Ren & Stimpy -- one of the greatest of all time?

B

blindjohnboy

New member
You go back and watch the DVD or a rerun of it (Does Nicktoons TV still air reruns of R&S?) 12 years later, and the show is still like nothing I've ever seen before or since. It was phenomenally revolutionary in its approach and delivery, so the question is...will Ren & Stimpy go down in history as one of the greatest cartoons of all time? I put this in the general animation subforum as opposed to the Nickelodeon animation subforum since this is dealing with its total animation legacy, not just its Nickelodeon animation legacy.
 
I think Ren & Stimpy gets too much credit than it deserves.

Sure, in the eyes of some people, it's great for animation and expressions and stuff, but I find the artwork to be rather ugly and unappealing to look at.

Not to mention most people call it "revolutionary", but if that were the case, we'd be gettings tons of shows with amazing animation and expressive designs.

Only a handful of shows have been inspired by Ren & Stimpy, but I doubt that's enough to change the face of cartoons.
 
I’ve never really liked Ren & Stimpy. I respect it for what it tried to do, as well as for the animated programs that it had inspired to some degree, but I do not believe that the series is as great as many people have claimed that it was. I recently watched several episodes with my older brother, who loved the series back when it first came out, but neither of us found the episodes to be enjoyable. Maybe they were bad episodes, I don’t know, but we watched about four of them and they all fell flat.

Granted, I hate toilet humor. Ren & Stimpy may have been on the front lines with such humor back in the day, but it is what it is. What was once uncommon is now commonplace, which has eroded the novelty that Ren & Stimpy once had.
 
Not a fan of the show myself. I don't like toilet humor, and I agree the art is pretty ugly (though it's supposed to, so I guess that means it's good at what it does)
 
^What others here have said. I can appreciate Ren & Stimpy's contribution to the animation lexicon, as well as John Kricfaluis's devotion to his craft and his cause to bring back the "squash and stretch" style and "cartoon acting", but having said that, I was never a huge fan of his work. R&S just wasn't my cup of tea, though I'll admit that the John supervised episodes were a tad better than the Bob Camp ones.
 
Ren & Stimpy was one of those cartoons that I enjoyed watching but never took the time to actually watch. However, I think that in the history of most art forms, you'll find certain groups or works that turned out to be the "incubators" where pretty much everyone who did anything important or noteworthy afterwards fed through there. Miles Davis' band was one of them for modern jazz, and Muddy Waters' band was another one for electric blues -- you find so many solo musicians that got their start as a band member or Miles or Muddy. I'm not quite sure yet, but Ren & Stimpy is a definite candidate for one of the incubator shows for a lot of the TV animation that followed, because you'll find a lot of the names in the credits went on to do their own thing eventually. I'm not sure that we'll be able to say that for something like SpongeBob SquarePants, for instance.

Some of the other incubator shows I can think of would be the Bakshi Mighty Mouse (which produced disparate talents as John K. and Bruce Timm) and the early WBA efforts like Tiny Toon Adventures. I'm not sure that Disney has managed to really produce one.

-- Ed
 
Eh, while the show is pretty good, I do have to say that it isn't really "revolutionary" anymore. The toilet humor used on that show is now pretty much commonplace, but maybe without the creative twists that R&S did. And the animation isn't all that amazing, and some of expressions used aren't needed or are plain "too much".
 
If we're talking the show's track record, then no. I'm a big R&S fan, but even I'd admit that only about half the episodes are quality. Despite being more conservative in its animation, I would argue Rocko actually had a better track record. There are very few episodes in that series I would consider below par.

If we're talking influence, it depends. As expected, in the early to mid '90s, many shows tried to ape some of its traits, whether it be squash & stretch/extreme poses animation or gross-out humor, but few managed to be as good, which is usually what happens when something different comes out: You get imitators who only take bits and pieces of the original without an understanding of context.

And, despite a few exceptions, you don't really see many cartoons nowadays which have the same artistic freedom that R&S had. SpongeBob is one of the exceptions- perhaps that's why I latched onto it when I discovered the show in 2000.
 
While it has it's moments, I wouldn't call it the best show ever made. I'll have to agree on rewatchability. We loved it the first time, but I wouldn't watch them many more times, let aolone enough times for them to fit 'greatest show of all time' status.
 
A lot of cartoons to this day tend to still be attempting to do what that show did in 1991, and most of them are just derivatives of it, with the loutish, idiot savant character paired with the high-strung, hapless, somewhat selfish partner. Though John K. was basically going back to the routine that Clampett used, to be honest, so no one was really any more revolutionary than their predecessor.
 
The first 5 or 6 episodes of R&S are pretty good. They have some good animation, funny gags, good storylines, and everything, but I think afterwards the series went downhill.

John K. getting fired didn't help, and Games Animation really screwed the show up. Not to say there aren't any bad Games episodes, it's just the storylines were a little ridiculous, the animation became very weak, the character designs became flat, and that opened the door to the "Dexter's Laboratory" designs that plauges cartoons to this very day.

In my eyes R&S was good, in that it was a nice return for great television animation, but I can think of other better cartoons that have come after R&S, such as Rocko's Modern life, Angry Beavers, AHHHHHH Real Monsters, and Invader Zim.
 
Yeah, that's another exception I didn't list. Lots of creativity in that show's animation.
Wait... you didn't like season 2? There are quite a few gems in there, and the animation got even better.
 
No one is saying it was revolutionary because of "toilet humor" (as if that's all the show was! So dismissive, all of you!)

It was revolutionary because it was a cartoon TV show with no writers -- ONLY cartoonists, written, directed and completely made by cartoonists.

There wasn't anything on TV like that back then, and there barely is these days.


-Jordan
 
There are quite a few cartoons currently on TV that only have plot outlines that are fleshed out by the storyboarders: Chowder; Phineas and Ferb; Spongebob Squarepants...
 
People have been saying what you've just said here. No one is just dismissing the show as "toilet humor", but there's no denying that the gross-out factor played a huge role in its' notoriety. Perhaps you need to re-read the above posts.
 
I'm simply going to say that it's a decent cartoon. If it maintained the quality writing from the first two seasons (which wasn't as reliant on toilet humor).
 
The one where Ren and Stimpy have to wrestle Lump and Loaf is probably one of the better cartoons in existence, period. That one was just full of gems. If the show maintained that type of humor and visuals, it would be considered a masterpiece all around.
 
This is OT, and forgive me, but:



I am so utterly sick to death of the mindset that writers cannot possibly contribute to a cartoon. Any writer that does their job right can add as much to a cartoon as a cartoonist. Furthermore, you know, animation is a collaborative process.
 
Back
Top