"The Ren & Stimpy Show" (1991)

Overview (via IMDB.com):

An intense, hyperactive chihuahua (Is there any other kind?) and a happy-go-lucky, empty-brained cat share bizarre and often repulsive adventures. Their experiences usually involve hairballs, filthy litterboxes, "magic nose goblins", sentient farts, jars of spit, outhouses, eating dirt, monkey vermin and any other imaginable disgusting substance.

For those of you who don't know, Ren & Stimpy was the creation of animator John Kricfalusi (John K) who had previously made a name for himself in the late '80s rebooting the Mighty Mouse franchise with the aid of '70s "adult animation" (link LSFW) pioneer Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, Cool World). The show was a hit but controversial from the start with its subversive, cracked out storylines. Among other somewhat questionable decisions, Bakshi and Kricfalusi (can we get a "Smith" in here?) thought it would be funny if their superhero rodent snorted a white, powdery substance to make himself feel better. Parents did not take kindly to this display, which they believed to be Mighty Mouse using cocaine and CBS soon buckled to pressure and cancelled the series due to protests.

Nickelodeon, apparently wielding a pair of giant brass balls, signed John K to create a series for their new "Nicktoons" Sunday morning lineup (alone with Doug and Rugrats). The idea behind Nicktoons was to give animators complete creative control, a throwback to the the olden days when animators like Tex Avery and Chuck Jones were responsible not just for the animation, but the storylines and scripts as well. John K whipped up The Ren & Stimpy Show, a series that turned out to be ten times more subversive, sick, and just plain creepy than his work on Mighty Mouse.

John K (who also voiced Ren) and his company, Spümcø, ran into creative differences with Nickelodeon and left the show in 1993, the remaining three seasons were headed by Games Animation.

In 2003, the show returned in a different form on the Spike network as Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"--a decidedly more adult effort (though not by much) that featured new, uncensored episodes written and directed by John K, alongside episodes that had been "banned" by Nickelodeon. The new show, which portrayed the duo as homosexuals, had trouble retaining sponsors and was pulled after a month on the air.

Then:

What a show! Ren & Stimpy made a huge impact on my snot-nosed, Ninja Turtle obsessed, 60 lb. self back in 1991. It was weird, gross, pissed off my mom and dad, and best of all, was featured on Nickelodeon, the channel that managed to brainwash me into watching every minute of programming they aired, regardless of quality.

Who was that kid who actually watched Fifteen (Nick's continuing high school drama)? Me. Which kid watched those weird Japanimation versions of fairy tales they aired on Special Delivery? Yours truly. What kid actually could sit through Littl' Bits and Noozles without falling asleep? Guilty as charged, sir.

But Ren & Stimpy was different from those shows. It was like the Beavis & Butthead for little kids, as far as I could tell. MTV showed it at night, which at the time, confused me, but now makes perfect sense (more on that in "Now"). Ren & Stimpy didn't talk down to kids, instead giving kids exactly what they wanted--disgusting displays of bodily functions.

I had all kinds of Ren & Stimpy memorabilia, from t-shirts to dolls, including "Rude Toot Ren," a Ren doll that farted when you squeezed his tummy. Dear reader, when I tell you it was epic, know that I am not exaggerating in the slightest.

Ten things I remember off-hand:

1. Powdered Toast Man (flying backwards with prominent buttocks)
2. "Don't Whiz On The Electric Fence" board game
3. "Happy Happy Joy Joy" by Stinky Wizzleteats (seriously, Nickelodeon?!)
4. That horse who always said "No, sir, I don't like it."
5. Ren's fat German cousin "Sven"
6. The episode where Stimpy made his own cartoon
7. The space episode
8. Lots of references to someone who I now recognize as Kirk Douglas (this was supposed to be a kid's show, why not put in an actor who hasn't starred in a movie in 40 years?)
9. The episode when Ren and Stimpy get sick (I recall this being sickeningly gross with lots of detailed painted animation cels of Ren's snot-covered visage)
10. The Muddy Mud Skipper Show!

Now:

Now class, pay attention. This show is what we call subversive.

Like Pee Wee's Playhouse before it, the show seems to play as much to a college-aged crowd (read: stoners) as it does to kids. It's essentially a parody of old cartoons, everything from Looney Tunes to Disney to Superman to Rocky and Bullwinkle is referenced. John K was clearly a fan of the old Warner Bros. cartoons, and wheels out many of the old cartoon and TV tropes in which to place his whacked out vision of a cartoon.

As an adult, it's amazing to realize how well-made this show was. It's the juxtaposition of artful animation and gross-out content that makes the show so memorable. Unlike South Park, where the animation is at most an afterthought, or even The Simpsons, where the animation is deliberately simple, Ren and Stimpy is one of the most skillfully animated TV shows I've ever seen. Yes, it uses that artfulness to be irreverent, bizarre and completely disgusting (one of the most beautifully done paintings is that of Ren's with snot coming out of his nose) but it's a joy to see an animator who truly cares about such things, even if it's used to show a freakish cat eating his own cat litter.

After watching the first two episodes of the series, it's clear John K and co. were intent on making a sort of stoner parody of '60s TV, both animated and live-action. Following the opening credits--which should give viewers a good idea of what they're in for (among other things, Ren is shown sticking his head in a toilet and Stimpy throwing up hairballs on Ren)-- each show begins with a commercial parody such as the infamous Slinky send-up "Log!"--a log of wood made to look like a fun toy for kids--and of course, Powdered Toast Man, the superhero who flies backwards while very much resembling Kirk Douglas and magically brings kids "powered toast"--literally a powder that magically becomes toast when you shake it onto your plate.

Each episode includes two different stories, each about ten minutes long with a short segment in between (usually another commercial or, in the case of Episode 2, a short initiation into the duo's fan club--another '60s referencing trope). The stories usually follow some sort of normal cartoon template--the sort of plot lines that, ostensibly, should appeal to kids--Stimpy wins a contest and Ren is jealous, Stimpy reads a bedtime story that Ren imagines himself in, Ren gets sick and Stimpy nurses him back to health. All of these things sound normal enough, but John K takes the general concepts and turns them on their ear.

Did I mention this show is gross? I'm not sure "bathroom humor" covers it.

During the course of these episodes, Ren and Stimpy eat cat litter, give each other sponge baths, climb up a nose hair (a la Rapunzel), get sucked up into nostrils, talk with an almost sexual perversity about lederhosen and making underleg noises, and are chased by disembodied heads. At various times, Ren's eyeballs talk to each other, Stimpy takes a medical kid out of his nose, and Ren unzips his fur in front of Stimpy (while crying). To call some of the references to bodily functions "thinly veiled" would presume that they're veiled at all.

And it goes without saying that just generally, these characters look gross about 95% of the time. Ren, a chiuahaha, is all haggard, bony, and rat-like, with red, bloodshot bug eyes and strange spots that grow hair, and Stimpy, while markedly less offensive to the eye than his friend, is a fat "cat" (not resembling any feline found in nature) with a giant blue nose and an anatomically correct butt.

Oh, and if we had more time I'd go in depth about Stimpy's "Magic Nose Goblins" (a collection of artfully sculptured boogers wiped under a stool).

Characters act mean and cruel to one another. Ren is hateful, spiteful and jealous of Stimpy, himself a borderline retarded simpleton with a good heart who often received the brunt of Ren's unchecked rage. The episodes almost never have any sort of moral, or if there is a moral, it's almost always immediately forgotten in favor of a gross-out joke.

This is not a normal cartoon.

And the sound effects. Almost every movement has some sort of over-the-top, disgusting sound effect. Farts, belches, knuckle cracks, and various sucking sounds are applied liberally to almost any movement.

The fact that this show stayed on the air as long as it did, without popping up on the radar of every religious family group in the nation is amazing. I have no idea what to attribute it to, except maybe that parents simply never watched it.

There is absolutely no way any child under 12 should have been allowed to watch this show. It's simply depraved.

But, then again, aren't those the best kind of shows?

HOW RAD WAS IT?! SUPER RAD