Starring Ren, Stimpy, a Talking horse, Powdered Toast Man, The Pope, and of course Stinky
Written By: John Kricfalusi, Jim Smith, Vincent Waller
Directed By: John Kricfalusi, Vincent Waller
Studio: Paramount
Buy on Amazon.com link

I remember watching this show for the very first time and falling in love with it. It was something that wasn’t done on TV before. This classic show is finally on DVD! And for the most part, uncut too!

If you never saw The Ren and Stimpy Show before, it aired between 1991-1995 and was about a loud, neourotic chihuahua named Ren (John Kricfalusi) and a stupid, chubby kitty kat named Stimpy (Billy West). They went on adventures to the moon, told bedtime stories about Robin Hood or the littlest giant. Sometimes there would be a commercial between animated shorts like the infamous Log commercial. Come on, you know the words. Let’s sing! WHAT ROLLS DOWN STAIRS…Um, yeah you know the rest. Other episodes would find the duo pretending they were fire dogs, monkeys, infants or wild life experts. Those were my favorite Ren and Stimpy episodes, the ones where they were the wild life experts, or Ren was Robin Hood, or Stimpy was a little giant. Occasional, episodes would have a spinoff animated short like for the superhero known as Powdered Toast Man. The Powdered Toast Man episode was and still is, my favorite Ren and Stimpy Show episode. Seeing that for the first time brought tears of laughter to my eyes. Frank Zappa did the voice of the superhero and he was perfect as the breaded caped crusader. Seeing PTM fart on Ren and Stimpy’s powdered toast or telling the Pope to clench firmly to his buttocks is just brilliant stuff! Cartoons couldn’t get any funnier back then.

But let’s not forget the the voice over work by John K. and Billy West. Billy West is the voice-over king and has done a trillion things before and after Ren and Stimpy. He eventually did the voices for all the characters towards the end of the cartoon’s run. John K. originally did the voice of Ren and I can’t think of anyone else better than John K. to do the voice. I thought the animation was great, though I’m not really a fan of the closeup shots of nerve endings and other gross out things. But that’s the style of the animation of Spumco. Weird, grossed out animation, but in a stylish way! The show did tend to get a tad gross in some episodes. As for the quality of the DVD, the video quality is ok in some scenes but I still noticed it wasn’t completely cleaned up. The audio sounded fine to me though. I believe that some episodes weren’t really uncut or from what I read on the internet. I didn’t really notice anything cut. I’m sure the hardcore fans will pick up the cut footage.

In the extras features, you can find the banned episode “Man’s Best Friend” with George Liquor. I’m not really sure why that episode was banned besides the endless amounts of animal cruelity in that episode. But isn’t that every episode though? I think you can watch some George Liquor episodes on the internet somewhere, perhaps atomfilms or the official Spumco site? There’s a featurette (“Ren & Stimpy: In The Beginning”) that’s about 12 minutes long and it features John K. talking about how he developed the show. You find out how he came up with the the characters of Ren and Stimpy. You also find out how the voices were originated. It was an interesting featurette but too short. On the 3 Disc, you can also find audio commentaries on selected episodes, Sven Hoek pencil test, some very cool storyboard and image gallery. I like looking at the storyboards and image galleries because i’m artist and always liked looking at how things are drawn.

Overall, I’m glad the Ren and Stimpy show is finally out on DVD. It’s been a long time since I saw the original episodes and still enjoy watching most of the episodes. I think I found the cartoon more funny when I was younger but I still think Ren and Stimpy Show is a classic cartoon that paved the way for other gross-out, adult humor cartoons.

Features:
The “banned” episode: Man’s Best Friend
“Ren & Stimpy: In The Beginning” Featurette
Audio Commentary on six episodes by the original Spumco team
Storyboard and Spumco image gallery
Sven Hoek pencil test
And more!

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Stereo CC

Video:
Standard 1.33:1 Color

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: Powdered Toast Man, Robin Hoek, Space Madness, Fire Dogs, Stimpy’s I’vention, Untamed World, Rubber Nipple Salesman, Stimpy’s First Fart
Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 418 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: