TV Review

Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon (2003)

Reviewed by Ken Tucker | Jul 08, 2003

Ken Tucker

Ken Tucker is critic-at-large for EW

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EW's GRADE

Details Start Date: Jun 26, 2003

$DRAWN OF A NEW ERA The new \'\'Ren & Stimpy\'\' revives the gross-out spirit of the early-\'90s fave Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon$

Image credit: Ren and Stimpy: The New TNN

DRAWN OF A NEW ERA The new ''Ren & Stimpy'' revives the gross-out spirit of the early-'90s fave

In the early '90s, wild-man writer-animator John Kricfalusi created Ren (the scrawny, mean-eyed Chihuahua) and Stimpy (the simpleminded, rotund cat) to break different barriers of good taste, and Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon, a revival on TNN, is a cascade of mucus, saliva, vomit, and back-door poo-poo exit jokes. (Let's just say the premiere gives the phrase ''rat's ass'' new pungency.) Kricfalusi's style is ingeniously disgusting, an animated throwback reminiscent of director Frank Tashlin's 1940s-era cartoons. And Kricfalusi indulges the weirdly asexual-yet-homosexual relationship between Ren and Stimpy. (Comic-strip aficionados will recognize that R&S's unfulfilled attraction is a cruder echo of the one between George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse.)

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Originally posted Jul 08, 2003 Published in issue #718 Jul 11, 2003 Order article reprints

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