How Season Three of Ren & Stimpy Broke the Mold, Part I
Excerpt from the Stefanimania interlog, 13 October 2013
One of the defining aspects of
Ren & Stimpy is a little thing called - “psychodrama”.
You might be thinking - “what even is that term?” Well… imagine if H.P. Lovecraft was a wacky cartoonist.
…no that’s not it….. ..er… Imagine if Charles Manson was a part of Monty Python…..
…nope, too racy….. Well, um…. think of the show as a rollercoaster if you will - and all the twists and turns are basically through the chaotic landscapes of the human psyche. Throw in some uncanny movement and color palette, and surreal humor or just surrealness for surrealness’ sake, and you start to get a sense of what "psychodrama" entails in the world of
Ren & Stimpy. Sometimes comedy, sometimes horror, sometimes even tragedy - psychodrama explored the type of material that would mentally break a person. It would be Season 3 that
Ren & Stimpy took its psychodrama to an entirely new level.
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Psychodrama, Exhibit A
In Season 1 of
Ren & Stimpy - psychodrama was still in an embryonic stage - most episodes were just the typical gross humor people recognize the show as. But that’s the thing -
it was embryonic. Episodes like “Space Madness” - where the pair go insane while in space, and “Stimpy’s Invention” - where Stimpy drives Ren to madness after forcing him to be happy with a “Happy Helmet” - show a prototypical psychodrama at play, where the crew were testing the waters of what they could do on the show. When Season 2 rolled around, John Kricfalusi and his ilk greatly upped the ante on the psychodrama with episodes such as “Rubber Nipple Salesmen” and “Sven Höek”. The former has a scene where Mr. Horse gets beaten up over a question about rubber nipples, while the latter has Ren fall into a psychotic episode after Stimpy and Ren’s cousin Sven trashed the entire house at the climax of the episode.
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Psychodrama, Exhibit B
And then there’s “Stimpy’s Fan Club”. An episode that stands as one of the most disturbing examples of psychodrama in Season 2 - if not the entire series. In this episode, Ren and Stimpy receive a ton of fan mail - only for Ren to discover that all the fan letters were for Stimpy, not him. Worried, Stimpy makes Ren president of his fan club - but this just causes Ren to become more distraught - to the point where he has a psychotic breakdown. Ren stays awake as Stimpy sleeps, and fantasizes about the thoughts of killing Stimpy as he is down - remarking that he just needs to do “one quick twist, and it’s over.” Luckily, before he could get the chance, his brain begins to “sting” as he envisions himself burning alive in hell. The rest of the episode deescalates relative to this part, with Ren excited finding a single fan letter. However, he finds out it was from Stimpy all along, leaving him left embarrassed and humiliated.
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"AND WITH THESE HANDS I HOLD THE FATE OF MILLIONS......."
But still, that climatic part of the episode where Ren tries to kill Stimpy remains one of the most disturbing moments in the entire series. Just think - this type of scene would have been unthinkable in a children’s cartoon from just 5 years earlier. As such, Nick executives had a complex, love-hate relationship with the psychodrama episodes. On one hand, they loved the emotional scenes since they provided a warm contrast with the manic gross out humor of the show, and also felt that they would endure the show with families who normally felt uncomfortable watching the series.[1] On the other hand, they felt that the psychodrama episodes were a bit too intense and unsettling for their target audience, which was still primarily children.
Yet despite this, Season 3 would be the season that would bring many of the most memorable psychodrama episodes to the table. After Spümcø avoided being fired by Nickelodeon back in September 1992, John Kricfalusi seemed to be only emboldened to pursue more psychodrama episodes - many of them being ones that Nick rejected during the first two seasons. Much like how “Bikini Beach Frenzy” and “Onward and Upward” were finally made during Season 3, so too would the two of the best episodes of the entire show come into fruition this season - “Ren Seeks Help” and “The Big Switch”. The former is about how Ren seeks help with Mr. Horse after making Stimpy extremely upset with a story, while its more lighthearted sequel episode is about how the two switch roles after the fact - and
hilarity ensues.
“Ren Seeks Help” - and its sister episode “The Big Switch” - were pitched to Nickelodeon the year before, but it was ultimately rejected because the censors didn’t like the idea of “deconstructing what makes a screwball character a screwball.” The main executives also felt that the three parts Kricfalusi had made of this group of episodes consumed way too much of the show’s budget.[2] But as the show was more popular than ever - and Nick gave the show a larger budget - Kricfalusi would go ahead and make the episodes, with Dick Dutch and I working with him.
These two episodes were a challenge to produce. Kricfalusi was adamant on there being zero compromises in the detail he was going into for three - not two - episodes. Already, Dutch and I saw cracks in Kricfalusi’s so-called marvel of genius. “Eric, is this guy for real,” he told me. And I just said, “he’s as real as a bolt of lightning striking your backyard. Problem is getting that lightning bolt to strike in the right place." And that’s what we did once again - the same song and dance routine to get Kricfalusi to compromise for the sake of making things work. Getting Kricfalusi to streamline his ambitious plans for the saga was easy enough - Dutch convinced him that the three-parter he was shooting for would ruin the pacing and direction of the gags, while I pointed out that said gags were
needed to relieve the audience of the dark and serious turn Kricfalusi was taking for “Ren Seeks Help”.[3] As such, the planned, separate first part - “Life Is Pain” - was scrapped and integrated into “Ren Seeks Help”. Scenes from both prior drafts were cut down - especially Stimpy’s meltdown or Ren’s slow walk to therapy.
Getting Kricfalusi to tone down the actual content of the episodes - mainly that of “Ren Seeks Help” - was a bigger hassle of the production. In the early drafts of the episode, the scenes where Ren is recalling his past delved deeply into Ren's mental struggles, including vivid depictions of him
torturing insects before working his way up to
torturing a live frog. I mean, I can’t stress enough when I mean that there’s scenes of Ren ripping out the frog’s intestines, shit like Ren electrocuting the frog with a car battery before burning him, and even preparing to beat him with a hammer. All the while, Ren shows
zero signs of remorse,
zero signs of guilt, and
zero repercussions from his actions.[4]
Supposedly, when Kricfalusi was writing all this - he intended for this part of the episode to be a “satire” and “deconstruction” of the zany cartoon trope - by having the screwball cartoon character actually turn out to be an actual batshit psychopath. If that was Kricfalusi’s intention - then had this early version of “Ren Seeks Help” actually seen the light of day
- it would have been an absolute trainwreck. To say that the show would have “jumped the shark”
- would be an understatement. It would have
jumped the shark - on top of two plane crashes - on top of a zombie apocalypse - on top of an active warzone - all in hell.
Fortunately, this version was clearly never made to be aired on television. Dutch and I got to work convincing Kricfalusi to revise his censor-bait script in what Dutch simply called “turd-polishing.” First, Ren’s insanity and sadism was toned down while being made a lot more complex - he didn’t just hurt for his own pleasure anymore - it was now a tug-of-war struggle between the inner dualities of his conscience. An example of this can be seen in the final version of the frog scene in “Ren Seeks Help”. Ren now displays signs of inner conflict and remorse as he grapples with his dark impulses. The scene becomes a representation of Ren's internal struggle, highlighting the complexity of his character rather than glorifying violence for the sake of it. He struggles to even poke the frog with a stick. Ultimately, Ren decides to simply leave the frog alone.
This naturally alters the part of Ren’s flashbacks where we meet his parents. No frog torture obviously meant that the scenes featuring Ren's parents needed significant turd-polishing as well. We thought it would be compelling to base Ren’s father on Kricfalusi’s own father. Kricfalusi would of course sometimes talk about how his father was a tough, old-school type of guy who didn't easily express his emotions. Of course since it didn’t really go beyond that - we never had any further questions. Dutch even shared stories with Kricfalusi about how his dad always wanted him to be a manly man. And so this became the foundation for Ren's father in the revised script.[5] The final version of the scenes basically consisted of Ren trying to burn an anthill with a magnifying glass - but is caught by his parents, with Ren’s father saying he’s “had it up to
HERE with the likes of [his] joker antics'' and that he will now be forced to be a “good boy.” Ren’s entire house is then turned into one big boot camp, forced to do exercises such as “a thousand push-ups, eat the hardest tacks, and balance [his] foot on a red-hot iron poker for an hour - you little mangy munchkin!" These comedic yet stringent exercises reflected the overbearing expectations placed upon Ren by his father. Afterwards, it would flash-forward to Ren in his teenage years where he met Stimpy. Ren loses his grip and he slaps Stimpy for being “so, so very stupid.” But because Stimpy is numb to the pain, Ren slaps him over and over again - leading to the present day.
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So basically, absolutely NOT this.
Finally, we basically reworked the beginning and ends of “Ren Seeks Help” - which honestly disturbed Dutch and I. There were multiple times when I caught Dutch making a cuckoo bird impersonation behind Kricfalusi’s back -
but could you really blame him? I mean first of all, the ending has Ren
murder Mr. Horse after he declared him insane while the same, suffering frog comes back to put himself out of his misery. And the beginning was equally
rotten, as it turns out that the thing that made Stimpy upset in the first place was a story about the Children’s Crusade where thousands of children were killed and sold into sexual slavery - which Ren uses as proof that “life is pain.”
And so once again, we got up to some turd polishing. After a ton of frustrating attempts to get Kricfalusi to compromise on the ending - during which he accused us of being “swines who can’t handle the drama”, we were able to get him to compromise on a new ending: Mr. Horse still declares Ren crazy - but this time, Mr. Horse successfully subdues Ren before he’s hauled off to the mental asylum. The tone then lightens up when a media circus headed by the Announcer Salesman (aka the guy who coerced Stimpy to press the “History Eraser Button'' in Season 1’s “Space Madness”) interviews Mr. Horse, asking him how he likes the idea of helping other people. Mr. Horse - in a play on his usual catchphrase - says “No sir….. I HATE IT!!! WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” as he grabs the news camera and goofy music plays as the episode irises out. As for the beginning half of the episode, we had Stimpy’s garden inspiring him to be a kid again - and his antics keep unintentionally hurting Ren. This leads to Ren eventually snapping and going on a huge tirade about how “life sucks”. This includes a “sad” story about the misery of growing up - where all the children lose their candy, they must complete “6 million math problems per day”, and the stores won’t give out LOG toys. All of this leads to the mundane and gray life of “adulthood” - where one’s house is in their car stuck in traffic, everyone’s job is “typing out coffee taxes”, and the only drink you can drink is “dog water” (subtly referencing alcoholism, except people drink it like dogs out of water bowls).
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The Announcer Salesman in "Space Madness"
The other episode - “The Big Switch” - was much less difficult. We were able to get along with what we wanted to accomplish. Basically, after the events of “Ren Seeks Help” - Stimpy visits Ren at the mental asylum - and forgives him - but under one condition: the two must switch roles from now on. Ren will now be the fat, stupid one, while Stimpy will be the scrawny, psychotic one. The two also swap speaking patterns - Ren now talks like Stimpy and Stimpy now talks like Ren. We had a lot of fun gags that we used for the situation - like Ren making this crazy invention that turns people into clowns - getting him beat up by the Fire Chief for “MAKING MORE CRAZY CIRCUS MIDGETS!!!” Stimpy meanwhile, lacks the edge that Ren has - so his attempts to be mean consist of mundane stuff like ripping tags off of mattresses and putting expired milk in kids’ squirt guns.[6]
The two try one more time with a classic
Ren & Stimpy activity - doing a get-rich-quick scheme. It involves selling toenails that are painted and glow in the dark. The scheme falls apart because customers discover that the glowing toenails don’t give them their “fancy radioactive monkey tentacles”, as Stimpy wasn’t “evil” enough to steal plutonium from the nuclear power plant. After ending up in a gutter, the two realize that it was better when Ren was the jerk and Stimpy was the idiot. The final gag is Ren transferring Stimpy’s fat back into his body by french-kissing each other on the lips. Ultimately, “The Big Switch” serves as the perfect comedic antidote to the brooding psychodrama seen in “Ren Seeks Help”. Later on, the two episodes would actually win Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing and Writing in a Comedy Series, respectively at the 46th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1994.
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Think of the episode as similar to this.
But despite the enjoyment Eric and I had making “The Big Switch” - Dutch and I couldn’t help but realize how much of a hassle working with John Kricfalusi was at the time. We constantly butted heads with Kricfalusi's eccentricities and dizzying creative decisions. We knew all the rumors that Kricfalusi was quite the prima donna of the cartoon industry - but the two of us thought that we could simply compromise and reason with him - being creative visionaries ourselves. Looking back, Dutch would just keep pushing and pushing his “amerime” pitches, while even I wasn’t immune to the occasional fart-sniffing after “Yodelin’ Yaks”. But Kricfalusi was now appearing to be more like a wild bull, and the things we would go through would basically amount to waving red cloth in front of him to do anything. It’s honestly no surprise that
[REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED].
In the next part of our series, we will continue to delve into the production challenges Season 3 of
Ren & Stimpy faced while working with John Kricfalusi. The clashes and compromises were just the tip of the iceberg, and as the season progressed, we found ourselves navigating even more challenging waters. All on top of course, the larger impact of the show on the animation industry - what with all the copycats the show was spawning.
Eric, Dick, and Bob - The Men Who Made Magic
Excerpt from the documentary Happy Happy Joy Joy, The Ren & Stimpy Story (2020)
BOB CAMP: “To Salve And Salve Not” was a story outline that I and….. Vincent Waller - excellent writer - wrote before the big overhaul in ‘92. It was an episode about how because of a subscription that Stimpy signed without like…. reading this fine print - the two are constantly buggered by this Salesman who tries to sell them salve.
BOB CAMP: Now normally this would have been just that - some sleazy salesman stops at nothing to sell salve to the pair. But just before pre-production, Eric would tell me that he was trying to get Dick Dutch to improve his talent and chose me to help him. I was a little hesitant - given his poor performance on episodes like “Stimp Racer” - but Eric was able to convince me to give him one last shot. Plus, he was John Kricfalusi-approved - so I wasn’t wasting any time when I took him under my wing.
*cuts to Dick Dutch*
DICK DUTCH: I had heard a lot of things about Bob Camp during my early days at Spümcø. Some considered him and his work on the show to be more “meat and potatoes” Ren & Stimpy compared to someone like John Kricfalusi. However, I thought of ways I can help him move above that. Little did I know, it was him that was gonna help me move above my previous, rough work.
DICK DUTCH: Camp’s work may include one of the tamer episodes of
Ren & Stimpy - but he was a good base to not only work off - but to ground more innovative artists to a consistent standard.[7] Without him, a lot of artists’ worst excesses would tend to show up - shit like Kricfalusi’s edginess or my tendency to use anime-style comedy and references as a crutch for my weak writing.
*cuts to Eric Stefani*
ERIC STEFANI: And as I was supervising the episode, the two would start to help each other in these… funny little ways. While early drafts of “To Salve or Salve Not” simply escalated its running gag by having the salesmen find more ways to enter the two’s house, Dutch had another idea. His idea of… keeping the joke running was to, um… have them try to sell multiple products related to salve, all related to this… *emphasizes with arms*
huge mega-corporation called Salve-Ation, Inc….. “a division of BLAMOTech”...
*cuts to “To Salve or Salve Not”*
*shows spotlight on a minimalist background with a confused Ren on it as 1950s background music plays*
ANNOUNCER SALESMAN: You’ll find our brand new package of SALVE-Ation toiletries to be of the utmost importance to the modern man!! And with that comes a 50% discount on our SALVE-Ation Do-It-Yourself, State-Of-The-Art Housing, with an addition of a lifetime supply of SSSSAAAAAAALLLLVVVEEEEE!!!!!! FOR FFFFFFFRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
STIMPY: *Dazed* Now let’s sing the SSSSSSSAAAAAAAALLLLLVVVVEEEEEEE SONG!!!!!!!!!
*cuts to chorus*
CHORUS: OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH, SSSSSSSAAAAAAAALLLLLVVVVEEEEEEE, IT'S THE MIRACLE SALVE FOR YOU AND ME! APPLY IT TO YOUR KNEE, YOUR TOE, OR YOUR BUM, IT'S SSSSSSSAAAAAAAALLLLLVVVVEEEEEEE, YOU CAN'T BEAT THEUM!
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"And, it can suck a monkey through thirty feet of garden hose!"
*cuts back to Bob Camp*
BOB CAMP: But the episode that truly sealed the deal between the three of us was the Season 3 episode “A Yard Too Far”. It was an episode kinda based off an old
Yogi Bear cartoon that John and I cooked up, with Ren and Stimpy trying to avoid a dog to get a pie on the windowsill. Except by pie - it’s actually hog jowls and by a dog? It’s a baboon.
*cuts to “A Yard Too Far”*
*Stimpy looks through a hole in a wooden fence before turning back to Ren*
STIMPY: Nope! There’s no dog!
REN: *eyes pop out while salivating* OOOOOHHHHHH BOY!!!!
*Ren opens the fence door before his legs spin enough to run. Loud monkey sounds and Ren screaming are then heard off screen as the screen shakes. Stimpy meanwhile doesn’t notice the action off screen as he innocently plays with a flower growing out of the sidewalk. The head of the baboon then appears over the fence with a red sack of flesh in its foaming jaws, to which it releases. A grotesque closeup with a horror cord reveals that this is indeed Ren - who walks over to Stimpy exasperated.*
STIMPY: *turning to Ren* See Ren? There’s no dog!
REN: Yeah, *grabs a hold of Stimpy* BUT THERE'S A GOSHDARN BABOON!!![8]
*cuts back to Bob Camp*
BOB CAMP: John, of course, tossed it aside to work on his “magnum opus” “Ren Seeks Help” - also with Dick Dutch and Eric Stefani. But I would work with Eric and Dick on this very episode. I laid out the base ingredients, Dick - he got all the spices, and it was Eric who tied it all together with his precision. And voila! *hands emphasize* You got yourselves a certified classic
Ren & Stimpy episode.
*cuts to “A Yard Too Far”*
*Ren and Stimpy are finishing up their hog jowls when the baboon comes out of its house preparing to tear the two apart*
PUPPET: Ralphie!
*Baboon’s eyes pop out before turning around to reveal that Ren’s puppet hand has taken on a mind of its own as a housewife resembling Alice Kramden from
The Honeymooners - complete with 3 stereotypical 1950s children.”
PUPPET: Get… back…. here…. AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILDREN!!!!
*The children - consisting of chihuahua-baboon hybrids - have the boy and girl constantly fighting over a baby doll, while the baby cries out.*
BABY PUPPET: *with high pitched Ren-esque voice* ME…… WANT….. EEEDIOT!!!!!
*baboon snaps*
BABOON: *with Ralph Kramden/Jackie Gleason-esque voice* "THAT'S IT! *grabs suit, fedora, and briefcase* I'M GOING TO THE STORE TO GET SOME MILK!!!"
*As “Listen to the Mockingbird” plays, the baboon runs off making wild noises, the puppet and children chase after him with a rolling pin, while Ren and Stimpy are pulled with them*
PUPPET: COME BACK HERE, YOU SICK LITTLE MONKEY!!!!!
REN: WE SHOULD HAVE CHASED A CHICKEN INSTEAD!!!
STIMPY: How about a chicken pizza?!?!?!?!?!?!
*fades back to old videotape footage in the Spümcø studio*
JERRY BECK: With their newfound abilities to make episodes that could finally rival what Kricfalusi was putting out, the trio of Bob Camp, Eric Stefani, and Dick Dutch was thus established as a group that made what fans could only call -
magic. While for the moment, the three men still had noticeable weaknesses as individuals - as an aggregate, these men would forge some of the most iconic episodes in
Ren & Stimpy history. "To Salve or Salve Not" and "A Yard Too Far" were just the beginning of their collaborative journey.
JERRY BECK: Bob Camp and Eric Stefani - both being members of what was at the time Spümcø’s Creative Decision Board - would grow especially close. It has been said that after the day’s work was over - the two would often gather at a local diner to unwind, share ideas, and simply enjoy each other's company. These late-night discussions fueled their creative synergy and allowed them to refine their storytelling techniques.
*Cuts to a black-and-white photo of Bob Camp and Eric Stefani sitting in a diner booth, surrounded by empty coffee cups and napkins with scribbled notes. It then cuts to Eric Stefani.*
ERIC STEFANI: We didn’t just use this time to cook up extra ideas on the fly as we were winding down - we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company as… well, just a couple of dudes who would hang around, talk about the latest football games, share whatever funny things that happened today in the studio, and occasionally, even burst into spontaneous bouts of laughter that would turn heads in the diner.
*cuts to Bob Camp*
BOB CAMP: It was genuinely one of the first times in quite a while that I
really …. genuinely enjoyed working at the studio, and it was because of this camaraderie that extended outside of work. We'd exchange stories about our families, our dreams, and everything in between. Those late-night diner sessions were just another extension of the positive change that was happening to the studio.
BOB CAMP: But not all of these discussions were comfortable.
*background music grows ominous*
JERRY BECK: Despite all the well meaning change that Stefani had brung to the studio, Camp could not help but feel an existential dread regarding the other man calling the shots at Spümcø:
John Kricfalusi.
*brief pause*
JERRY BECK: Bob Camp's concerns about the studio's direction under John Kricfalusi's leadership were never far from his mind. While Camp, Stefani, and Dutch were creating some of Ren & Stimpy's most memorable episodes, Kricfalusi’s distaste for acting reasonably on the production set had - according to him - only became emboldened and more unhinged.
*cuts back to Bob Camp, with a uncomfortable pause before speaking*
BOB CAMP: ….I wouldn’t use the word ‘hate’ to describe my feelings towards John ‘round that time. More like… ‘fear’..... ‘dread’..... ‘stress’..... before “Yodelin’ Yaks” aired, Spümcø was walking on thin ice….. Nick kept telling us that they were not fucking around when John was proving to be more and more of a liability. But that episode…..
*sighs hesitantly while pausing*
BOB CAMP: That….. DAMN episode….. Weasel got off the hook.…. Took all the credit when all he did was voice a screaming dog.
BOB CAMP: And I warned Eric that all the rookies coming to the studio - Dick too - that they didn’t know. …… Didn’t know that people such as I, Chris, Lynne, and Bill - both of them - were staring down the barrel of a gun….. of a madman who got mad if a single frame was out of place. And there was one phrase I told Eric that I still remember to this day: “The honeymoon period with John Kricfalusi is over.”
BOB CAMP: And it was up to him to stand up to John Kricfalusi…. and do the right thing.
*brief pause*
BOB CAMP: But he didn’t get it at the time…… no one did…… he thought that he could simply carrot-and-stick John into cooling it. ….He felt that much like he bootstrapped an entire toon skill set, he could do the same with giving Kricfalusi a personality transplant. ….But MAN…… he was too cute to understand that Kricfalusi was an entirely different beast compared to himself…. or Dutch….. or anyone.
BOB CAMP: And it would take
[REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED].
[1] Perhaps best demonstrated by the seminal Season 2 episode “Son of Stimpy”. The episode is basically about Stimpy farting and believing that he has given birth to a son, only to lose him until the two reunite at Christmas. Nickelodeon pushed for the episode and other “heartwarming” episodes to be made in return for allowing Spümcø to make more gross out and psychodrama episodes. Kricfalusi - frustrated at this - decided to make the premise of said “heartwarming” episode the most ridiculous thing he can think of (Stimpy not being able to find his flatulence). The comedy of the episode thus came from the absurdity of using the supposed emotionally manipulative filmmaking tactics (according to Kricfalusi) used in melodramatic films (i.e.
E.T., Old Yeller) except on a premise with little real emotional substance.
[2] This was basically the plan Kricfalusi and his crew had in mind when making “Ren Seeks Help” for
Adult Party Cartoon IOTL. Basically, the first part would be an episode called “Life Sucks” - where Ren - angry at Stimpy being happy at life - tells him that life sucks, using examples such as the food chain and the Children’s Crusade as examples. The episode after “Ren Seeks Help” was called “The Big Switch” - in which after a huge argument - Ren and Stimpy would swap roles to see who is better at being an idiot or an asshole. While nothing besides the concept of “The Big Switch” (it was loosely adapted as the Games-era episode “Who’s Stupid Now”) saw the light of day, the animatic for “Life Sucks” resurfaced years later and can be found online.
[3] Kricfalusi has gone on to say that the
Adult Party Cartoon episodes suffered from slow pacing, so I don’t think it would be too hard to convince him on that front.
[4] All of this is of course OTL. It even gets worse when Ren’s parents get Ren to put the frog out of its misery with a chainsaw. However, when his parents aren’t looking - Ren fakes his execution of the frog before throwing it away so that it can suffer more.
[5] IOTL, Ren’s dad in “Ren Seeks Help” is depicted as a Catholic priest even though priests are supposed to be celibate. Here, I feel that it’s relatively realistic to convince Kricfalusi to instead base Ren’s father more on his own father.
[6] IOTL’s closest equivalent to “The Big Switch” - “Who’s Stupid Now” - the episode was merely a fourth wall-breaking episode where after learning the show is being canceled soon, the two swap roles - much to Ren’s chagrin. In my opinion, it’s an alright episode - better than most of Season 4 and 5 - but I feel it could have been way better if they went into the full comedic potential of the two swapping roles. Here, with a 22-minute runtime and with a lot of the edge of the Spümcø team behind it - I have no doubt that it could be accomplished way better in “The Big Switch'' than in “Who’s Stupid Now”.
[7] Admittedly, even during the Spümcø era, Camp’s episodes included some of the lesser episodes such as Season 1’s “The Littlest Giant” and Season 2’s “Monkey See, Monkey Don’t”.
[8] IOTL, that part of “A Yard Too Far” merely consisted of Ren walking through the fence, getting mauled off screen, and Stimpy watching as he says “There’s no dog….. But there’s a baboon…”
