Toilet humour and likable jerks

M

Moha

New member
I've been thinking about this and I can't figure it out.

Ren & Stimpy had lots of toilet humour and has a lot of fans. Mega Babies had lots of toilet humor, too, but almost everyone hates it. Master Shake is a jerk, but still likable. Bloo is a jerk, too, but a lot of viewers hate him.

Does anyone know how they manage to write good toilet humor or likable jerks?
 
The difference between Ren & Stimpy and Mega Babies? Talented writers.

Ren & Stimpy, Foster's, Aqua Teen, have likable jerks who emply toilet humor, but they're funny because the people writing them (for the most part) know what's funny. Sometimes they stray and cross the line (Aqua Teen in it's later season is the best expample with episodes like 'Unremarkable Journey'), but for the most part these shows have writers who know what they're doing.

Mega Babies? That show was pure tripe from the get go. It was like someone just said 'Let's do Rugrats with superpowers BUT let's make it really, really, really, REALLY juvenile and gross!'

With the right writers, MB might have been decent (I'm giving the show A LOT more credit than I should, I know), but Mega Babies, what we got, was just an all around horrible show.
 
Both of my favorite shows Ren & Stimpy & Family Guy have the wonders of funny toilet humour & comedy when those talented writers go into detail to think of the gross jokes to make the viewers entertained.
Lots of writers always want to make the likable jerks so funny/mean/self-centered/selfish on how they are which only these guys are my favorite likable jerks that are funny like:
Ren Hoek(R&S)
Duckman(Duckman)
Homer Simpson(Simpsons)
Chicken(Cow & Chicken)
Bloo(FHFIFs)
Master Shake(ATHF)
Darkwing Duck(DD)
Woody Woodpecker(Woody Woodpecker)
Cat(Catdog)
Kuzco(Emperor's New School)
 
Both Ren and Stimpy were extremely likeable characaters, regardless of how people viewed the grossout humor. Ren could be childish, petty, selfish and cruel towards Stimpy, but you still felt for him and could empathize at times because he honestly had a lot of depth, thanks to John K.
 
I've been thinking about the whole jerks thing, too, and here's what I releized. Without Master Shake trying to kill Meatwad all the time, Aqua Teen Hunger Force would be nothing more then an idoitic stoner's comedy with no respect from us. Without Bloo's crazy scams, Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends would probably be bland and less intresting, and not the big hit among children and adult's alike that it is now. Without Angelica tricking the babies so much, Rugrats would of just been a bunch of babies with overactive imaginations and fallen to Nick JR after it's first season, and not be Nick's biggest hit of all time that it was.

Or maybe it's just me.
 
If tv shows didn't have jerks, they'd never have any plots basically. It's becoming prevalent in comic strips also. Read Pearls to Swine and Pooch Cafe. If the former didn't have Rat and the latter didn't have Poncho, it'd be quite boring.
 
Pay attention next time. We're not complaining about tv shows contain jerks, just how they are written. Radical's list proves that done right jerks can be just as likable as the good guys.

Either because they have an interesting or funny personality or receive comeuppance later on.
 
Yeah I don't know why the potty humor in Ren & Stimpy doesn't really bother me but the when it happens in something like My Gym Partners a Monkey I don't really care muh for it at all. The jerks that I don't like are when they are just heartless
 
when toilet humour is made by someone who sincerely knows what he's doing, and has a strong foundation besides the gross-out, it works( through a lot of people won't like it anyway, but hey it's not made for them)

When it's made by someone who just wants to create a hit desperately trying to redeem itself with copying anything "that's popular nowdays," it inevitabily fails
 
Yes! Ren had more than one dimension - IMO he's the first toon character since Daffy Duck to have both a good and bad side and still remain likeable, and Stimpy is also notable because he is a likeable idiot, a species being pushed out nowadays by obnoxious idiots, unfortunately.

I've been watching R & S on Nicktoons the past few weeks and they're even funnier than they seemed to me as a kid. I mean I was falling on the floor laughing. ("Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy"!)

REN: (wearing Happy Helmet) See how I LOVE to clean...FEELTHY CAT BOXES!!!! HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

*snort* Classic. And the comic drawing is superb. Only today's Spongebob even comes close.
 
I remember reading a discussion about him. Heck, he's pretty much similar to those who've played or still play the Pokemon games. In the game, you have say two Pidgeys and the other is weak, you drop it.
 
I've never liked toilet humour-based cartoons. Even Ren and Stimpy.

As for likable jerks... I think they're likable because they have a seldom-seen non-jerky side. But that, of course, differs from person to person.
 
Mr. Radical: from the cartoons I've got, it looks like Wally Walrus did absolutely nothing to deserve Woody Woodpecker. Woody is the bigger jerk by far.

There's this one short where Woody reprograms a guided missile to go after this one random man, who is now scared of anything ticking because it could be the missile sneaking up on him. Woody sells him some "health insurance" prior to the missile blowing him up, but then reveals it "does not cover missile explosions." The end scene is him in multiple casts in the hospital, and Woody pushes him out a window. As he's falling, Woody also reveals the policy "does not cover plummeting down a building."

Dude...Woody was the real villain.
 
I never really cared for ANY kind of toilet humor, but as for the likable jerks category...
I personally think that the greatest cartoon jerk would have to be Claude Cat. He is still entertaining even though his later personality(in contrast to his earlier nuerotic persona) is simply PURE EVIL. In other words, he is quite the intresting character. Ren is also great.
Those type of characters tend to have a lot of depth... :)
 
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