When does Violence in Comedy go too far?- Exploring The Ren and Stimpy Show

The 60s-80s Animation had become cheap content that was for kids, lacking in quality and following the numbers but in the early 90's came “The Ren and Stimpy Show”. Created for Nickelodeon by animator John Kricfalusi, some said the show changed the genre of animation forever and continues to influence it to this day. Ren and Stimpy was widely successful, displaying visual animation which was expressive whilst delivering on gross out and slapstick humour. Despite this, the show saw a decline in quality once Nickelodeon fired John K for constantly missing deadlines. In 2003, John K would later come back to create the show but this time for TV network ‘Spike’ under the name ‘Ren and Stimpy “Adult Party Cartoon”’. This show was widely disliked by audiences, due to its unpleasant use of Slapstick humour and violence for the adult demographic it was intended for and this led me to wonder, what makes slapstick humour funny and when can it be to much and I will be investigating exactly that.

What made the original series of Ren and Stimpy so funny was how imaginative the concepts were, expressing slapstick and visual comedy, through extreme methods of animation, snappy dialogue, and ridiculous scenarios. Ren and Stimpy was also famous for its gross out comedy, displaying disgusting images through realism and over exaggeration. The methods that Ren and Stimpy displayed really pushed animation to its limits and led to a show which both grown-ups and children would watch. Due to Ren and Stimpy being a children’s cartoon it had to know when to draw the line with its comedy so that it was accepted by regulatory bodies and this led to creatives being a lot cleverer with what they could and couldn’t show, pushing the humour of children’s cartoons to it’s limits.
I wanted to look at a clip from an episode of the show titled ‘Sven Höek’ in which Ren’s cousin Sven comes to visit leading to Ren’s frustration towards his cousin and Stimpy’s friendship. In the scene we see Ren come home after being at work. What works so well about this scene is the delivery of everything Ren says, the animator’s express anger and emotion through very over the top and fluid animations, which makes this scene both funny but also quite uncomfortable and scary. Once again as I’ve mentioned multiple times this idea of implying violent comedy is used multiple times within this scene, allowing for audiences to imagine the scenario rather than being shown it. In this case, what is funnier is seeing Ren explain these actions through facial expressions and body language and because it is so over the top and visual it funnier than seeing this over exaggerated violence. This idea is further developed, when we see the house blow up and the characters have died, realistically the subject matter of this event should be terrifying, but it isn’t due to comedic timing and absurdity of what the devil says alongside the cutting to black with a silly jingle. The ending is somewhat abrupt but so absurd that it leaves the audience speechless and that’s what I think works so great about the slapstick comedy in Ren and Stimpy. The violence is used sparingly, either implied off screen or combined with very dramatic and exaggerated expressions that stays within the restrictions of children’s television and as I go on to talk about Ren and Stimpy ‘Adult Party cartoon’ I want to talk about how failed to hit the mark.

In terms of animation, the adult party cartoon visually still looks very good and is as expressive if not more so than that of the original show. The problem with the show’s use of violence is the delivery, often in the original show as well as other cartoons like Tom and Jerry, the slapstick comedy is used in a light-hearted manor in order to exaggerate violence in a way that it disjoints itself from reality and has fun with it. In the adult party cartoon, violence is often just used for the sake of being used and often feels a lot meaner spirited often ending in the death of a character. In the episode ‘The Altruist’ Ren and Stimpy go about a bunch of scenarios to help misfortunate people. This displays violence which just comes across as tasteless and mean spirited, for instance in one scene Ren and Stimpy are driving a truck full of logs, in which they run over and supposedly kill a turtle which is crossing the road and 10 seconds within this time frame Ren asks stimpy ‘how does it feel to do good deeds’ as he hits a man tied up in the back of his truck. I know the joke is meant to be that it juxtaposes with what is being said. This same humour is used more in the episode when a Duck character that the two have already beaten up is knocked out and Ren gets stimpy to kill him. I could say that the humour here is like the original in how doesn’t actually show the imagery of him being beaten to death yet here the actions of the characters are actually causing a character to be killed in a quite mean-spirited manner and it just leads to the characters to feel evil and unlikeable, which is far from the case in the old show. Yes, in the scene from the episode ‘Sven Hoek’ Ren is being mean spirited and threatening Stimpy and Sven but what is different about that scene is the delivery. We have this build-up of Ren coming home and to find his possessions broken and damaged, so although we don’t completely agree with his actions, we know why he is acting this way which in term leads to the comedic payoff of Ren’s death due to acting so aggressively. Whereas in this version, Ren and Stimpy are just doing acts of violence for the sake of making a slapstick joke, but this time it isn’t funny.

Looking at Ren and Stimpy has given me a deeper understanding of when violence in comedy is funny and when it goes too far. Violence only works in a cartoon if there is payoff to it and it often falls flat when just used for the sake of trying to make a good joke. Ren and Stimpy worked because it was a well crafted show that used restrictions to display slap stick comedy in a new and refreshing way and like Charlie Chaplin and Tom and Jerry, Ren and Stimpy knew exactly how to deliver this comedy in a satisfying and entertaining way.

Sources:

Heckelton, J. (2021) Ren and Stimpy's History: 30 Years Later

Available at: https://the-artifice.com/ren-stimpy/

(Accessed: 5.3.22)

George W. Bush (2020) Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2TO7gJDZxQ

(Accessed: 5.3.22)

I Suck At Gaming. (2016) Ren anger.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fZfEFumJBU

(Accessed: 5.3.22)

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