I don't know about you but i LOVED Ren and Stimpy. For young children who accidentally saw it late at night it might have been traumatizing but whatever... it's an experience they'll get past. I know I watched "The Dark Crystal" and had nightmares for the next 23 years but it made me the man I am today.
WARNING: Ren and Stimpy is not for everyone. carry on at your own risk.
Keeping in mind that this was from a time before anyone had any idea that it would ever be possible to access episodes of just anything at the touch of your fingers (youtube / netflix / etc)... being privy to episodes of Ren and Stimpy required some work because it got moved around so much due to it's controversial nature.
It was a cartoon, but it was forced to be on later at night so that little kids wouldn't see it. There weren't boobies in it or anything but at least for a cartoon, it was pretty dern graphic.
Such as these two gems
Stimpy's collection of "nose goblins
an adaptation of an old classic
It was never meant for kids, just like Southpark today and that is why at least initially, it caused quite a stir. Obviously we have a lot of this now (and in Japan they have had it for 500 years) but at the time it was a relatively new and taboo phenomenon.
It is pretty gross. There is an episode where Ren won't brush his teeth and ends up with just nerve endings and he has to pluck those for some reason.
This series originally aired on Nickelodeon and I think it goes without saying that there were some issues between what the creators wanted to make and what could actually be shown on television, potentially to children. The gruesome, gross, and sometimes wildly violent content resulted in much of the episodes being edited out and some episodes were outright banned. Later MTV picked up the series and then a lot more of it was allowed.
Despite my horrible intro and not doing the show much justice, it was widely critically acclaimed by many experts including Matt Groening which you may of heard of from "The Simpsons." It was attempted to revive the series in the early 2000's but the interest was already gone and the series was scrapped after just a few episodes.
Some of the favorite episodes are the ones that take place in space. here is a clip from that one involving one of my favorite aspects of the show.... the "history eraser button"
There were a number of video games (none of which were very good as far as i'm told) and I purchased a bunch of the comic books too. I looked it up to find this number but it turns out only 44 were made.
I like how they changed the way things are written to simulate Ren's voice
As you can tell this show is completely ridiculous and I don't think my write-up about it is much better. This is likely my worst blog post yet but I want all of you to know that it began with good intentions, i just couldn't follow through fully.
As always thanks for reading and i'll do better next time.
