Out West (The Ren & Stimpy Show)

"**Out West**"
"Out West"
The Ren & Stimpy Show episode
Episode no.	Season 2; Episode 4
Directed by	Bob Camp
Story by	John Kricfalusi ; Bob Camp
Production code	RS5-4B
Original air date	August 29, 1992
Episode chronology
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	List of episodes

Last updated March 26, 2024

Out West is the 4th episode of the second season of The Ren & Stimpy Show that originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on 29 August 1992.

Plot

In a remote town in the American Southwest some time in the 19th century the law is represented by two stereotypical "yahoos", the brutalist, ignorant, moronic Sheriff Abner Dimwit and his equally asinine and brutal Deputy Sheriff Ewalt Nitwit. The principle interest of Dimwit and Nitwit in life is hanging people for their sadistic amusement. Bored as there is no else left to hang, the duo are delighted when two outlaws Ren aka Three-Fingered Höek and his sidekick Stimpy aka Stupid the Kid arrive in their town. Despite the wanted posters of Ren and Stimpy, Dimwit and Nitwit fail to recognize them. Urged on by Abner and Ewalt to commit a crime to provide them with an excuse to hang them, Ren and Stimpy steal the sheriff's obese wife and then Mr. Horse. Even then, Dimit and Nitwit fail to understand what was happening and Mr. Horse has to explain to them that he has been stolen. Dimwit and Nitwit attempt to hang Ren and Stimpy, but fail. Out of desperation to hang someone, Dimwit and Nitwit hang themselves. As they slowly suffocate to death, they join Ren and Stimpy in singing a song in praise of the joys of hanging people entitled "The Lord Loves a Hanging, That's Why He Gave Us Necks".

Cast

Ren-voice of John Kricfalusi
Stimpy-voice of Billy West
Mr. Horse-voice of John Kricfalusi
Abner Dimwit-voice of Jim Smith
Ewalt Nitwit-voice of Bob Camp

Production

The episode was approved by the Nickelodeon network in November 1991 with a premiere set for August 1992. Bob Camp who co-wrote the story for Out West later complained about censorship as there were scenes "cut out for one reason or another and we had had to make last-minute substitutions so it wasn't quite as funny".^[1] Production at the Spümcø studio was divided between the prestigious "A" productions directed personally by the showrunner John Kricfalusi which received more time and larger budgets vs. the less prestigious "B" productions directed by Bob Camp which received less time and lower budgets.^[1] Unlike the "A' productions headed by the perfectionist Kricfalusi, the "B" productions headed by Camp moved forward at a swifter pace and were completed on time.^[2] Camp stated he saved time because: "I storyboarded straight ahead, full size on layout paper, that's doing layout and storyboard at the same. Someone would take all the scenes and make a storyboard out of it, and we would do lay-out".^[2]Out West came in slightly under budget owing to Camp's production methods.^[3] The process of drawing in the scenes for Out West was done at the Carbunkle studio of Vancouver in the spring of 1992.^[3] When it aired in 1992, the Nickelodeon network censored the scene where Abner and Ewalt placed the nooses around their necks along with Ewalt's line "y'all bring the kids next time, ya hear!"^[4]

Reception

The American journalist Thad Komorowski criticized Out West for its "peculiarly sluggish pacing" as he complained that there were too many scenes meant to establish the stupidity of Abner and Ewalt that consisted of them staring blankly into space as they struggled to understand the simplest of concepts that were severely "taxing" for the audience.^[5]

Books

Dobbs, G. Michael (2015). Escape – How Animation Broke into the Mainstream in the 1990s. Orlando: BearManor Media. ISBN 1593931107.
Komorowski, Thad (2017). Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. BearManor Media.

Related Research Articles

The Ren & Stimpy Show, commonly referred to as simply Ren & Stimpy, is an American comedy animated television series created by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi for Nickelodeon. Originally produced by Spümcø, the series aired from August 11, 1991, to December 16, 1995, spanning a total of five seasons and 52 episodes. The series follows the misadventures of Ren Höek, an emotionally unstable and psychopathic chihuahua dog; and Stimpy, a good-natured and dimwitted Manx cat. It is the third cartoon to be aired of the original three Nickelodeon animated series known as "Nicktoons", alongside Doug and Rugrats, and is considered to be one of the progenitor series of the brand.

Spümcø, Inc. was an American animation studio that was active from 1989 to 2005 and based in Los Angeles, California. The studio was best known for working on the first two seasons of The Ren & Stimpy Show for Nickelodeon and for various commercials. The studio won several awards, including an Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject for the music video of the song "I Miss You" by Björk.

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References

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[FOOTNOTEKomorowski2017151-1] 1 2 Komorowski 2017, p. 151.

[FOOTNOTEKomorowski2017160-2] 1 2 Komorowski 2017, p. 160.

[FOOTNOTEKomorowski2017161-3] 1 2 Komorowski 2017, p. 161.

[FOOTNOTEKomorowski2017366-4] Komorowski 2017, p. 366.

[FOOTNOTEKomorowski2017162-5] Komorowski 2017, p. 162.

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