Insomniac Ren/My Shiny Friend

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Insomniac Ren/My Shiny Friend is an episode of Ren & Stimpy from the 4th season.

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Insomniac Ren

Air date: January 21st, 1995.

Story by: Bob Camp, Jim Gomez & Vince Calandra

Storyboard by: Tom McGrath

BG Color Design by: Scott Wills

Directed by: Steve Loter

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Ren, a pro-golfer, insists to Stimpy that they both need their rest for the six a.m. tee-off the following morning. While Ren is eager to get to sleep as soon as he can, he finds himself at the mercy of Stimpy's constant interruptions - such as noisy bathroom rituals, incessent fidgeting and obstreperous snoring.

Ren moves to the couch, but finds the comparative noiselessness just as infuriating. Driving himself to distraction by the sudden detail every unimportant thing seems to take on, he resolves to watch some television - but, typically, nothing is on.

Back in bed, Ren grows uneasily malevolent toward Stimpy, who is out like a light. Rousing his companion from dreams of unseemly motherhood, Ren confesses he cannot sleep and needs help. Stimpy is delighted and goes to the kitchen to make some warm milk - but is forced to improvise with none in the fridge. Although it proves initially effective, Ren finds himself at odds with Stimpy's alternative of camel phlegm.

Stimpy offers to read a bedtime story, although his choice proves to be a harrowing tale of nightmarish torment that has Ren more awake than ever. In a last ditch attempt, Stimpy opts to lull Ren to sleep with a cacophonous one-man-band interpretation of 'Rock-a-Bye Baby'. After hours of serenading, Stimpy passes out from tiredness, leaving Ren awake until morning. Ren and Stimpy's golfing buddies (Mr. Horse, Haggis MacHaggis and Muddy Mudskipper) arrive on time and are horrified to find Ren in bed and unrested. He offers them all five bucks to help him get to sleep and, with the aid of their golf clubs, they all happily oblige. They head out to play, leaving Ren in a comatose slumber.

Notes and Trivia:

• The opening scene depicts Stimpy's array of noisy bedtime bathroom rituals - prior episodes have opened with very similar scenes. In 'Ren's Toothache' (season one) Stimpy keeps Ren awake by laboriously brushing his teeth. In 'Blazing Entrails' (season four) an addled Stimpy wakes Ren up by dementedly torturing himself in the bathroom.
• The establishing shot of Ren and Stimpy's home is that of a mousehole, though by the morning they seem to live in a house with windows. Similar cartoonic licence was used in the season two episode 'Stimpy's Fan Club', where they lived in a caravan yet toward the end of the episode their front door was that of a suburban house.
• This is the first episode to feature Mr. Horse speaking since the firing of John K. From this episode onward (until the 'Adult Party Cartoon') he is voiced by Billy West.
• Before the transmission ends, the old fashioned sign-off is replaced with the flag of the USSR, with a foreign anthem playing in the background. It should be noted however, that different episodes give Ren and Stimpy's home to be in Hollywood,Yugoslavia.

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My Shiny Friend

Air date: January 21st, 1995.

Story by: Ron Hauge, Jim Gomez, Bill Wray & Bob Camp

Storyboard by: Bill Wray & Bob Camp

BG Paintings by: Bill Wray

Directed by: Bill Wray

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Stimpy has become addicted to television, much to the hard-working Ren's annoyance. Oblivious to the outside world, Stimpy's constant devotion to the TV nearly sees the house burn down around him - fortunately the firemen all share his obsession. The next morning when Ren realises that Stimpy has been awake all night glued to the screen, he demands that his friend engage in outdoor activity.

Upon discovering that Stimpy's interpretation of this advice is to watch TV in a tree, Ren buries the cursed box in the hope of stamping out the problem. After Stimpy proceeds to carry on watching underground, Ren destroys the set with a spade. After a bout of shameful, insane grief, Stimpy is slapped back to reality where he acknowledges that he had briefly lost the plot.

Believing everything to be back to normal, Ren and Stimpy carry on living life as it was before. Ren starts to suspect something is up, though, when Stimpy makes constant excuses to go to the bathroom. He bursts in on Stimpy privately watching shows from a television stashed in the toilet's cistern. Now a stammering wreck, having overdosed on cathode rays, Stimpy is impervious to help. Ren's only solution is to lock Stimpy in the basement.

Stimpy is forced to struggle through cold turkey, fending off nightmares of Muddy Mudskipper and television turning against him. A year passes, and Stimpy finally finds himself clean and rid of his crippling addiction. Ren proudly heads off to work, leaving Stimpy to indulge in his newfound love of gambling instead.

Notes and Trivia:

• Mr. Horse guest stars on the Muddy Mudskipper Show, although his catchphrase seems to have changed from 'No sir, I don't like it' to 'What are ya?' (which was Ren's final line in the prior episode 'The Scotsman In Space'). According to the DVD commentary for this episode, 'What are ya?' was a catchphrase of John Kricfalusi's when Spumco were in charge of 'Ren & Stimpy'.
• When the house nearly burns down an array of firemen join Stimpy for dinner - oddly enough not one of them is the circus-midget-hating Fire Chief.
• Among Ren and Stimpy's mantelpiece mementos is a picture of the duo with Wilbur Cobb (who has autographed it 'Love you guys, Cobb').
• The house in which Ren and Stimpy reside in this episode is structurally similar to an old-fashioned television.
• During Stimpy's nightmare the Muddy Mudskipper theme can be heard in the background - albeit slowed-down hauntingly.
• The segment in which Ren maniacally destroys the television is glimpsed on a television in a scene from the motion picture The Cable Guy.
• We find out in this episode that Ren gets tearful over Pavarotti. Another opera reference is in the scene where Ren cradles Stimpy while the television drips toilet water on him - this is an homage to Richard Wagner's epic "Der Ring des Nibelungen" (also parodied famously in the Warner Bros. short 'What's Opera, Doc?').
• During the scene when it shows the wall that has the throphys a little before the picture of Wilbur Cobb, If you look hard at the bottom, there is a picture of Ren kissing Stimpy.
• When Stimpy claims to go number three, Ren may have freaked out over that number three doesn't exist but in some cases, it means to masterbate.