Ren and Stimpy (characters)

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For a list of characters from The Ren & Stimpy Show, see List of The Ren & Stimpy Show characters.
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Ren and Stimpy
The Ren & Stimpy Show characters
Ren (left) with Stimpy
First appearance"Big House Blues" (The Ren & Stimpy Show) (1990)
Created byJohn Kricfalusi
Based onPeter Lorre (Ren)
Larry Fine (Stimpy)
Voiced by
Ren:
Stimpy:
In-universe information
Full name
  • Ren Höek
  • Stimpson J. Cat
Alias
Ren:
  • Marland Höek
  • Commander Höek
  • Three-Fingered Höek
  • Mad Dog Höek
  • Robin Höek
  • Renwaldo
  • The Unlucky Beast
  • Champy
  • Abraham
Stimpy:
  • Stimpy
  • Dr. Stupid
  • Cadet Stimpy
  • Nurse Stimpy
  • Killer Kadoogan
  • Stupid the Kid
  • Stimpleton
  • Rex
  • Leviticus
  • Stimpy J. Kadoogan
  • Shampoo Master
Species
GenderMale
FamilySvën Höek (Ren's cousin)
Oldman Farmer Höek (Ren's grandfather)
Bubba Höek (Ren's nephew)
Mrs. Höek (Ren's mother)
Reverend Höek (Ren's father)
ChildrenStinky (Stimpy's son)
Little Ricky (Ren and Stimpy's son)

Ren Höek and Stimpson J. "Stimpy" Cat are the

title characters in the Nickelodeon animated series The Ren & Stimpy Show and its 2003 spin-off Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". Series creator John Kricfalusi created the characters during his stay at Sheridan College and they first appeared on film in the pilot episode "Big House Blues". Ren is a scrawny, emotionally unstable, and psychotic "Asthma Hound" Chihuahua, and his best friend Stimpy is a dim-witted, good-natured Manx cat. The show portrays their wacky, bizarre, and often surreal
misadventures.

Characters

Ren Höek

Ren Höek is a scrawny

klaxon, neon-pink eyes dilating into twin novae inches above his jagged, monolithic teeth."[1] Andy Meisler of The New York Times described Ren as "adventurous", "intelligent", and "emotionally brittle".[2]

Ren has a fairly long, rat-like, pink tail. However, in the first two seasons, Ren's tail constantly disappeared and was even

dog show (even though Stimpy is a cat), although it continued to appear afterwards in the episode, as well as episodes afterwards. This was because during production of "Big House Blues", John had to animate the toilet scene leading to the "Big Sleep" freakout; as he tried to mix limited animation with smooth tidbits and wanted Ren to move sloppily, his tail was a pain to animate – later on he swore to not animate a tail again.[3] After season 2, Ren's tail had a rare form of continuity throughout the show, not even appearing at all in most episodes. Ren had an ambition to develop huge pectoral muscles, which he never achieved but successfully imitated in the season 3 episode "Ren's Pecs". A running gag
involves Stimpy being confused with and treated like a dog, due to his unusual appearance not resembling a cat.

Kricfalusi originally voiced Ren in a manner that he describes as "a bad

Billy West said that he auditioned to play Ren; the creators of the series believed that having West—who was also voicing the title character in fellow character Nicktoon Doug at the time—voice both Ren and Stimpy would give him too large a workload.[4] West voiced Ren after Nickelodeon fired Kricfalusi; Kricfalusi would return for the TNN episodes and unaired episodes of The Ren & Stimpy Show. Additional lines for Ren were done by sound editor Brian Mendelsohn and Bob Camp, who also did Ren's singing voice in the episode "The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen".[5] Chris Edgerly would voice the character in the game Nicktoons MLB. In the pilot episode, Pierre DeCelles provided Ren's signature diabolical laughter and screams, while West performed Ren's laugh in the series. His catchphrase is "You eediot!", and he also uses variations of "What is your problem, you sick little monkey?", which is similar to a quote by Lorre in The Maltese Falcon
: "You... you imbecile. You bloated idiot. You stupid fat-head, you."

Kricfalusi complained about Nickelodeon executives requesting that Ren have "a softer side".[1] Bill Wray said that Ren was his favorite character to write for; Wray described Ren as "fun" because "you can make him mean." In 1993 he added that "It drives me crazy when I tell people I work on the show and they always say, 'Make Ren meaner.'"[6]

Stimpy

Stimpson J. Cat is a 3-year-old, anthropomorphic, mildly overweight, red and white manx cat. He has a blue nose, purple eyelids, no tail, paws with gloves and four fingers that have fingernails, human-style buttocks, flat human feet, four wiggly toes and a brain the size of a peanut. He is portrayed as intelligent enough in some episodes to be a chef or a scientist and sometimes as nonsensically stupid. Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman of Animation World Magazine described Stimpy as "obese" and "brain-damaged."[1] Andy Meisler of The New York Times described Stimpy as "bosom", "barrel-chested" and "good-natured".[2]

Stimpy's trademark facial expression is a blissfully ignorant smile with his

Three Stooges.[4] West described Stimpy as one of his favorite characters.[7] Stimpy was inspired by Kricfalusi's former girlfriend and the series' co-developer, Canadian animator Lynne Naylor.[8]

Stimpy likes to create destructive electronic devices whenever he has the required intelligence for it. Andy Meisler of

kitty litter".[2]

Wray described Stimpy as his favorite character to draw. Wray said that Stimpy does not have "a huge range of emotion."[6]

West declined to voice Stimpy in the Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" because he believed that the series was not funny and that voicing Stimpy in it would damage his career.[4] Consequently, Eric Bauza would instead voice the character and reprised the voice role in the Nicktoons MLB video game. West will reprise his role as Stimpy (along with voicing Ren) in Comedy Central's reboot of the show.[9][10]

History

In a 1993 interview by a comics magazine,

Nickelodeon requested a new series, Kricfalusi assembled a presentation called "Your Gang", similar to a children's show with a live action host presenting various cartoons. Each cartoon parodied a genre, and Ren & Stimpy parodied the "cat and dog" genre. Vanessa Coffey, the producer of the show, said that she did not like the general idea, but that she liked the characters.[6]

Kricfalusi originally created Ren and Stimpy as the pets of

Jimmy the Idiot Boy.[11]

Kricfalusi received inspiration for Ren from a black and white photograph of a chihuahua in a sweater next to a woman's feet.

Tweety Bird cartoon called A Gruesome Twosome where the cats in the animation had big noses.[13] The relationship of both Ren and Stimpy was inspired in the relationship of Gandy Goose and Sourpuss from Terrytoons.[14]

Reception and legacy

Sexuality

From its start, there were hints at the characters' sexuality. During the Spümcø years of the show on Nickelodeon, a running gag would have Ren and Stimpy engaging in something intimate (such as Stimpy bathing Ren during the episode "Nurse Stimpy"), with Stimpy assuring Ren that "no one will know" about the private and rather embarrassing encounter, only to pan towards a window in the room and showing several characters (including Mr. Horse) witnessing the event. The episode "Svën Höek" shows Stimpy having a romantic affair with Ren's cousin Svën, including an intimate "private" moment in Stimpy's litterbox and scrawling "Svën + Stimpy" all over the walls. This was dropped after Spümcø was fired from the show.

Kricfalusi discussed the sexuality of the characters in a January 28, 1997 interview with the San Francisco Examiner, confirming their sexuality, saying: "Totally. In Ren's case, it's not completely by choice. He'd rather have a beautiful human woman if he could get away with it. Since he can't, Stimpy's easy. Stimpy's madly in love with Ren."[14]

Jeffery P. Dennis said in the journal article "The Same Thing We Do Every Night: Signifying Same-Sex Desire in Television Cartoons" that Ren and Stimpy are within a world where "

heterosexual relationships rather than an actual gay or an actual romantic relationship. Dennis adds that in other situations Ren and Stimpy are "read more appropriately" as coworkers, enemies, friends, and house pets. Dennis argues that Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo are more consistently gay than Ren and Stimpy.[15] Dennis also stated that the scenes of Ren and Stimpy as a couple emulate a heterosexual couple instead of being a union between two men.[15]
: 136 

In a response to Dennis' statements, Martin Goodman of Animation World Network said that Kricfalusi had outed Ren and Stimpy as gay and adds that while the Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" had not yet been released and therefore Ren and Stimpy had not been explicitly portrayed as gay, Ren and Stimpy would qualify as a consistently gay couple since they share a bed, live as partners, discuss a planned wedding, and had a "child", despite the child being flatulence and Ren having no part in his creation.[16]

References

  1. ^ a b c Goodman, Martin (March 2001). "Cartoons Aren't Real! Ren and Stimpy In Review". Animation World Magazine. Vol. 5, no. 12. Retrieved October 27, 2009.
  2. ^ a b c d Meisler, Andy (August 16, 1992). "TELEVISION; Ren and Stimpy's Triumphant Return". The New York Times. Retrieved October 27, 2009.
  3. ^ Johnk (April 18, 2009). "John K Stuff: Big House Blues Spumco 2 - Why Ren no longer Has a Tail". John K Stuff. Retrieved November 27, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c Epstein, Daniel Robert. "Billy West Interview". UndergroundOnline. Archived from the original on March 4, 2008. Retrieved October 27, 2009.
  5. ^ "Ren Voiced by Brian Mendelsohn". YouTube. June 28, 2013. Retrieved August 6, 2024. Brian Mendelsohn: That line is not Bob Camp. I know because not only did I record (and edit it), but because it was me! It was the last day of post-production (final mix), and Nickelodeon wanted the line changed. I will dig out the original script and see what the "offending" line was. Billy West was in New York, we were in LA and time was running out. Bob gave it a whirl and so did I. Mine was the least horrible, and it goes by so fast. When the clock is ticking, and the air date is fixed, you gotta deliver the episode. Bob DID replace a few Ren lines in another episode, "My Shiny Friend". I have the original recordings. I am going to go through my notes (which I recently moved from a storage place) and verify which lines of Bob's made it to the final release. I found all my scripts, storyboards and other notes, so it won't take me long.
  6. ^ a b c Novinskie, Charles S. (1993). "Bill Wray, interview". David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview issue 122. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  7. ^ Billy West F.A.Q. Archived July 1, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. Billy West. Retrieved October 26, 2006.
  8. ^ "New "Ren & Stimpy" doc perpetuates the problematic myth of the cult cartoon's bad-boy genius". Archived from the original on September 12, 2022.
  9. ^ Billy West [@TheBillyWest] (September 14, 2021). "@amberleahhx Yes Amber I'm reprising my roles of Ren & Stimpy for an all new reboot! 😀" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  10. ^ Billy West [@TheBillyWest] (September 14, 2021). "@genius013199 I will be reprising the roles of Ren and Stimpy for the brand new series!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  11. ISBN 1-55783-671-X
    .
  12. ^ "The Picture". John K. Stuff blog. July 11, 2010. Retrieved September 26, 2010.
  13. ^ a b Ren and Stimpy: In the Beginning featurette, The Ren & Stimpy Show: The Complete First and Second Seasons DVD
  14. ^ a b "John Kricfalusi: Creator of Ren & Stimpy". San Francisco Examiner. January 28, 1997.
  15. ^
    S2CID 192238843. Archived from the original
    on September 25, 2020. Retrieved April 9, 2012.
  16. ^ Goodman, Martin (March 10, 2004). "Deconstruction Zone — Part 2". Animation World Network. Retrieved October 27, 2009.
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