But "Ren & Stimpy" does not deserve to be called "beloved." It was great, but not in a soft, gooey way. It had edge — in content and especially in visual style.
The main article, upon which the Houston Chronicle piece is based, is in Buzzfeed, which uses the word "iconic" — "The Disturbing Secret Behind An Iconic Cartoon/Robyn Byrd and Katie Rice were teenage Ren & Stimpy fans who wanted to make cartoons. They say they were preyed upon by the creator of the show, John Kricfalusi, who admitted to having had a 16-year-old girlfriend when approached by BuzzFeed News."
The cartoon always presented a deliberately ugly, in-your-face challenge to common decency. That's what we reveled in, at the time. So it's not as if some sweet, children-oriented pop-culture figure turned out to have a dark side. The dark side was in the cartoon all along. If you loved it, look at yourself.
Here's an article from 2016 — "13 times Ren & Stimpy was in no way appropriate for children":
1) That time Ren plucked bloody nerve-endings out of his toothless mouth...Did you let your kids watch what was grooming them for pornography? Or is your memory at little fuzzy and you just remember that "Ren & Stimpy" was another 2-animals cartoon, like "Tom & Jerry"?
2) When Ren's face was mercilessly grated against sharp stubble...
4) Ren beats in his own skull with a claw hammer after using the 'happy machine'...
6) [Ren] gives a vivid description of how he's going to mutilate his cousin and Stimpy...
8) Ren and Stimpy end up naked in the bath with a random family...
13) Ren basically simulates sex while sawing wood behind Stimpy...
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81 comments:
I think you can be beloved and still have an 'edge'.
Did you let your kids watch what was grooming them for pornography?
Weren’t we just discussing a political ad about men showing off their penises?
I thought it was OK to prey on people who live in trailer courts, or did They change that too?
So, a fan of slasher pics can't call the original Friday The 13th movies "beloved"?
I was in my early 20s when the show came out. It was basically a parody of Tom and Jerry style cartoons I grew up with, and I enjoyed them very much. Kids wouldn't get most of the humor.
Well, it was never exactly Bugs Bunny and I never really got the impression it was for kids. It was part of the television Great Awakening that began with Night Flight and spawned a zillion shows, crappy and great, throughout the ‘80’s and ‘90’s that broke decisively with the TV of Boomer childhoods.
But "Ren & Stimpy" does not deserve to be called "beloved."
They're not the only ones.
Meh. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" as they say. The Daffy Duck strip tease about a minute in is priceless:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H6ZmeF2Heg
Itchy and Scratchy.
His most “out there” cartoon IMHO was his Hanna Barbera approved Yogi Bear.
If you saw it, there is no unforgetting it.
How HB management signed off on it is the biggest question.
Happy.
Joy.
Happy.
Joy.
Doesn't it strike anyone that these women seem just a little bit ungrateful?
He encouraged their art aspirations, even helping them develop their skills and giving them jobs in their desired fields.
Heaven forbid you try to help a young woman, and -- in sharing a mutual interest that consumes you -- not be prey to attraction?
Women have slept with Harvey Weinstein for less.
Seriously: if they are old enough to decide if they want an abortion shouldn't we then consider that they are old enough to make sexual decisions for themselves?
The German have a word for this.
I was in my late teens and twenties when Ren and Stimpy were a thing. I certainly would have not let my children watch it, if I had any at the time.
I am kind of surprised Althouse was a fan - I would have thought her too mature for it. Now that I am in my 40s that sort of show has lost most of its charm for me.
It's transsocial. Give it a few years.
Should it be normalized, rejected, or tolerated?
Ren and Stimpy was messed up. The creator/writer was on something. That's why it's lame to describe it as "beloved".
It was fringey and for adults. Not for children unless you like dark weird slightly violent humor impressing your kids.
The show made me laugh hard at times. The camping trip, or when Ren married a dead fish. Good times.
Is Rick and Morty todays Ren and Stimpy?
Beloved? Anyone who admits to loving Ren & Stimpy is a sigma or two off the mean.
I figured my kids were going to do all sorts of funky, clunky and stupid sexual shit, just like I did.
My grandkids probably will too.
You figure you know a way to prevent this, prof?
I’m Catholic. I’m a fatalist about the human condition. I figure it’s going to continue to be fucked up and sinful. You’re a delusional Marxist feminist. You think human fuck up-ed-ness and sinfulness can be cured. You’re a believer in the New Woman bullshit. Oddly, you’re in favor of knocking down men a few pegs for their own good.
Your ideas are very dangerous and destructive and vengeful.
You’re a fag hag. You are deliberately and openly in favor of faggotizing and undermining men. And you’re worried about an adult man who has a sexual interest in women who are child bearing age. Your values are as perverted and bizarre as can be.
I’m no type of crusader, but if I were to take on a crusade it would be to drive you and your Marxist feminist comrades out of our government, institutions and academia.
Imagine that. A woman who wants men to be fags and thinks sexual interest in women of child bearing age is ghastly. How fucked up can you get? How in the hell did you and your meathead colleagues take over the University of Wisconsin Law School? The whole crew needs to be driven out.
Lord, I remember when even MTV put this show on late. Nickelodeon would also play it late and provide a lengthy disclaimer for parents that is was for mature audiences only. And I always thought "why on earth would Nickelodeon produce a show like this?" Having said this I still watch my dvd's of it from time to time. It is no surprise to me that Kricfalusi is a predator. He had the reputation among the artist community of not being a good person.
People read the Chronicle?
I didn't click on the article. Are those children's parents mentioned?
Who lets their kid -- high school kid! -- go to a different city to be with a person, however famous he or she is?
The common experience of gay men of my acquaintance is a near incest relationship with their mother. Pedophilia is the usual experience of gay men.
The prof lies about a lot of shit. Her attempt to cast fagdom as morally superior to heterosexuality is pretty damned evil. You can see in this the rationalization of her own personal situation.
I’ve got to stay away from this site. Althouse is simultaneously a great legal mind and a ruthlessly self interested crazy bitch.
Nothing good comes into my life from encountering this insane evil. I’m retired, secure and happy. Jesus, what does any sane person need with this shit?
My kids watched Ren&Stimpy but didnt get the humor. They grew tired of it quickly. My husband and I watched it and enjoyed the edgy humor. We watched it as an adult CARTOON and not a National Geographic documentary. We don't take these things seriously as people seem to do now. I guess we know the difference between reality and fantasy.
Ren and Stimpy was ugly for the sake of being ugly.
Ralph Bakshi's "Might Mouse: The New Adventures" - extreme images used in the pursuit of satire. Much better.
I never understood the appeal of Ren and Stimpy, but I thought it was obvious that it wasn't meant for kids.
"I’m Catholic... How fucked up can you get? How in the hell did you and your meathead colleagues take over the University of Wisconsin Law School? "
Haven't you heard the News for Catholics: There is no Hell!!!?
Haven't you heard the News for Catholics: There is no Hell!!!?
Sometimes rules change!
For instance…
No Trolls!
becomes
Let Them In and Feed Them!
I was interested in Ren & Stimpy because I'd been interested in comics that challenged social norms since I first discovered Mad Magazine on my local drugstores magazine rack in the early 1960s. I'm eternally bonded to Mad, and I loved the underground comics of the hippie era (especially R. Crumb). I cared about the kind of painting that was based on comics (and the high-low distinctions in art). And I cared about the comics of the "Raw" era (and have a huge collection of the stuff from the 80s and 90s).
I worked for several of the great litigators and legal minds of my generation, all men.
They were ferocious hetero macho men who wanted to fuck all the beautiful young women they could get their hands on, pile up a shitload of money, and leave behind a phalanx of kids and grandkids to glorify their names. In a couple of cases, great entrepreneurs who built a 4 man start up into a 300 or 400 lawyer firm.
How in the hell did they allow an insane shrew like Althouse to manage her way into a gatekeeper role for their profession?
I know a lot of smart lawyers read this blog. Forget arguing logic with this women. She’s fillibustering you into defeat over your most primal aspirations with logic.
She’s a primal enemy of your aspirations as men, that is your deepest desires for triumph, women’s love and for a mess of kids and grandkids. She’s cleverly derailing you into a shithole.
The seductive part is she’s a Menshevik. She really does believe that democracy and free speech can continue to co-exist with her devious Marxist feminism. Her Bolshevik colleagues are just using her and will ultimately discard her. The Mensheviks are useful idiots.
Stop debating logic with this women. She’s your primal adversary. She wants to destroy you.
I got revenge on an elementary school teacher (who wronged me in a way that I won't talk about because the person could be easily identified) by drawing scathing comics when I was quite young. These were passed around and very popular with my classmates.
If I had known how to get in touch with a famous animator when I was 17 and to live a life of adventure and access to the inside of the business, I would have gleefully accepted. Here's a photograph my father took of me when I was 17. The channels of the internet were not available to me at the time, so I did not have the opportunity to fulfill my artistic potential. Instead, I got screwed by the ridiculous university scam called art school.
I *hated* that show.
"Forget arguing logic with this women."
Yeah, you really shouldn't. You're so bad at it. And I even refrain from using my full powers. I'm told my arguments are so devastating that grown men shrink in fear and refuse to talk to me anymore. And that's when I'm showing some of the compassion they expect from a woman and leaven the text with humor and literary references too. I never go all out. I'm just not interested in persuasion and wrecking opponents. But if I ever did, you would run away... as you have in the past. You know very well it would be too much for you. And yet you come back for more.
I never go big. But I could. The logic button on my desk is a much bigger & more powerful one than yours and my button works!
The photo of yourself was rather random, professor. What was the point of that? You don't look artistic in it.
If I had known how to get in touch with a famous animator when I was 17 and to live a life of adventure and access to the inside of the business, I would have gleefully accepted...Instead, I got screwed by the ridiculous university scam called art school.
Instead, you could have got screwed by a famous animator.
If you need an explanation for why that photo is there...you won't really get the explanation.
I don't need an explanation, but Emerita might want to offer one she likes better than mine.
Your logic is lies.
Marxist lies.
And you’re creating the same hell on earth as Marxist always create.
I haven’t run from you. I’ve gone away to enjoy life with a shitload of grandkids and to be as far away from destructive, vengeful, empty fag hags as I can get.
Letting you define my life is degrading. You’re a fucking logical mess.
I’m a great fan of Henry Miller, and that wasn’t really about the sex. When I told you I have always been an outlaw, you immediately fell into the common delusion that that meant I intended to die is a blaze of glory for your enjoyment.
That’s not what it’s been about. I am an outlaw who wins, and the winning is living a decent life without having fag hags like you ruling me.
As I said, if I were going to go on a political crusade, it would be to drive you and your Marxist colleagues out of the instructions they are destroying. I’m not a political crusader. At the age of almost 70, I’ve started a new career in classical music and I’m already employed as a accompanist for a couple of professional choral ensembles.
I have more sense than to be dragged into that shithole you like to drag men into. I’ve got better things to do.
Seriously: if they are old enough to decide if they want an abortion shouldn't we then consider that they are old enough to make sexual decisions for themselves?
In California girls can have an abortion without telling their parents, let alone getting permission, at any age.
In the days of easily accessible free porn and gore on the internet, I don't think Ren & Stimpy is that big of a problem.
I defeated a phalanx of HR fag hags in my career, prof.
The tech skills I possess allowed me to be a lifelong freelance and contractor, to always make six figures and to be able to walk into any city in the country and find work within a couple of days.
The HR fag hags tried to make my life hell, and they tried to get rid of me. Unfortunately for them, there was always another job, more money and they couldn’t control me.
I won over you and your fag hag cunt comrades in the best way possible. I didn’t argue logic with them. I made them irrelevant to my life. They couldn’t force me to salute their fag hag cunt flag.
And now I’m retired and untouchable. Choke on it.
"I defeated a phalanx of HR fag hags in my career, prof."
I have swatted mosquitos and stepped on ants.
You say you like logic: Do you know the name of the logical fallacy you committed?
The Simpsons through Itchy and Scratchy is probably the ultimate inspiration of Ren and Stimpy, as Chuck alludes to, and so also for South Park and others.
Beloved? It's ALL just entertainment to take our minds off our impending doom.
Proving shit to fag hags is just another trap you’re trying to spring.
You’re clever. I’m not buying.
I’m going to spend the weekend playing in the backyard with a mess of grandkids.
What are you doing?
It’s fascinating to meet a man who won’t buy any of your bullshit, isn’t it?
I have three sisters.
I grew up playing these games. There is no new game you can spring on me.
The best way to fight these kinds of accusations is to get in front of them.
So, all you male political liberals working in tech and show biz, make a list of women who might accuse you of sexual harassment and hold a press conference. At the press conference, name names. Accuse your harassers directly, forcefully, and fearfully. Explain how you "felt pressured" to to show them your penis and masturbate in front of them, say rude things to them, and submit to receiving oral sex from them.
Don't be afraid. #TimesUp.
The cartoon always presented a deliberately ugly, in-your-face challenge to common decency.
"Challenging", eh? If you say so. I found the cartoon so visually repulsive at first glance that I never paid any more attention to it.
""Challenging", eh? If you say so. I found the cartoon so visually repulsive at first glance that I never paid any more attention to it."
In other words, it challenged you, and your response was I am disgusted and will not consume this.
That's like someone walking out on Lenny Bruce because he used dirty words. It's what I mean by challenging common decency.
You have the conventional values he is flouting for effect, and you had one of the most conventional reactions.
The people who love the material have different responses, including, I'm not like those ordinary people who can't take this, or this breaks open the conventions and creates a new perspective from which we will see more clearly.
Shouting Thomas:
I defeated a phalanx of HR fag hags in my career, prof.
The tech skills I possess allowed me to be a lifelong freelance and contractor, to always make six figures and to be able to walk into any city in the country and find work within a couple of days.
The HR fag hags tried to make my life hell, and they tried to get rid of me. Unfortunately for them, there was always another job, more money and they couldn’t control me.
I won over you and your fag hag cunt comrades in the best way possible. I didn’t argue logic with them. I made them irrelevant to my life. They couldn’t force me to salute their fag hag cunt flag.
And now I’m retired and untouchable. Choke on it.
Yeah, we know, ST. You've told us all about it, about 100 times now.
Old bar-room bloviators who are too fond of talking about themselves and hearing themselves talk are boring and pathetic, even to people who agreed with them - many hours and many more drinks ago - about whatever it is they're so bombastically droning on about.
It's OK, grandpa. Anybody in the pub annoyed at your loud gassing on (same shit every night) has to be a fag hag or a soyboy, right?
"It’s fascinating to meet a man who won’t buy any of your bullshit, isn’t it?"
You find yourself fascinating, which doesn't strike me as either fascinating manly. Why not take a selfie and post it on Instagram?
Your theories don't even make any sense. Do you see anyone else here chiming in, declaring that you've said something astute? Do you think it's because you've said it so well that there's nothing to add? Do you see anyone else ranting about my Marxism — even once, let alone repetitiously? But I guess you'll decide that's because you're the only one with the guts to say it.
LOL. I owe Angel-Dyne a Coke.
AA: In other words, it challenged you, and your response was I am disgusted and will not consume this.
Lol. "Challenging" is one of the favorite words of adolescent provacateur-wannabees. It's a good predictor that some mediocrity thinks his uninteresting "perspective" is going to totally blow the minds of the cowardly, comfortable, bourgeois sheep, man.
The world is full of books and art that might tell me something I don't already know, or push me into a new perspective on things. But there isn't world enough and time to experience them all. Somebody who has a visually repulsive style might be producing one of those things, but that his style is visually repulsive is no predictor of that. So I think I can safely take a pass on this bit of pop culture.
But you sure do get bent out of shape and teenager-foot-stampy when people don't agree with you about the import of things you consider "challenging", even via the most offhand comments.
That's like someone walking out on Lenny Bruce because he used dirty words. It's what I mean by challenging common decency.
By "challenging common decency" you apparently mean "people evaluate what might or might not be worth their time by different criteria than I do".
Do you ever notice your own tendency to barricade yourself in "common decency" whenever you're "challenged" to examine a different perspective on your own sacred cows? (See, e.g., American race relations.)
You have the conventional values he is flouting for effect, and you had one of the most conventional reactions.
Yeah, I thought something you liked was gross and stupid and judged it not worth my time. When you start addressing your commenters like a teenager addressing his mother, it's time to re-evaluate your own reactions, prof.
Btw, what are my "conventional values" of which you speak, Althouse? Value for value, I'd bet my "values" are a whole hell of a lot less conventional than yours. (If you'll forgive the swing into chest-beating Shouting Thomas style here, lol.)
There is no Hell!!!?
I have a theory that in the afterlife, you have a choice. You can go off and kill the sinners. Or you can be peaceful and joyful. It's up to you.
And if you decide to go off and kill the sinners? All the angels pat you on the back. And you go down to hell to kill the sinners.
We choose our own hells.
ST brings new meaning to the phrase, "I'm Catholic."
One of my favorite HR fag hag stories.
I worked directly for a senior partner at one of the top NYC law firms. He routinely called me at home and asked me to meet him in whatever city where he was litigating. I was his tech guy. I didn’t even see the home office for several years.
My actual supervisor was an HR fag hag who finally got pissed off that the partner was calling me directly, so she told me to stand down and called the partner to try to assert her authority.
He told her to mind her own business or get fired.
Good times, huh?
You see competence and hard skills triumph over bullshit opinion when money is on the line in business.
Can’t get the bit out of your mouth, huh, prof? Like all fag hags, this S&M game is what’s really important to you. That’s why you’re a bullshit Marxist feminist. I don’t have to kiss fag hag ass, Althouse. Never did. My skills made it impossible to control me. Infuriating and fascinating, huh? You didn’t know that we men could imagine such a strategy, did you?
I’m as clever as you. Moreso, really. I worked with your heroes in the rock business. They couldn’t control me either.
So, yeah, I am fascinating. I know how to keep your boot off my throat, Ann. As I said, choke on it.
As for the Catholic stuff...
The Church made a mistake when it let the fag hags out of the nunnery. They were in the right place and they did a good job there.
Fag hags like Althouse belong in the nunnery where they don’t fuck things up and they obey a priest.
Don’t worry. We’ll return to that. Althouse and the other fag hags don’t know when to stop. They can’t stop reminding us why they were in the nunnery or why the fags were in the closet.
"You’re a fag hag. You are deliberately and openly in favor of faggotizing and undermining men. And you’re worried about an adult man who has a sexual interest in women who are child bearing age. Your values are as perverted and bizarre as can be."
The plain unvarnished truth. One of the most perceptive comments you will ever see here.
Thank you.
Is Rick and Morty todays Ren and Stimpy?
Apples and oranges. Ren and Stimpy was just abject looniness with no real storytelling and I loved it for that. Rick and Morty has some seriously good storytelling (albeit usually with a low-brow voice) and I love it for that.
When did this site get taken over by the Roy Moore fan club?
I think Shouting Thomas is an old fashioned 1940's/1950's style Catholic like me.
A Pat Buchanan/Father Coughlin Catholic.
What used to be the mainstream of Catholicism in the United States.
You are right readering. It should remain the playground of homosexual pedophiles.
Sorry for harshing the vibe.
Area man remains disgruntled.
The best thing to come out of Ren and Stimpy is the painter William Wray. A industrial landscape version of Walter Tandy Murch.
"Don't forget to smash the state kiddies!". Sadly it has come to be.
Blogger langford peel said...
I think Shouting Thomas is an old fashioned 1940's/1950's style Catholic like me...It should remain the playground of homosexual pedophiles.
You can control some of the lizard brain some of the time, but you can't control all of the lizard brain all of the time.
Whats the problem Howie?
The Church has long had a problem with homosexual pedophiles. That is what brought shame and scandal and financial ruin.
This is what you get when you normalize homosexuality. Which has long been the focus of this blog. It lead to the first dissolution of the commentariat.
The homosexual cabal kept heteros out of the priesthood. The gay mafia promoted and protected gay priests who were at the crux of the sexual abuse scandal.
It perverted the basic foundation of the Church. We are suffering the effects to this very day.
If the Church had shunned gays it would not be as wounded as it is in America. Witness the Church in Africa and China. They have gone back to basics. We could take a lesson.
The homosexual cabal kept heteros out of the priesthood.
You went full retard. Never go full retard.
"I have a theory that in the afterlife, you have a choice. You can go off and kill the sinners. Or you can be peaceful and joyful. It's up to you.
"And if you decide to go off and kill the sinners? All the angels pat you on the back. And you go down to hell to kill the sinners.
"We choose our own hells."
Clever.
You think that is retarded?
You obviously don't know much about the history of the seminary in the 1970's and 1980's.
I personally know two men who were rejected from the priesthood during that time. One an ex-NYPD cop and the other had retired from the Air Force. They became deacons in their local churches. How is it that they are good enough to be deacons but not worthy of the priesthood.
Here is an interesting article on the gay mafia and the Catholic Church from The Catholic Voice.
An except from the Article:
The Vatican and the Gay Mafia
That is how one might image a homosexual subculture was formed. Now to the piecing together snippets of evidence from the Vatican.
In 2005 Pope Benedict asked the faithful to pray for him that he may not flee for “fear of the wolves". He also spoke of a “powerful gay lobby” at work in the highest levels of the Vatican. Pope Francis has referred to it too, so we know it exists. Furthermore, Pope Benedict’s instinct, in the wake of the abuse crisis, was to insist that men of “deep seated homosexual tendency” should be barred from the priesthood. A suggestion that he understood the true nature of the sex abuse crimes was not, in fact, pedophilic but homosexual.
Pope Benedict’s conclusion, unsurprisingly, was unpopular with the secular press who still refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence about the homosexual nature of the abuses And so Pope Benedict was pilloried for categorically upholding the Church’s doctrine on homosexuality. It is likely that Pope Benedict’s actions galvanized the powerful “Gay Mafia” to act against him. Clearly the secular world and its media, in the wake of the rainbow revolution, was in their pocket.
This is why you have a new Pope while the real Pope is still alive.
The stories from the seminaries in the 60s and 70s and 80s are horrifying.
The Church has paid a devastating price for falling for 60s liberation theology and sexual liberation theology.
Pope John Paul II finally put his foot down in Nicaragua. We need a pope with his courage and conviction now.
Strangely enough that Pope will most likely come from Africa.
The Lord moves in mysterious ways.
From the very first time I encountered Shouty Tom on this blog...years ago now...I knew he had a screw loose. Tom, for someone as accomplished in so many fields as you that you can name your own ticket--and I'm not questioning you on this at all--you seem awfully fucking angry and bent out of shape over nothing all the time.
What's the problem? Why so angry? Why so abusive?
I like Henry Miller, too, and he always had a joy of life about him. I think he would shrink from you, aghast.
You're more like Celine, but without his genius.
An avowed Marxist is unhappy with what I have to say!
Thank you, God.
I hope you continue to be unhappy with what I have to say.
Opposing the evil you represent is a good thing and has nothing to do with your bullshit litany of complaints about me.
I want to see you defeated and to see everything you stand for demolished.
I don’t justify myself to enemies.
Kricfalusi's hero was Warner Bros. animation director Bob Clampett, whose best cartoon of the 1940s contained some disturbing images for the day, but the characters' extreme reactions always came out of the personalities of the characters. But most of his cartoons end up not mirroring Clampett, but his former boss, Ralph Bakshi, who would take reactions to excess for no other reason than he could, whether or not it fit the personality or not.
That's where most of Ren & Stimpy ended up -- the best episodes, like "Stimpy's Invention" based the extreme reactions of the characters' personalities; the worst simply did gross-out gags for the shock value alone, which gets old (and boring) pretty quickly
"I don’t justify myself to enemies."
No, you just troll her blog ranting abusive, semi-coherent non sequiturs.
Dude, maybe you need a check up or something. There could be something wrong.
Angle-Dyne, Angelic Buzzard said...
AA: In other words, it challenged you, and your response was I am disgusted and will not consume this.
Lol. "Challenging" is one of the favorite words of adolescent provacateur-wannabees. It's a good predictor that some mediocrity thinks his uninteresting "perspective" is going to totally blow the minds of the cowardly, comfortable, bourgeois sheep, man.
The Emperor's New Clothes. Put it another way, if Althouse doesn't take it up the ass and suck dick, she must be square.
I've watched Ren & Stimpy; I value the art, and believe I see what he's doing, but it is in fact at the raggedy edge of my gag reflex, and is an effort to watch, and if I am the lesser for not liking to watch the disgusting, very well, I am the lesser. Some of his best art is in the gross-outs. I guess it's not surprising that he would be a deviant elsewhere.
I have had a 16 year old girlfriend.
I didn't know better; I was 16 myself.
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