Ren's Retirement

"Ren's Retirement"
The Ren & Stimpy Show episode
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 11
Directed by	Bob Camp
Written by	Jim Gomez Ron Hauge Bill Wray
Production code	RS-311
Original air date	April 2, 1994 (1994-04-02)
Guest appearances
Jack Carter as Wilbur Cobb Alan Young as Haggis MacHaggis
Episode chronology
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List of episodes

"Ren's Retirement" is the eleventh episode of the third season of The Ren & Stimpy Show . It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on April 2, 1994.

Plot

Stimpy makes a birthday cake for Ren, who returns home after chopping firewood. Ren demonstrates his strength by juggling heavy objects and tearing their sofa apart, thinking he is at his prime; he saves Mrs. Buttloaves after she and a bus to The Bronx falls onto the house. It is revealed to be Ren's tenth birthday (70 years in human years); Ren, being in denial of his old age, trying to make himself feel better, but his body continuously deteriorates from the excessive strength he had used without this knowledge. He forces the cake into Stimpy, who feels unwell from overeating and vomits it all. Ren is horrified by his appearance, but could not make himself hit Stimpy.

Stimpy tries to feed a senile Ren; Ren, having suffered from suppressed post-traumatic stress disorder, believes it to be an actual battle, spitting food everywhere. Stimpy is covered with the food, which makes Ren confuse him with a Colonel he knew; he tries to strangle Stimpy to no avail.

The next day, Stimpy tries to introduce golf to Ren. He hits the ball, hitting Ren twice in the process, only for it to hit Haggis MacHaggis in the head. Stimpy lets Ren try golf, with Haggis believing Ren to have maimed him; as Ren does not respond, he pours all of his golf clubs onto his mouth as retribution. Stimpy continues to golf while Ren sits aside, noting the beauty of the nearby graveyard while complementing the Grim Reaper as his friend.

The duo go to the nearby mortuary, where Stimpy demands a coffin for Ren. The Salesman is not satisfied with their budget of 5 dollars, so he orders his assistant Kowalski to stuff Ren in a newspaper and run him over; per Stimpy's demands for a more traditional method, Ren is stuffed into an almond opener. Ren is dissatisfied and assaults the Salesman, who reluctantly allows him to bury him in an apartment that resembles a coffin, advertised by Chippendales dancers.

A "funeral" for Ren is held, where Stimpy and Chippendales dancers cry while Wilbur Cobb directs; he is similarly senile and cannot direct it properly, but revels in the fact he will outlive everyone else in the ceremony. Unable to cope without Ren, Stimpy moves in to the coffin with all their belongings. The apartment is buried under Ren's gravestone, where they live a peaceful life, but a worm comes in to devour the duo's innards; the duo barely survive, ending the episode.

Cast

• Ren – voice of Billy West
• Stimpy – voice of Billy West
• Haggis MacHaggis – voice of Alan Young
• The Salesman – voice of Billy West
• Wilbur Cobb-voice of Jack Carter
• The Worm – voice of Billy West

Production

The episode originated in 1993 when Bill Wray declared that he would "really love to do a feature-length animated horror film". ^[1] Wray's desire to do a horror-filmed episode became "Ren's Retirement". ^[1] Much of the episode was based on the body horror genre as Ren experiences a horrific body decay as he ages and is finally eaten alive by a worm. ^[1] A sequence intended for the beginning where Ren wins a bar fight – which was meant to show Ren's strength and vitality – was removed from storyboards by the network, which felt that the subject of drinking was inappropriate. ^[1] The network executives disliked the drawings by Lynne Naylor and those influenced by her that featured curvaceous women as "the exploitation of women". ^[1] In response, the animators who drew "Ren's Retirement" gave Ren a coffin that vaguely resembles the body of a shapely woman. ^[1] The voice actor Billy West recalled: "The guys drawing the funeral goers as window dressing; instead of women, they put Chippendales dancers wherever they could, the Full Monty except for a little thong. And they [the executives] were satisfied, 'Look, that's Ok'. But then they realized after it was made, when it was on TV: "AHHHHHHHH!!! What have we done?". This is also the first episode since "The Big Shot!" to involve Lynne Naylor, as she had left Spümcø during production, returning to the series in this episode as a background artist. Her only directorial effort on the series was the "You Are What You Eat!" segment aired during this episode. ^[2]

Reception

American journalist Thad Komorowski gave the episode two-and-a-half out of four stars. He noted that Bill Wray's macabre style gave the episode its brilliant moments, but it suffered by trying to be as repellent and shocking as what John Kricfalusi would have done. ^[3]

Books

• 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. 275.
2. Komorowski 2017, p. 275–277.
3. Komorowski 2017, p. 277.