Remember The Ren & Stimpy Show? If you grew up in the ‘90s and stayed up past your bedtime, there’s a good chance you would’ve watched Ren – an emotionally unstable Chihuahua and Stimpy – a dimwitted cat on one of their many weird and wonderful adventures.
Ren & Stimpy quickly gained a cult following after it premiered on Nickelodeon in 1991, but it also attracted a fair amount of controversy. The show was not ‘educational’, much to Nickelodeon’s bother – and at times, it featured religious and political references, not to mention some pretty gruesome, violent and suggestive scenes that were eventually shortened or completely removed to make it PG.
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Even though these parts of the show were removed, Ren & Stimpy was still pretty messed up for a kid’s show – here’s proof:
Scenes of a Graphic Nature
One of Ren & Stimpy’s trademarks was the cartoon’s macabre, weird and gruesome imagery. In one hair-raising scene, Ren slowly plucks nerve-endings out of his toothless gums. In another, he beats a man senseless with a huge wooden paddle. Other scenes, which were eventually removed, show Ren’s face being grated against a man’s stubble, and another showed the Chihuahua being punched in the stomach by two angry babies.
Sexual References
Then there were all the bizarre sexual references in Ren & Stimpy. Like, when the father of a random family answers the door naked, and Ren and Stimpy end up in a bath with said random family. One of the most memorable moments from Ren & Stimpy has to be when Ren attempts to saw a piece of wood positioned on Stimpy’s back, and well, things get very suggestive.
Just Plain Cooked
Some other scenes from Ren & Stimpy that have been burned in our childhood memories include the one where the characters go skinny dipping and remove their skin. Or when a character in the show grates his elbow, before adding lemon and salt to the wound.
Looking back, it’s hard to believe how this show was allowed to go to air on a kid’s TV channel but it has most definitely gone down as one of the most iconic cartoons in TV history.
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