sidekick Union
    • I Love Chicken
    • Travelogue
    • Cheese Rush Days
    • Hair of the Cat
    • A Friend in Your Face!

Good Qualities

1. Despite the show going downhill, there are still a handful of really great episodes, such as:
   • Ol' Blue Nose (which initiated season 5 on a high manner)
   • To Salve or Salve Not (a good way to begin these seasons)
   • Hermit Ren (which positively started season 4)
   • A Scooter for Yaksmas (which concluded Nickelodeon's run of the show with a high regard)
   • Road Apples
   • Lumber Jerks
   • Insomniac Ren
   • Eat My Cookies
   • Powdered Toast Man vs. Waffle Woman
   • A Yard Too Far
   • House of Next Tuesday
   • Pen Pals
   • Wiener Barons
   • Stimpy's Pet
   • Terminal Stimpy (which would have been a good finale as mentioned before)
   • Bell Hops
   • An Abe Divided
   • Jiminy Lummox
   • Ren's Bitter Half
   • Ren Needs Help! (which finely ended season 4)
   • Stimpy's Cartoon Show
   • A Hard Day's Luck
   • Blazing Entrails
   • Bass Masters
   • My Shiny Friend
   • Ren's Pecs
   • Egg Yolkeo
   • Who's Stupid Now?
   • The Last Temptation of Ren (an okay way to end the series; despite the terrible ending)
2. The animation, while restricted, is still decent especially when it's done by Rough Draft Studios.
3. The voice acting is still awesome, and while John Kricfalusi no longer voices Ren in these seasons (until he returned to voice Ren in Adult Party Cartoon years later), Billy West is an amazing replacement for Ren.
4. The new characters from these seasons can be very good like Waffle Woman, Powdered Toast Man's enemy from the episode Powdered Toast Man vs. Waffle Woman.
5. As said above, Ren & Stimpy are still likable characters.
6. Season 3 is arguably the best out of these seasons, as it was pretty good during its first half. It wasn't until Ren's Retirement that the seasonal rot officially kicked in.
   • Season 5 may be seen as a slight improvement over season 4. While it killed off several characters, it has fewer offensively bad episodes and more great episodes, like Bell Hops and Who's Stupid Now? However, it still has a lot of problems from the previous season.
7. Despite all of its flaws, these seasons can be considered just as good as the previous ones.

Reception

Although the first two seasons made by Spümcø were very well-received, the seasons made by Games Animation received mixed reviews from fans and critics.

Some people called these seasons produced by Games Animation the downfall of the series and were not the same without John Kricfalusi after he was fired from Nickelodeon, but also a step down from the first two seasons produced by Spümcø, while other people liked these seasons and praised Bob Camp for replacing John Kricfalusi in these seasons in recent years, mainly in the late 2010s and comparing they are better than the 2003 adult spin-off Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", despite these seasons also have their flaws and problems.

Ted Drozdowski, a resident critic of The Boston Phoenix, said that "the bloom faded on Ren & Stimpy".

Animation historian Michael Barrier wrote while the creators of the Games Animation episodes used crude jokes that were similar to those used by John K., they did not "find the material particularly funny; they were merely doing what was expected".

Although Billy West was well-received voicing Ren Höek replacing John Kricfalusi in these seasons, he was not immune from negative criticism, saying he voicing Ren in the Games Animation era sounded awful and it sounded more like Stimpy than Ren. Even John K. himself stated in a chat to the now-defunct MOTLOS forum, that Stimpy sounded more and more like Billy's regular voice or Doug Funnie in the later Games Animation episodes, hence being another reason why Billy West was replaced with Eric Bauza in Adult Party Cartoon.

Katie Rice, who grew up watching the show, said in a 2008 interview that despite respecting the artists who worked in the Games era, felt the episodes made in the Games era left her feeling sort of flat and the cuteness of the show has been gone. Even liking the nice drawings and paintings of the Games Animation era, she wasn't involved with the show the way she had been before, and Ren and Stimpy was no longer "real" to her.

The show ended in 1995, due to a budget freeze at Viacom and was also "ceased indefinitely" in late January 1995, in the words of the show's executive producer Mary Harrington at Games Animation to the show's crew.

Trivia

• Nickelodeon offered John Kricfalusi, the position of consultant for Ren & Stimpy when he was fired from Nick in 1992, but John refused.
• The first episode of season 3, To Salve and Salve Not was the last episode to use the "Created by John Kricfalusi" card at the ending of the show's intro, due to his firing from Nickelodeon. Starting with the second episode of season 3, A Yard Too Far/Circus Midgets, the card was removed from the intro and remained at the end of the show, it returned in the intro of Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" in 2003. However, in these seasons, John Kricfalusi received creator credit in the end credits from this era, as "Ren & Stimpy Created by John Kricfalusi."
• According to Billy West, he was obliged by Nickelodeon to voice both Ren and Stimpy in these seasons after John Kricfalusi was fired; originally before the show premiered, Nick wanted West to voice Ren and Stimpy but didn't happen due of John K. taking the role of Ren Höek in the series, making Billy West only voicing Stimpy in the first two seasons.
• Carbunkle Cartoons almost returned to animate the show for the episode "Ren's Bitter Half", but due to numerous orders from American studios, they were unable to animate the episode. Bob Jaques expressed regret that his studio was not able to work on the episode.

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