Hermit Ren

"Hermit Ren"
The Ren & Stimpy Show episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 1
Directed by	Chris Reccardi
Story by	Bob Camp Jim Gomez Chris Reccardi Bill Wray
Production code	RS-314
Original air date	October 1, 1994 (1994-10-01)
Episode chronology
← Previous "Lair of the Lummox" Next → "House of Next Tuesday"
List of episodes

"Hermit Ren" is the first episode of the fourth season of The Ren & Stimpy Show . It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on October 1, 1994.

Plot

Ren and Stimpy live in a house fashioned from an upside-down dead cow. While an abnormally stupid Stimpy plays his accordion, a mentally wrecked Ren takes a taxi home from work, which crashes at his doorstep; he also has to chase their neighbor's dog off their lawn. He is revealed to be involuntarily terminated (as shown by a pink slip) and is harassed for it.

Ren eats dinner, overcooked chicken which Stimpy forgot in the kitchen, which burns his tongue greatly; Stimpy cools Ren's tongue with rotten milk. Ren is even more outraged and demands to be left alone. Ren decides to shave his beard, only for Stimpy to use his razor to hammer a portrait Ren had dropped at the beginning of the episode into the wall. The blunt razor shaves Ren's chin off, which alongside him stepping on the accordion, Stimpy being stupid, a cartoon on the television and the ringing telephone drives him crazy. Ren decides to leave Stimpy forever, departing with his belongings but not before returning the accordion.

Ren joins the Hermit Union, where he is granted a cave on the condition that he receives no sunlight, does not bathe and does not make any friends. He revels in the idea of peace, solitude and no Stimpy. He finds a mummy, whom he intends to abuse, not before he announces the things he will do in the cave. Meanwhile, Stimpy foolishly bakes his accordion, believing Ren will come back.

Seven months later, Ren had spent his days playing games with himself and stacking stones on top of each other to spend time while the mummy keeping him from going too insane as his imaginary friend. Hungry and malnourished, he decides to find food, with his delusions confusing bats with a cow's udder; he attempts to milk the "cow", much to the bats' discomfort. Ren confuses a rock with a relative of his, Old Man Farmer Höek, whose illusion mockingly convinces Ren to scavenge for food. Ren eats mushrooms and fungi on rocks as well as insects resting under rocks. Stimpy has also gone crazy from Ren's absence, making a statue of him out of earwax.

Ren's mental health substantially worsens; he hears water dripping down envisions his hands melting, torturous visions from his lack of company. He relieves his emotions on a pile of dirt , only for it to resemble Stimpy; he is overjoyed, but is chastised by delusions of the mummy speaking, who mocks him for playing with dirt. He tells Ren to envision his emotions of anger, fear and ignorance (an intellectually disabled being which resembles Stimpy) as his company. Ren "plays" blackjack with them, who either refuse to cooperate or does not understand the game. He threatens to harm them and destroys the mummy in the process, only to be discovered by the Union's leader Jasper, who is delusional enough to be able to see the three emotions; he kicks Ren out for this "companionship". Ren's delusions, the bats and the Union member who led him to his cave salute him as he leaves. Ren returns home where he discovers Stimpy and his Ren statue. They embrace, with both statues doing the same, ending the episode.

A short "Untamed World" interstitial airs after the episode. Stimpy has replaced Ren as host after he was killed by a pair of "Peruvian boot weasels" some time after Lair of the Lummox. He "spots various species of geezers", in fact invading the privacy of old people including Wilbur Cobb at a retirement home. He invites viewers to join in next week where he finishes his taxidermy of Ren. Due to the interstitial's extremely short length (4 minutes), it is not designated as an episode despite being the only short produced in the season.

Cast

• Ren – voice of Billy West
• Stimpy – voice of Billy West
• Jasper – voice of Harris Peet
• The Salesman – voice of Billy West
• The Bogman – voice of Billy West

Production

The story for "Hermit Ren" was conceived by Chris Reccardi, who wanted to do more dramatic cartoons via stylized drawings. It is one of the few episodes with prominent contribution from Reccardi after the series moved from Spümcø to Games Animation. ^[1] Reccardi stated in an interview that "Hermit Ren was "a great idea for a story that I wish I had another crack at". ^[1] Reccardi was assisted in his layout drawings by his wife Lynne Naylor and John Kricfalusi's former protégé Michael Kim. ^[2] Reccardi composed much of the music used in "Hermit Ren" at his own home as he wanted the music in the episode to reflect Ren's deteriorating mental condition. ^[3] "Hermit Ren" was atypical of the cartoons done at the Games Animation studio and was closer in spirit to the cartoons done by the Spümcø studio where Reccardi, Naylor and Kim had all started out working at. ^[2] The American critic Thad Komorowski summed up the message of "Hermit Ren" that "Ren learns – through self-torture – that, to maintain his well-being, he needs to unleash his misanthropic personality upon others. With no Stimpy, he has only himself for company; without that balance, he is even more unhinged". ^[2] Billy West, who provided the voice of Ren in this episode, recalled that Reccardi was a director "ardent about what he wanted" and "I think he looked at a lot of his own expressions, because I would see his face now and then in the characters, where the teeth kind of go down and the jaw's out". ^[3]

Reception

Komorowski gave the episode four out of five stars, and wrote: "This well-written and staged cartoon illustrates how Ren is probably the most complex and mentally challenged cartoon character in history". ^[4]

Books and articles

• Dobbs, G. Michael (2015). Escape – How Animation Broke into the Mainstream in the 1990s. Orlando: BearManor Media. ISBN   978-1593931100.
• Komorowski, Thad (2017). Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media. ISBN   978-1629331836.

References

1. Komorowski 2017, p. 290.
2. Komorowski 2017, p. 291.
3. Komorowski 2017, p. 292.
4. Komorowski 2017, p. 397–398.