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Ren and Stimpy never was that much important to me ever before. I remember watching a fair amount of episodes from S1-3 and finding them to be pretty amusing, with S4-5 and the big one being entirely the unknown territory for me. My interest over watching this show fully started to grow somewhere at the beginning of 2019, when some of my friends started to (re)watching Ren and Stimpy at the time. All I wanted is to join the gang for a discussion of said show. Unfortunately I delayed this watch for mounts, but I managed to find a time to finally marathon R&S at it’s entirely. To some extent I was surprised at what score I saw, but can’t say that exactly in a positive way.

At the first look, Ren and Stimpy look like a show with a lot of things to like. And it may be true. This show has a really appealing animation style, that is filled with so much artistic talent and the freedom for doing anything with it. S1 can look rough for a bit when it wants to, but it has its own charming look with its close-ups and expressions, and S2 only boosted visuals to the top. Maybe visuals can be looking gross at first, but I can respect the style of delivery that show attempted. And by amazing art-direction, there comes the humor that can be also quite funny. The comedy of the show filled with the freakish, messed up nature to it, but it does work for the most part because of how interesting the placement of characters can get. Ir could be either The Outer Space or Fairy Tale Universe, and all of those can work with it a lot. Even some of the takes for meta humor worked there very well. That is especially paid off by the physical comedy, it’s attention to showing pain and itch of every character’s move had it’s great impact to the comedic effect, which is why Stimpy’s Invention ended up being this funny for example. And the main 2 characters, while doesn’t have much to describe anything m beyond "A Greedy Jerk and A Naive Enthusiast", they are pretty decent in execution and have pretty good chemistry between each other. Outside of Ren and Stimpy themselves, there’s not much of an often characters, and moreso a bag of secondary characters that only exists to appear for a few seconds and say something funny, Mr Horse and George Liquor are the first examples that could come to my head. It’s not the cast that I could call my favorite, but it’s far from being bad. So what is ever the reason why Ren and Stimpy is fairly low when it comes to specific grades? When the same show has a unique style of visual delivery, some of great dark humor. and a decent characters’ cast. What even brings down all of that niceness? There’s one single thing, but it’s so major that it made all those efforts to get covered up in a sea of underwhelming execution, as well as bringing up some other flaws along with it, and this con is pretty simple to notice.

T H E P A C I N G. I swear to god, this show has such an awful problem with its pacing. Ever since I started watching the first season I noticed how slow most of those episodes are. So much of the episodes love dragging, repeating or simply wasting time on nothing interesting for the audience. Fire Dogs was a very giant disappointment on rewatch, as most of the episode is exactly the same lame joke that is based on things falling from the flaming building into the characters. As something that should’ve been at most 20 second visual gag, this is a half of the thing, which entirely kills the whole idea of this visual joke. Out West is another example. Episode had 2 characters, where the entire joke of them was based on either them talking for eternity or pausing things for eternity. This is not funny or clever whatsoever, it’s just annoying and makes me want to turn off the entire episode halfway though Sven Hoek got even further with its crap than both of mentioned episodes before, as instead of 11 minutes, it wastes 15. I have no idea what was the point of letting this episode to be this long, as it’s general idea doesn’t came any further than "dumb people are dumb" comedy, which I really not a fan of. And on top of that, this episode really dumbed down Stimpy’s character, as I can’t think of any other episode where he is this flat out stupid. Admittedly, Ren’s rage speech at the end was hilarious, but it was really too late to save the episode. And while I did say that I respect the show's style of gross-out’s delivery, this doesn’t mean that some of the episodes based on it didn’t fail, and of course for the similar reason that I targeted above. Ren’s Toothache has the entire scene where Ren grabs his nerves from his gums back to back, in the slowest, detailed way possible. I couldn’t care less about the rest of the episode, but this sequence is some of the worst things ever aired on television, I have no idea what is ever the idea of a joke supposed to be there in the first place. The Cat that Laid the Golden Hairball is basically the same thing, except it has even less substance to bring out and it’s had such an unfunny non-ending. I could go just more and more about how much of an issue the pacing here is. But it could’ve come across as repeating myself for the thousand times. This is really sad to see how much good qualities that all those episodes had been thrown into such an awful pacing and overall hollowness of the substance. This show really can be way better than this, because greatness like Son of Stimpy couldn’t just come up out of nowhere.

And all of what I just said was only being targeted into the Spumco era (S1-2), as it was only the set up before we got into the rise of the Games Era. Despite me being fairly harsh towards S1-2, at the very least they still have enough of good qualities to be okay. But when it comes to S3 and ESPECIALLY S4, there’s hardly anything positive that I could bring up, and meanwhile all the negatives just got way worse than they ever were in the Spumco era. Episodes continue to spray out the overly dragged pacing of the entire thing. And when most of S1-2 could’ve come up with some good jokes even with it, I really couldn’t think about a single remarkable moment from stuff like Road Apples or Eat My Cookies, making them to be a complete waste of time. And even if the episode somewhat managed to attempt a single joke, it’s just going to repeat it over and over again, as proved by To Salve and Salve Not! Which is one unfunny sequence on repeat. And remember what I said about specials that don't deserve to be that long? S3 had 4 of those, and while Stimpy’s Cartoon Show handled this format right, the other 3 failed miserably. Ren’s Retirement’s plot doesn’t accomplish anything at all, and with the amount of jokes being this little, this special is painful and dull to sit through. Sad Days for Haggis is the similar case, only here special focuses on random whos that I don’t give any shit about. And for the highlights of S3’s badness: A Lair of Lummox. The entirety of the special is dedicated to the lowest quality of gross-out and stereotypes that don't go anywhere further than "lol man gross laugh". And again, why out of all of these things is this crew decided to pull as the special event of the series? S4 was so impressed with such a genius concept that it made a sequel to Lummox, that was called Galoot Wrangles. The sequel was about as unfunny and pathetic, only real positive quality that I could say about it is that it’s at least shorter than its predecessor. S4 in general loved to return the old traditions of the show’s lowest qualities in one package of a Season. Haggis this time got 2 other episodes that focused on him, and not a surprise that they sucked almost as badly. With A Hard Days Luck especially being a giant mess of an episode, that also felt like it was drawn on a knees. Animation in S4 in general was noticeably downgraded from the expectations to the overall art designs, but this episode specifically was the single worst one at that. Or what about Farm Hands? What a great idea to return the same 2 lowbrows from Out West just to them to continue speaking as slow and unfunny as possible. This time take out the pretty good song from the former, and add even bigger problems with the substance. Missed the genius non-ending? Aloha Hoek will impress you then, as besides lol random resolution this episode had absolutely nothing to show at all. On the finale layer this season tried to return some episodes that were based on fairy tell concepts, but with S4’s brand of comedy, they ended up being a complete waste of time. This is a very sad picture we have here, while S3-4 still have their gems at times that could belong right into the warm spot of Spumco, as they still have their An Abe Divided or Hermit Ren once in a while. Majority of it brought up all the things that I hated since the beginning of the show, with only downgrading quality of humor and animation while those seasons were at it. Seems like it was the absolute rock bottom of Ren and Stimpy, and it only went to dive down in its misery by the hopes to end as soon as it could.

...Somewhat, I was wrong. Out of all of the seasonal points of Ren and Stimpy, I never really heard solid opinion towards S5 from the fans. Some people told me that this season is great, some said that it’s as bad as other Games’ seasons, and some said that it’s just okay. And as for me, S5 ended up being my favorite season of the series by default. Ever since I started watching the first pairings of the season I noticed how much faster paced in comparison to the rest of the show. But the clear example would’ve been Feud for Sale, as this episode returns the same 2 idiots from Out West yet again, but instead of continuing the never ending dragging of the most simplistic dialogues, it’s told actual jokes, in fact, really funny ones. I was really impressed to see the redemption of this show being this unexpected and good. Now it’s not that all of the episodes are that good, as there’s still a few duds to notice that had similar issues of previous seasons. Hair of a Cat is another badly executed gross-out episode with hardly anything interesting to introduce. Dog Tags is ridiculously stupid and repetitive. And School Mates is the whole other bar of cliched disaster that changes its directions in nearly every single possibility that it had. But all those duds are the lower side of the coin, as I could easily ignore all of them and focus on a fair amount of actually great episodes, such as Pen Pals and Dinner Party. The special mentioning earned both Stupid Sidekick Union and Who’s Stupid Now? Both episodes are a great usage of meta humor that have been pulled into the commentary of common cliches that so many cartoons use all the time. And while the main characters do act differently than they do usually, I do think that it works, as both episodes take place that located above the actual Ren and Stimpy’s show, making the characterization changes to be even more fitting than anything else. If you haven’t seen either of those episodes or S5 in general, they are highly recommendable no matter what. This season is so weird, but a pleasant surprise. Even with some episodes that are either average or flat out suck, S5 is a solid piece of content that fixed so many things that I disliked in any other season. I might be critical towards this show, but at least it had a pretty good endnote, which is possibly the best scenario that I could prefer.

Too bad that this show hasn't stopped on S5. As after quite some silence, we got the work of genius that is known as Adult Party Cartoon. I really hate to have a normie takes, I really do, but APC is some of the absolute worst pieces of animation that I’ve ever seen and all of the despise that it got over all those years is entirely deserved. As the title speaks of itself, this time Ren and Stimpy got a higher rating, letting it sound basically whatever it wants, and all I can add is that it went all by the worst direction that it could’ve come up with. This season absolutely obsessed with sex, vulgarity and gross-out without any limits in between. None of this is funny at all, it only makes this show look childish and primitive as there’s none a single thought that's been put into the writing. Animation quality is the worst, maybe the quality of actual expressions still has some artistic value in it, but the amount of simple errors in each episode is horrifying. And if you missed the problems with pacing of the original show, then you will absolutely love it here. Now episode can last for 30 minutes if they wants so, if not fucking 40, because why the hell not. As absolutely expected, none of those episodes has any resemblance of substance whatsoever, instead you’d be forced to watch Stimpy having sex with Duck for 5 minutes in the fullest presentation. If this wasn’t enough for you, Naked Beach Frenzy still exists, as it is absolutely nothing but a failed pornography with R&S’ art style and no real plot. But the absolute worst of all of them would’ve been Stimpy’s Pregnant. This episode is an insult in every possible way, from the revolting massage at the beginning that was dedicated to all of the mothers on Earth, to the climax that wastes 7 minutes for a terrible poop joke. I have no shame to call this episode some of the absolute worst things ever made, because what is even redeemable could be said about it at all? The only remote saving grace of APC was Ren Seeks Help. This episode also has its problems with overly long beginning and season’s unfunny attempts at edgy jokes for the sake of it. But at the same time it has a pretty solid storytelling, that while is really dark, it uses its darkness for the good deeds, making it useful rather than annoying or juvenile. Some people say that this episode ruined Ren’s character, but I don’t care much as the main show could also change his main core from time to time, at least here it is used for something actually interesting. This episode isn’t a masterpiece by any means, but at the very least it’s noticeable that it had some effort put in it. Adult Party Cartoon was really lucky to have a single episode worth of something, as without it, it may as well be the worst cartoon season ever created, with the other reasonable argument being only the fact that it died really quickly. And good fucking riddance.

Ren and Stimpy is just a series that I have a lot of mixed thoughts about. Some of it is really funny and entertaining, some of it can be average and underwhelming, and then there’s the points when it can turn me off out of boredom. While I can see why so many people love this show and consider it to be some of Nickelodeon's greatest creations, and the influence in the animation industry also has its good reason to be there. I really can’t help when so much of the series has been this flawed, as even my favorite season had enough stuff to dislike. I can easily praise and criticize this series at the same time if I’d need to, as my thought for each episode can be as different as it could be, but this is what made R&S to be an interesting show to me in the first place, as much as it bores me half of the times.

Description

Ren and Stimpy never was that much important to me ever before. I remember watching a fair amount of episodes from S1-3 and finding them to be pretty amusing, with S4-5 and the big one being entirely the unknown territory for me. My interest over watching this show fully started to grow somewhere at the beginning of 2019, when some of my friends started to (re)watching Ren and Stimpy at the time. All I wanted is to join the gang for a discussion of said show. Unfortunately I delayed this watch for mounts, but I managed to find a time to finally marathon R&S at it’s entirely. To some extent I was surprised at what score I saw, but can’t say that exactly in a positive way.

At the first look, Ren and Stimpy look like a show with a lot of things to like. And it may be true. This show has a really appealing animation style, that is filled with so much artistic talent and the freedom for doing anything with it. S1 can look rough for a bit when it wants to, but it has its own charming look with its close-ups and expressions, and S2 only boosted visuals to the top. Maybe visuals can be looking gross at first, but I can respect the style of delivery that show attempted. And by amazing art-direction, there comes the humor that can be also quite funny. The comedy of the show filled with the freakish, messed up nature to it, but it does work for the most part because of how interesting the placement of characters can get. Ir could be either The Outer Space or Fairy Tale Universe, and all of those can work with it a lot. Even some of the takes for meta humor worked there very well. That is especially paid off by the physical comedy, it’s attention to showing pain and itch of every character’s move had it’s great impact to the comedic effect, which is why Stimpy’s Invention ended up being this funny for example. And the main 2 characters, while doesn’t have much to describe anything m beyond "A Greedy Jerk and A Naive Enthusiast", they are pretty decent in execution and have pretty good chemistry between each other. Outside of Ren and Stimpy themselves, there’s not much of an often characters, and moreso a bag of secondary characters that only exists to appear for a few seconds and say something funny, Mr Horse and George Liquor are the first examples that could come to my head. It’s not the cast that I could call my favorite, but it’s far from being bad. So what is ever the reason why Ren and Stimpy is fairly low when it comes to specific grades? When the same show has a unique style of visual delivery, some of great dark humor. and a decent characters’ cast. What even brings down all of that niceness? There’s one single thing, but it’s so major that it made all those efforts to get covered up in a sea of underwhelming execution, as well as bringing up some other flaws along with it, and this con is pretty simple to notice.

T H E P A C I N G. I swear to god, this show has such an awful problem with its pacing. Ever since I started watching the first season I noticed how slow most of those episodes are. So much of the episodes love dragging, repeating or simply wasting time on nothing interesting for the audience. Fire Dogs was a very giant disappointment on rewatch, as most of the episode is exactly the same lame joke that is based on things falling from the flaming building into the characters. As something that should’ve been at most 20 second visual gag, this is a half of the thing, which entirely kills the whole idea of this visual joke. Out West is another example. Episode had 2 characters, where the entire joke of them was based on either them talking for eternity or pausing things for eternity. This is not funny or clever whatsoever, it’s just annoying and makes me want to turn off the entire episode halfway though Sven Hoek got even further with its crap than both of mentioned episodes before, as instead of 11 minutes, it wastes 15. I have no idea what was the point of letting this episode to be this long, as it’s general idea doesn’t came any further than "dumb people are dumb" comedy, which I really not a fan of. And on top of that, this episode really dumbed down Stimpy’s character, as I can’t think of any other episode where he is this flat out stupid. Admittedly, Ren’s rage speech at the end was hilarious, but it was really too late to save the episode. And while I did say that I respect the show's style of gross-out’s delivery, this doesn’t mean that some of the episodes based on it didn’t fail, and of course for the similar reason that I targeted above. Ren’s Toothache has the entire scene where Ren grabs his nerves from his gums back to back, in the slowest, detailed way possible. I couldn’t care less about the rest of the episode, but this sequence is some of the worst things ever aired on television, I have no idea what is ever the idea of a joke supposed to be there in the first place. The Cat that Laid the Golden Hairball is basically the same thing, except it has even less substance to bring out and it’s had such an unfunny non-ending. I could go just more and more about how much of an issue the pacing here is. But it could’ve come across as repeating myself for the thousand times. This is really sad to see how much good qualities that all those episodes had been thrown into such an awful pacing and overall hollowness of the substance. This show really can be way better than this, because greatness like Son of Stimpy couldn’t just come up out of nowhere.

And all of what I just said was only being targeted into the Spumco era (S1-2), as it was only the set up before we got into the rise of the Games Era. Despite me being fairly harsh towards S1-2, at the very least they still have enough of good qualities to be okay. But when it comes to S3 and ESPECIALLY S4, there’s hardly anything positive that I could bring up, and meanwhile all the negatives just got way worse than they ever were in the Spumco era. Episodes continue to spray out the overly dragged pacing of the entire thing. And when most of S1-2 could’ve come up with some good jokes even with it, I really couldn’t think about a single remarkable moment from stuff like Road Apples or Eat My Cookies, making them to be a complete waste of time. And even if the episode somewhat managed to attempt a single joke, it’s just going to repeat it over and over again, as proved by To Salve and Salve Not! Which is one unfunny sequence on repeat. And remember what I said about specials that don't deserve to be that long? S3 had 4 of those, and while Stimpy’s Cartoon Show handled this format right, the other 3 failed miserably. Ren’s Retirement’s plot doesn’t accomplish anything at all, and with the amount of jokes being this little, this special is painful and dull to sit through. Sad Days for Haggis is the similar case, only here special focuses on random whos that I don’t give any shit about. And for the highlights of S3’s badness: A Lair of Lummox. The entirety of the special is dedicated to the lowest quality of gross-out and stereotypes that don't go anywhere further than "lol man gross laugh". And again, why out of all of these things is this crew decided to pull as the special event of the series? S4 was so impressed with such a genius concept that it made a sequel to Lummox, that was called Galoot Wrangles. The sequel was about as unfunny and pathetic, only real positive quality that I could say about it is that it’s at least shorter than its predecessor. S4 in general loved to return the old traditions of the show’s lowest qualities in one package of a Season. Haggis this time got 2 other episodes that focused on him, and not a surprise that they sucked almost as badly. With A Hard Days Luck especially being a giant mess of an episode, that also felt like it was drawn on a knees. Animation in S4 in general was noticeably downgraded from the expectations to the overall art designs, but this episode specifically was the single worst one at that. Or what about Farm Hands? What a great idea to return the same 2 lowbrows from Out West just to them to continue speaking as slow and unfunny as possible. This time take out the pretty good song from the former, and add even bigger problems with the substance. Missed the genius non-ending? Aloha Hoek will impress you then, as besides lol random resolution this episode had absolutely nothing to show at all. On the finale layer this season tried to return some episodes that were based on fairy tell concepts, but with S4’s brand of comedy, they ended up being a complete waste of time. This is a very sad picture we have here, while S3-4 still have their gems at times that could belong right into the warm spot of Spumco, as they still have their An Abe Divided or Hermit Ren once in a while. Majority of it brought up all the things that I hated since the beginning of the show, with only downgrading quality of humor and animation while those seasons were at it. Seems like it was the absolute rock bottom of Ren and Stimpy, and it only went to dive down in its misery by the hopes to end as soon as it could.

...Somewhat, I was wrong. Out of all of the seasonal points of Ren and Stimpy, I never really heard solid opinion towards S5 from the fans. Some people told me that this season is great, some said that it’s as bad as other Games’ seasons, and some said that it’s just okay. And as for me, S5 ended up being my favorite season of the series by default. Ever since I started watching the first pairings of the season I noticed how much faster paced in comparison to the rest of the show. But the clear example would’ve been Feud for Sale, as this episode returns the same 2 idiots from Out West yet again, but instead of continuing the never ending dragging of the most simplistic dialogues, it’s told actual jokes, in fact, really funny ones. I was really impressed to see the redemption of this show being this unexpected and good. Now it’s not that all of the episodes are that good, as there’s still a few duds to notice that had similar issues of previous seasons. Hair of a Cat is another badly executed gross-out episode with hardly anything interesting to introduce. Dog Tags is ridiculously stupid and repetitive. And School Mates is the whole other bar of cliched disaster that changes its directions in nearly every single possibility that it had. But all those duds are the lower side of the coin, as I could easily ignore all of them and focus on a fair amount of actually great episodes, such as Pen Pals and Dinner Party. The special mentioning earned both Stupid Sidekick Union and Who’s Stupid Now? Both episodes are a great usage of meta humor that have been pulled into the commentary of common cliches that so many cartoons use all the time. And while the main characters do act differently than they do usually, I do think that it works, as both episodes take place that located above the actual Ren and Stimpy’s show, making the characterization changes to be even more fitting than anything else. If you haven’t seen either of those episodes or S5 in general, they are highly recommendable no matter what. This season is so weird, but a pleasant surprise. Even with some episodes that are either average or flat out suck, S5 is a solid piece of content that fixed so many things that I disliked in any other season. I might be critical towards this show, but at least it had a pretty good endnote, which is possibly the best scenario that I could prefer.

Too bad that this show hasn't stopped on S5. As after quite some silence, we got the work of genius that is known as Adult Party Cartoon. I really hate to have a normie takes, I really do, but APC is some of the absolute worst pieces of animation that I’ve ever seen and all of the despise that it got over all those years is entirely deserved. As the title speaks of itself, this time Ren and Stimpy got a higher rating, letting it sound basically whatever it wants, and all I can add is that it went all by the worst direction that it could’ve come up with. This season absolutely obsessed with sex, vulgarity and gross-out without any limits in between. None of this is funny at all, it only makes this show look childish and primitive as there’s none a single thought that's been put into the writing. Animation quality is the worst, maybe the quality of actual expressions still has some artistic value in it, but the amount of simple errors in each episode is horrifying. And if you missed the problems with pacing of the original show, then you will absolutely love it here. Now episode can last for 30 minutes if they wants so, if not fucking 40, because why the hell not. As absolutely expected, none of those episodes has any resemblance of substance whatsoever, instead you’d be forced to watch Stimpy having sex with Duck for 5 minutes in the fullest presentation. If this wasn’t enough for you, Naked Beach Frenzy still exists, as it is absolutely nothing but a failed pornography with R&S’ art style and no real plot. But the absolute worst of all of them would’ve been Stimpy’s Pregnant. This episode is an insult in every possible way, from the revolting massage at the beginning that was dedicated to all of the mothers on Earth, to the climax that wastes 7 minutes for a terrible poop joke. I have no shame to call this episode some of the absolute worst things ever made, because what is even redeemable could be said about it at all? The only remote saving grace of APC was Ren Seeks Help. This episode also has its problems with overly long beginning and season’s unfunny attempts at edgy jokes for the sake of it. But at the same time it has a pretty solid storytelling, that while is really dark, it uses its darkness for the good deeds, making it useful rather than annoying or juvenile. Some people say that this episode ruined Ren’s character, but I don’t care much as the main show could also change his main core from time to time, at least here it is used for something actually interesting. This episode isn’t a masterpiece by any means, but at the very least it’s noticeable that it had some effort put in it. Adult Party Cartoon was really lucky to have a single episode worth of something, as without it, it may as well be the worst cartoon season ever created, with the other reasonable argument being only the fact that it died really quickly. And good fucking riddance.

Ren and Stimpy is just a series that I have a lot of mixed thoughts about. Some of it is really funny and entertaining, some of it can be average and underwhelming, and then there’s the points when it can turn me off out of boredom. While I can see why so many people love this show and consider it to be some of Nickelodeon's greatest creations, and the influence in the animation industry also has its good reason to be there. I really can’t help when so much of the series has been this flawed, as even my favorite season had enough stuff to dislike. I can easily praise and criticize this series at the same time if I’d need to, as my thought for each episode can be as different as it could be, but this is what made R&S to be an interesting show to me in the first place, as much as it bores me half of the times.