Big Baby Scam

"Big Baby Scam"
The Ren & Stimpy Show episode
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 9
Directed by	Vincent Waller
Story by	Vincent Waller
Production code	RS5-9B
Original air date	December 12, 1992 (1992-12-12)
Episode chronology
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Big Baby Scam is the 9th episode of the second season of The Ren & Stimpy Show that originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on 12 December 1992.

Plot

Ren and Stimpy are once again homeless and starving. Upon seeing two babies in a crib, Ren tells Stimpy that the life of a baby is a pampered one. He devises a scheme where he will bribe the two infants to leave and that he and Stimpy will take their places. He contacts the two twin brothers, Shawn and Eugene, who are portrayed as being like gangsters who agree to leave in exchange for $50. Ren and Stimpy take the place of Shawn and Eugene. The parents of the two boys, the perpetually clueless couple Mr. and Mrs. Pipe, are apparently incapable of noticing that their sons have been replaced by a dog and cat. Ren discovers that the life of a baby is not what he expected and is subjected to various humiliations at the hands of the Pipes. A policeman brings back Shawn and Eugene Pipe and exposes the scam. Ren asks for the return of his "50" and receives it when the two brothers give him 50 punches.

Cast

• Ren-voice of John Kricfalusi
• Stimpy-voice of Billy West
• Mrs. Pipe-voice of Cheryl Chase
• Mr. Pipe-voice of Billy West
• Shawn Pipe-voice of Harris Peet
• The policeman-voice of Billy West
• Eugene Pipe-voice of Harris Peet

Production

The episode was directed by Vincent Waller who drew the episode largely by himself. ^[1] Production on Big Baby Scam was so troubled and over-budget that the lay-out stage of production that was normally done at the Spümcø studio in Los Angeles was assigned to the Rough Draft Korea studio in Seoul as a cost-saving measure. ^[2] Waller went to South Korea to supervise the lay-out work and had the task completed in three weeks. ^[2] The episode was heavily censored by the Nickelodeon which removed the scene of the nude "family bath" where Ren stares intendedly at the breasts of Mrs. Pipe along with the scene where Mr. Pipe rubs Ren across his facial stubble. ^[3]

Reception

The British critic Becky Barnicoat wrote that The Ren & Stimpy Show was "confounding" when it first aired in the United Kingdom in 1994 on the BBC, writing it featured a level of violence and vulgarity not seen in any cartoon aired on British television before. ^[4] Barnicoat used the nude "family bath" scene in Big Baby Scam (which was not censored in the United Kingdom) as an example of how revolutionary The Ren & Stimpy Show was as there had never been a cartoon with scenes such as that aired before. ^[4] The American critic Shuan Scott praised the episode as "a deeply skeptical look at the price of human life under modern capitalism" as he noted that Mr. Pipe and Mrs. Pipe are so "inattentive" parents that they did not even notice when a dog and a cat replace their sons while the Pipe boys are portrayed as "money-grubbing thugs who accept a quick pay-off over a lasting relationship with their parents". ^[5]

Books

• Klickstein, Matthew; Summers, Marc (2013). Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age. London: Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN   9781101614099.
• Komorowski, Thad (2017). Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media. ISBN   978-1629331836.
• Scott, Shaun (2018). Millennials and the Moments That Made Us: A Cultural History of the U.S. from 1982-Present. New York: Zero Books. ISBN   178535583X.

References

1. Komorowski 2017, p. 171.
2. Komorowski 2017, p. 170.
3. Komorowski 2017, p. 370.
4. Barnicoat, Becky (11 February 2011). "Your next box set: The Ren and Stimpy Show Unleashed". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 March 2024.
5. Scott 2018, p. 273.