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The Ren and Stimpy Show (view source)

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Who in their right minds would give a mainstream animated series to the enigmatic [[John Kricfalusi]], known for causing chaos throughout the 80s in the animation industry with his attempts for putting out a [[Gross-Out Show|grotesque, almost obscene animation style which played up every body hair, pimple, bulging vein, oozing sore, lump of unsightly fat, and buttcheek and proudly flaunted around showing off the most disgusting and disturbing parts of internal anatomy]]? Well, [[Nickelodeon]] did, and the result was the adventures of a mentally unbalanced, arthritic chihuahua named Ren Hoek and his sidekick, the cheery but moronic Stimpson J. Cat.
 
The show was over-the-top in every way imaginable: In its animation, even traditional [[Animation Tropes]] were taken up a notch. Characters rarely [[Hammerspace|Temporarily Atomise]] anything smaller than a nuclear submarine and [[Non-Fatal Explosions]] generally take out at least one state. Even its dialog was pulled [[Up to Eleven]]--Ren didn't so much talk as scream threats and insults in other people's faces. And that's not even counting its macabre tone--in ''The Ren & Stimpy Show'', even a standard [[Sit ComSitcom]] plot such as "Ren is jealous that Stimpy has a fan club" could become a tale of operatic angst and rage. And just when you thought you've seen everything, it comes up with a story about ''a fart cloud'' Stimpy made that turns into a major [[Tear Jerker]].
 
Its surprising success made a huge impact on the style of Nickelodeon's animated shows. Unfortunately, of all the inventive and challenging elements exhibited by ''The Ren & Stimpy Show'', the only one copycat shows seized on was the disgusting animation, and thus the [[Gross-Out Show]] was born.
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Friction between Nickelodeon execs and Kricfalusi - mostly over Kricfalusi's attitude and penchant for late work - eventually led to his removal from the show in 1992. Production was then absorbed by Nickelodeon itself as most of the original staff gradually left in disgust over Kricfalusi's firing. The show was canceled in 1995 after a total of 53 episodes and was removed from Nick's lineup in 1996.
 
In 2003, Kricfalusi successfully brought the pair back to TV when ''Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon'' debuted on Spike TV. However, there was some [[Executive Meddling]] still--for starters, and much to his chagrin, he was forced by Spike to shove a lot of, in his words, "unnecessary adult themes" into it due to Spike wanting another money-maker along the lines of ''[[South Park (Animation)|South Park]]''. The show was fairly well received in ratings and reviews (although many fans hated it for its excessive grossout jokes) but due to John only being able to complete three of the nine requested episodes on time, the show was canceled after just a ''month'' of airtime. Plans for a second season for APC, three episodes were drafted. Spike however decided to cancel those plans on the last second. However, there is an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkjAD23VKSE an attempt to revive the show].
 
At the height of its popularity, ''Ren and Stimpy'' also started airing on Nickelodeon's step brother MTV. As one of the few non-music shows on the channel at the time, it thus unwittingly played a role in MTV's [[Network Decay]] even before ''[[Beavis and Butthead (Animation)|Beavis and Butt-head]]''.
 
Now has a [[The Ren and Stimpy Show (Animation)/Characters|character sheet]] and a [[The Ren and Stimpy Show (Animation)/Radar|radar page]], which would very much like to be updated with tropes and examples of your choice.
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== Filmography ==
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* [[Animation Bump]]: The episodes done by Carbunkle Cartoons.
** And no, [[Puyo Puyo|it's not Carbuncle]].
* [[Aren't You Forgetting Someone?]]: At the end of "Ren's Pecs", Ren forgets to give Stimpy credit for his newfound fame and success.
{{quote| '''Ren''': To the guy who made it all possible: [[Brick Joke|Charles Globe]]!}}
* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]: In "Cheese Rush Days" after Ren double crosses Stimpy:
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'''Stimpy:''' What's the big sleep, Ren?<br />
'''Ren:''' ''[gets close to Stimpy's ear]'' ...'''He's DEAD!!! ''HE'S DEAD, YOU IDIOT!!'' Do you know what "dead" means? That's what ''we'll'' be if we don't get out of here!''' }}
* [[Bigger Onon the Inside]]: Parodied to the extreme in "The Cat That Laid the Golden Hairball", which had Ren and Stimpy living in a birdhouse, yet there's plenty of room inside.
** In that same episode, Stimpy himself. Ren's nephew Bubba is able to walk inside Stimpy's interior like a damp cavern in spite of being several times larger than him.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: The ending to "Magical Golden Singing Cheeses". To elaborate: Ren and Stimpy had been starving for the entire episode, and when Stimpy finally retrieved some cheese that fit Ren's tastes, the cheeses transformed into milk curd princesses, whom they were both forced to marry. So while they lived "happily ever after", the duo never did solve their food problem and died from starvation shortly after.
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** Remember when Ren would pray for huge pectoral muscles in season 1? Guess what he got in season 3's "Ren's Pecs"?
*** And earlier, in "Son of Stimpy", he prayed for Stimpy's safety, and even told God he'd give up asking for bigger pecs if it got Stimpy home safe.
* [[Can't You Read the Sign?]]: "Exact change ONLY!" at the end of "Black Hole", thereby causing Ren and Stimpy to be kicked off the bus back to Earth.
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: Ren and Stimpy are essentially updated versions of the [[Terry Toons]] characters Sourpuss (Ren borrowing his short temper and grumpiness from him) and Gandy Goose (Stimpy inheriting his infantile, flamboyant speech pattern as well as his stupidity). No surprise considering John K is a big fan of [[Terry Toons]] and even claimed Gandy and Sourpuss's [[With Friends Like These...|relationship]] was part of what inspired Ren And Stimpy.
* [[Cartoon Cheese]]
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** Ren and Stimpy themselves have their own unorthodox holidays, like Yak Shaving Day.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Ren is occasionally, when he's actually calm.
* [[Death Byby Irony]]: If only Stimpy had realized he had pocket change when he and Stimpy were on the bus in "Black Hole", and not after the bus had left and they were about to implode.
* [[Deer in Thethe Headlights]]: Ren and Stimpy, right before getting hit by a bus in "Double Header".
* [[Depending Onon the Artist]]: The entire look of the show could vary from cartoon to cartoon, largely based on who directed it.
* [[Descended Creator]]: John K. as Ren for the first two seasons. Bob Camp was credited among The Players in a lot of Games Animation episodes.
* [[Deserted Island]]: "Aloha Hoek".
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** And Stimpy playing with his bellybutton in "Jerry the Bellybutton Elf" is almost definitely symbolism for masturbation.
** "For I have a dream that one day, everyone... everywhere... [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|will know the wonders of my nipples!]]"
* [[Double Standard Abuse (Female Onon Male)]]: "Ren's Bitter Half" near the end Ren's evil side decides to replicate himself so that the world will be full of Evil Rens, the first clone turns out to be female and they fall in love, near the end after they get married they playfully get into a fight, you will notice that none of his punches are able to strike her and she is able to beat him up all she wants.
* [[Downer Ending]]: As per the old lady's will, Ren and Stimpy are killed and stuffed at the end of "It's a Dog's Life", so that they may join her in the eternal salvation of the hereafter.
* [[Driven to Suicide]]: The frog that Ren was tormenting in "Ren Seeks Help", after Ren wouldn't honor his request to put him out of his misery.
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* [[Dumb Muscle]]: Kowalski.
* [[DVD Commentary]]: A few commentaries on the DVD sets feature John K. and Eric Bauza in character as Ren and Stimpy.
* [[Edited for Syndication]]: When R&S was rerun on [[VH -1]] and Spike TV, there were commercial fades in the middle of a cartoon, which disrupted the action. There were also time cuts in some episodes. Sadly, these are the versions which made it onto DVD.
* [[Eek! Aa Mouse!]]: "The Boy Who Cried Rat"
* [[Emotion Bomb]]: The Happy Helmet
* [[Episode Title Card]]: Most were just a still image set to some music, but "Sven Hoek" was live action footage of a lederhosen-wearing, accordion-playing man. John K. abhors the latter, confirmed by his [[DVD Commentary]] of "Sven Hoek".
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** Ren also does it to a yak in "Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen", who's suffering a psychotic breakdown in the middle of the desert.
** In "Double Header", Ren goes crazy near the end, and Stimpy slaps him, saying, "Pull yourself together, boy!"
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: A LOT of the shows content. Just look at the [[The Ren and Stimpy Show (Animation)/Radar|page.]]
* [[Getting Smilies Painted Onon Your Soul]]: The infamous Happy Helmet.
* [[Go Mad From the Isolation]]: Frequent with Ren:
** In "Hermit Ren," he gets so sick of Stimpy he leaves to join a hermit guild. They provide him with a cave and a boulder to lock him in forever. Completely alone. It doesn't take long for him to lose his mind. {{spoiler|He gets kicked out for creating imaginary friends}}.
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** In "Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen", the narrator somehow seems to think the year 1856 is "thousands of years ago". In the same episode, the narrator says the world will never forget the main characters, whose names he can't remember.
** In "Son of Stimpy", the narrator (who is only heard at the very beginning of the cartoon) contradicts himself by saying the true story he's about to show is all made up.
* [[Letting the Air Out of Thethe Band]]: Occurs in "Untamed World" when Ren is shot by a tranquilizer dart and runs slower and slower.
* [[Limited Animation]]: The very first few episodes, most notably "Stimpy's Big Day" and "The Big Shot". Then we get beautifully smooth animation in "Son of Stimpy" and "Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen", only for it to go downhill with Games Animation taking the steers and never be as good again.
* [[Lions and Tigers Andand Humans, Oh My!]]: Humans and talking animals co-exist and outside of (maybe) acknowledging the difference in species, nobody thinks anything of it.
* [[Logo Joke]]: The Ren and Stimpy logos are played with in "Space Madness" and "Black Hole"; in the former, Stimpy pressing the History Eraser button caused R&S to be removed from the logo, while in "Black Hole", they're already absent when the camera cuts to it, due to having imploded a few seconds earlier.
* [[Loony Fan]]: Stimpy is this to Sammy in "Sammy and Me".
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* [[Negative Continuity]]: Many episodes end with Ren and Stimpy dead or irreversibly maimed, but return alive and well in the next episode.
** Additionally, each episode featured Ren and Stimpy living in a brand new home or being homeless. This kept things from getting too monotonous.
* [[Never Say "Die"]]: Averted; the series frequently used the words "die" and "dead". One episode, "Terminal Stimpy", was even centered around the idea of death.
* [[Newsreel]]: A Soviet version about advances in space travel appears at the beginning of "Space Dogged".
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: Ren's voice is basically [[Peter Lorre]] 's with a vague Mexican accent overlaid. Stimpy's is a slight variation on Larry Fine from [[The Three Stooges]].
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* [[Nose Nuggets]]: In one episode, Stimpy has a booger collection.
* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]: The end of {{spoiler|Space Madness}}.
* [[Nurse Withwith Good Intentions]]: "Nurse Stimpy".
* [[Off-Model]]: One of the most prominent aspects of the show in its first two seasons was John's strict rule that the animators were forbidden from ever drawing the same expression or pose, or drawing any character the exact same way twice. Note that this isn't the typical definition of Off Model (i.e. in that it's bad drawing) so much as it was John's way to breaking his animators out of bad habits and to keep them from falling into formula acting and drawing--although many sloppy drawings did get into the show, which John considers among the many mistakes Ren and Stimpy made.
{{quote| "Staying on model is only for wimps and communists" -- [[John Kricfalusi]]}}
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{{quote| '''Ren''': Someone has breached my security system...}}
* [[Potty Emergency]]: Ren, at the start of "Pixie King". Unfortunately for him, Stimpy is occupying the bathroom and won't be able to, erm, do his business, until Ren reads him a story.
* [[Precision F-Strike]]: In the Adult Party Cartoon episode, "Ren Seeks Help," [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Ren seeks psychological help]] after abusing Stimpy in some ([[Noodle Incident|unexplained]]) manner that is regarded as being horrible, [[Even Evil Has Standards|even by Ren himself]]. He goes to Mr. Horse and proceeds to tell him about his youth, and the various displays of genuine psychopathy he exhibited then. He finally works up the nerve to tell Mr. Horse what it was he did to Stimpy, and then asks, "What do you think is wrong with me?" After some consideration, Mr. Horse says "So you wanna know what's wrong with you? You ''really'' wanna know?" He then ''punches Ren in the face'' and screams '''"YOU'RE FUCKING CRAZY!!!''' '''''THAT'S''''' '''WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!!"'''
** ''Stimpy'' of all people does something like this at the end of ''My Shiny Friend''. After his TV addiction has been cured, it turns out that his addiction has turned to gambling; as the screen fades to black we hear him mutter a frustrated "Crap!"
* [[Pro Wrestling Episode]]: "Mad Dog Hoek".
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* [[Set Right What Once Was Wrong]]: The original proposed ending to Space Madness, nixed by Nickelodeon editors, would have featured Ren and Stimpy going back in time and undoing the damage caused by Stimpy pushing the History-Eraser Button.
* [[Sexophone]]: Such a musical motif is heard in "Pixie King" when Stimpy poses in his pixie outfit.
* [[Short Lived Big Impact]]: At 5 seasons and a spin off (the last two of which and the spin off are barely talked about nowadays) this show did not last so long as the two other shows in the original Nicktoons line up, [[Rugrats (Animation)|Rugrats]] and [[Doug (Animation)|Doug]], which continued in some form or another for the better part of a decade. And yet, R&S is among one of the most influential cartoon shows of the last twenty years, spawning dozens of imitators and being the [[Trope Makers]] for the [[Gross-Out Show]] genre.
* [[Shout-Out]]: The first episode has Stimpy making several to the catchphrases of several beloved Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons, as well as [[Looney Tunes]].
** In "Ren's Pecs", Ren goes to have pectoral enlargement surgery. In the background you can hear over the hospital's loudspeaker, "[[The Three Stooges|Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard...]]"
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* [[Space Madness]]: [[Trope Namer]]; the trope takes its name from an episode title.
* [[Spin-Off]]: The Goddamn George Liquor Program, a webtoon which Nickelodeon had nothing to do with.
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: Countless examples, but [[Cow and Chicken (Animation)|Cow and Chicken]], [[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (Animation)|Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]], [[Two Stupid Dogs (Animation)|Two Stupid Dogs]], [[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (Animation)|The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy]] and [[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]] which employed ex-Ren and Stimpy staffers. Some still do.
* [[Standard Fifties Father]]: Mr. Pipe.
* [[Sting]]: Numerous musical stings were used in the show. Perhaps the most famous one is "Shock Horror (a)" by Dick Walter: Dun dun DUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!
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** "Magical Golden Singing Cheeses" contains a partial subversion; Ren turns away from the camera to vomit, but you can still see some come out of his mouth.
* [[Vomit Indiscretion Shot]]: The camera never cuts away when Stimpy spews up hairballs.
* [[Welcome to Thethe Big City]]: Ren and Stimpy in "City Hicks" are immediately beat up by thugs and have their sheep stripped upon entering the city. They also are informed they can't just shovel dirt right off the bat, as it's a union town and they have to start at the bottom first.
* [[Who Even Needs a Brain?]]
* [[Widget Series]]
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** Catchy, yes. Sane, no.
{{quote| If'n you ain't the grandaddy of all liars! The little critters in nature... They don't know that they're ugly. That's very funny: A fly marrying a bumblebee. I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! '''WHY''' DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME? Happy happy joy joy...}}
* [[Working Onon the Chain Gang]]: Ren and Stimpy's job as pixies in "Pixie King" is more or less this, especially since they're whipped by policemen if they slack off for even a second.
{{quote| '''Stimpy''': Kissin' dew drops here, boss!}}
* [[World of Ham]]: Do I even need to give an example?
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