Pushing Boundaries

In my previous post, I discussed the various roles that kids' cartoons fill. Unsurprisingly, those cartoons that focus primarily on entertainment tend to be the “edgiest,” and face the most controversy. For this post, I want to examine one cartoon from the 90s that pushed boundaries so far its creator was fired. That cartoon is The Ren and Stimpy Show, created by John Krisfaluci.

 

Ren and Stimpy seems to be a counterpoint to other Nicktoons of its era. Where Rugrats, Doug, and their ilk preached friendship and teamwork, Ren and Stimpy featured insanity, abuse, and in one banned episode, a father figure verbally abusing and terrifying the titular characters. While other cartoons of the time could be gross, Ren and Stimpy was filled with toilet humor. Most notorious for grossness were the paintings that were interspersed into each episode. These were frames that were painted normally rather than cel-shaded, which usually didn't move much and were often extreme close-ups of gross faces. They often accompanied Ren's "freak outs," where he would lose his tenuous grip on sanity. Two examples are given below:

 

The cartoon often mocked the marketing-focused state of children's programming with fake toy commericals, and before or after each episode, Ren and Stimpy themselves would address the audience, reading fake letters from their fans in a satire of kids' fan clubs.

 

I cannot simply show you every questionable moment in Ren and Stimpy, but to give you an idea of how much John K. liked to push the limits of his show, below is a paragraph from Wikipedia listing what didn't make it into the show:

“Some segments of the show were altered to exclude references to religion, politics and alcohol. The episode "Powdered Toast Man" was stripped of references to the Pope and the burning of the United States constitution and bill of rights, while in another episode, the character George Liquor's last name was erased. Several episodes had violent or gruesome scenes shortened or removed, including a sequence involving a severed head, a close-up of Ren's face being grated by a man's stubble, and a scene where Ren receives multiple punches to the stomach from an angry baby.”

Despite this, and despite outrage from parental groups and censors, Ren and Stimpy was a huge hit. Even I watched the show, until the day I repeated a line that so angered my mother she banned it from our TV. When my father went to take a shower, I told him, "Don't forget to wash where the sun don't shine." I thought it meant behind his ears.

 

After two seasons, however, John K. was fired due to failures to meet contractual obligations (he was incapable of producing cartoons on schedule, though he blamed Nickelodeon for constantly giving and then withdrawing permission as to what could be featured in the show). John K. himself blamed the banned episode featured above, Man's Best Friend (full episode here, unfortunately reversed).

 

John K’s vision for the series was instrumental in making sure Ren and Stimpy did not fit the same mold as other cartoons on the network—unlike most cartoon-makers in the 90s, he refused to even pay lip service to the notion of his cartoon being an educational medium. In an interview for David Anthony Kraft’s Comics Interview, Bill Wray, another animator on the show, said the following about the goal of Ren and Stimpy:

 “We don’t want to satisfy parental groups that are solely interested in educating children, because then you’re no longer doing great entertainment, you’re doing education. Kids have a million things today that regulate their lives. What we’re doing is animation and cartoons for the sake of having fun. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong is trying to pretend that fun is educational, like networks do with THE JETSONS. THE JETSONS isn’t education, but the networks say it is in order to fill a quota. And if you were to try and make THE JETSONS educational, then it would be boring.”

The full interview can be found here.

The show continued for another three seasons after John K’s firing, with Billy West taking over the part of Ren (John K had originally been his voice actor). John K's presence removed, the cartoon became tamer, and the characters cuter and more marketable. Compare, from the first season:

to this image, from Season 5:

Ren's voice went from a bad impression of Peter Lorre (as heard in the previous episodes) to a caricature of a Mexican accent.

Ren and Stimpy’s boundary-pushing may have led to its creator’s firing and endless controversy, but like many who cross the line, it left a legacy. SpongeBob SquarePants features similar grotesque faces and extreme close-ups. Courage the Cowardly Dog featured a tamer abusive relationship and mixed media animation. It also pushed the notion of cartoons for adults into the spotlight—by treading into adult territory, it paved the way for shows such as Beavis and Butthead and South Park to be taken seriously by networks. An homage to the series even remains in The Simpsons: Itchy and Scratchy, the fictional super-violent cartoon, is quite obviously a reference to Ren and Stimpy. Additionally, the quality of the animation in the first two seasons, strange art design, music, and strong satire have all received critical praise and are often cited by other animators. To that end, then, The Ren and Stimpy Show had artistic merit. And while John K has since released a volume of Ren and Stimpy intended for adults, I at least personally feel that they are weaker than the first two seasons of the show, where he was at least nominally restricted to kid-friendly content. 

 

While the series was obviously not appropriate for very young children, Ren and Stimpy may have actually been beneficial for older kids, say middle school and above. Its lampooning of children's television and the marketing that goes with it, blind patriotism, and other non-family-friendly messages raise questions in the viewer about what other cartoons are teaching kids, and provide a counterpoint to the otherwise generally saccharine fare of other cartoons. While Ren and Stimpy may not have taught kids to be good citizens, it did seem to promote the idea of questioning what is delivered to you. In an age where standardized tests seem to have resulted in a decline of critical thinking skills, perhaps we need more cartoons like Ren and Stimpy, to jar us out of our comfort zone and remind us that the real world is sometimes unpleasant, often disturbing, and rarely what those in authority say it is.