A Positive Review on Ren Seeks Help

[Patty Rose]

Please Note: This is not a sarcastic review. This is a 100% opinion-based review on an episode that's considered the worst thing ever made. But in my opinion, I hugely disagree with that.

 

 

Ren Seeks Help. If you heard of this episode, chances are you watched Mr. Enter's review on it telling you how much it's the worst animated thing he has ever seen in his life, which I also watched. I was facepalming through out the whole review. So than I thought, maybe I should check it out and see how if it actually is bad. So I watched it and..... I enjoyed it. Seriously I did. I didn't think it was a masterpiece of anything, but it was fun to watch and really did make me laugh at times. But before I can go into full detail, I think I'd best talk about the history of Ren and Stimpy's Adult Party Cartoon.

 

 

Around 2003, the newly launched Spike TV were looking at making adult versions of existing Nicktoons show. They pitched to the shows creaters and Nickelodeon to make this happen, and all of them denied to. Except for John Kricfalusi, the creator of Ren & Stimpy. Nickelodeon handed the rights of the show to Spike TV and they started working on new episodes of the new adult Ren & Stimpy. However there were various problems including Billy West, the voice actor of Stimpy, Ren in later episodes and several characters throughout the original series refused to return as he didn't like the idea of the show. So John K returned to voicing Ren and a new voice actor was called in to do Stimpy. And as you might expect, the series didn't do so well and the show ended in the same year it started, with a few of it's episodes never airing until being released on DVD. Luckly for us, the episode I'm reviewing Ren Seeks Help, was one of the episodes that actually aired.

 

So now that you've got that down, let's start talking about why I don't think this is the worst thing ever.

 

The episode starts off with a drum roll and Stimpy starts crying. A little bit iritating but I've heard more annoying, especially from bad voice acting from other shows. Appartantly, Ren has said something that has made Stimpy really upset, and throughout the whole episode, we don't find out which I don't think is lazy writing, but actually creative writing. It allows the viewer to think about what Ren did and use their imagination. Stimpy continues crying until Ren decides he needs to see a therapist. He then slowly walks out and we're into a few mintues of interesting exposition. No, not filler. Unlike what other says, I found the expostion really nice to watch and really enjoyed the weird background art like the cows, the homeless guy sitting and a lot of Max Fleisher style characters. This doesn't go on for very long and Ren reaches the therapist who happens to be the great Dr. Mr. Horse. Ren tells the doctor what his problem is and takes a seat. This is when the parts which Mr. Enter warns you about begins. Ren tells Mr. Horse about a childhood and starts by going very early. I mean very early where he remembers being born. This is the only part of the episode which I found disgusting but atleast it doesn't last long and Bambi atleast takes the (you know) quickly enough for me to react. This is when Ren decides that he wants to cause pain on others. We start by seeing Ren tearing the legs off a centipede and tbh, I don't find it really that disturbing. Why? Two reasons. One, I've seen alot worse than that on the original series (etc. Ren removing his teeth nerves) and two, It's not really that detailed. The legs Ren is tearing off are stickman legs and really doesn't look that bad. Now if it was more detailed legs and we actually sore gore, than that would be taking it quite far, but for me, imagine taking a centipede image from google, puting stickman legs on it. Clicking on them and moving them while a gif of a screaming centipede's face plays and screaming sound effects plays. That's the exact same thing. We then see a couple of more scenes including Ren blowing up an ant with a firecracker until he moves on to a frog. He starts putting matches up his butt and than Ren starts making him spill out his guts while crushing him with his bike. Again, this is not at all too detailed and really looks cartoony, which this show still is. The guts don't really look like guts apart from being pink and I just think it's just pink liquid coming out of his mouth. Eventually, Ren begins to deliver the final blow when to his suprise, the frog wants him to kill him so he can be put out of his misery. Ren being Ren, he refuses to do so and goes home leaving the frog to suffer. The frog than tries to convince him but he still won't do. He than tells Ren's father who happens to be priest. And now it's time for a quick rant to various reviewers out there. STOP CRITICIZING A CARTOON ON REAL LIFE LOGIC! THIS IS A CARTOON, CARTOON'S CAN CREATE THEIR OWN LOGIC! YES, MAYBE PRIESTS CAN'T MARRY IN REAL LIFE, BUT THIS IS A CARTOON! A CARTOON ABOUT A TALKING CAT AND DOG, REAL LIFE LOGIC IS ALREADY DEAD! SO STOP IT! (ok, carrying on) Ren's father lectures his son about what he did was wrong but tells him he has to put him out of his misery. He gives him a gun but the mother exchanges it for a chainsaw. The two walk outside and Mr and Mrs. Hoek start kissing to the sound of a chainsaw. It's a bit disturbing but not terribly and it's atleast watchable. But it turns out Ren purposely misses the frog and throws him in the garbage. When Ren's finished his story, he whispers what he said to Stimpy in Mr. Horse's ear. Mr. Horse then goes insane critizing what Ren told him and tells him he's crazy. Ren reminds him he's a therapist and he than delivers a great line. Ren then kills Mr. Horse (Seriously, there's blood this time, but this is all still) and a bunch of mental institue officers walk in and take him away. We then see the frog return, still not dead, pick up a gun which Mr. Horse talk out earlier in the episode while Ren was telling his story and gets a prank gun straight through his mouth and continues to suffer.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed the episode, I felt there were lots of scenes that I chuckled about and I don't think it went too far with what the reviewers claim it said. All I can say is. John Kricfaulski, you are a well talanted person and I felt you did a great job with this. Richard Pursel, you may have written some of my least favourite SB episodes, but you've also written some of my favourite R&S episodes (I think). Finally, a note to Mr. Enter and various other reviewers, please stop critizing real life logic. You can do for shows that does rely mostly on real life logic (etc. Hey Arnold) but just stop with this. Thank you.

 

Patty Sponge out. 

[Old Man Jenkins]

A lot of people gives Adult Party Cartoon a bunch of flack in general, but yeah, this was one of my favorite eps of the show.

[SpongebobViewer64]

Yeah mr enter sometimes takes real life logic way too far

But I can't like this episode, if the humor doesn't satisfy you there's not a lot you can do I enjoy this

[travisplatypus]

I read your review, I couldn't really find much to really like about this episode. It just seems like pointless cross out humor for 11 minutes. Sounds pretty boring to me. 

[Metal Snake]

Yeah, I'm sorry, I still don't like this episode much and I didn't find the Mr. Enter review to be that bad. I definitely disagree about it being terrible, but I don't care for the "lol animal torture it's so serious it's funny" humor at all. I also did not like how they simplified Ren's trauma to him being the way he is because he was slapped as a newborn. I had to at least give Mr. Enter some points for criticizing that much.

[Clappy]

Just saw this topic. Never saw Mr Enter's review since I've only seen like 5-10 of his reviews period. This wasn't one of them...and if he was brutal on this, good.

I was never a fan of Adult Party Cartoon, but this? This was tough to watch. They take Ren's character elements and push them to such incredible extremities. Watching him torture those animals was painful. I get the point they were diving into Ren's behavior and what caused it but this makes Ren more out to be a psychopath than anything else. Ren's insane in the original and I get that but I would never buy him as someone who would kill somebody like he did with Dr. Mr. Horse. Not even with this:

Awful awful awful episode. It nearly ruined any good memories I've ever had of Ren and Stimpy.

[Young Nug]

The only thing Enter and I have ever agreed on.

FUCK this episode and everything that it represents man. Ridiculous Sadist writing for absolutely no reason. Random gross-out trash for absolutely no reason. Random animal make-out scenes, for absolutely no reason.

It's a bunch of dark, gross or sadistic or just flat-out weird shit thrown together with no purpose except to say "haha hey isn't this funny he's torturing animals" or "look at this character development ren is tortuting animals even though there's no fucking reason for him to do that". Just dumb sadist shit written so Richard Pursel could live out his fantasies of being a horror writer while confined to the walls of a cartoon originally for children. As much slack as I try to give the man, the dude just veers into too much unnecessary dark shit when you're writing about a fucking talking cartoon cat and a dog that live together. As much good as he's done, I just can't deal with Pursel or his writing. Dude just can't do it.

"Haha Bambi ate a placenta" Ha, no. Get the fuck out of here.

[Sweat]

Despite this episode being sadistic garbage, "I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm a horse!" is pretty fucking funny.

[Popeye Q. Krabs]

It's been a while since I last saw this but I think I'd still sort of agree with the OP on the merits of the ep, but still acknowledge its flaws. 

[The Guy With the Computer]

Bleh, I still hate it. Not with a burning passion, but I definitely hate it.

[Joe Biden]

I remember some YouTube troll who went by the name of Dan Young who edited Mr. Enter's review of this episode with stuff like "DAN YOUNG IZ AWESOME!!!!" and added "Here I Come Constantinople" by The Residents in like the middle of his review.

 

But yeah, I still have to agree with the others. I didn't really like this episode either. While it's not the worst episode of the show *coughcoughStimpysPregnantcoughcough*, I still found this episode pretty mediocre. It's just a bunch of "haha Ren is killing animals and beating up on Dr. Mr. Horse hahahaha" jokes told. And Ren was never this sadistic or cruel in the original series. I know in the original series, he usually had homicidal thoughts about killing people WITH THESE HANDS, but never wanted to kill people because he knew he was better than that. This episode flat out says that Ren enjoys killing anyone and anything, with no clever jokes told with them. I will admit that the "I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm a horse" line made me laugh, but that's about it. It was more disturbing and less funny. The original Ren and Stimpy Show usually kept a balance between disturbing scenes and funny jokes, but this was just too disturbing. Not the worst animated show of all time *coughcoughTheNutshackcoughcough* but still pretty bad.

[WhoBibbles]

Well, I guess it's my time to share my thoughts.

 

 

TBH I don't think this episode is really the worst cartoon episode ever created and I personally think Mr. Enter reacted too much when he said "this episode kills hope" like WTF? There are some positive things, I've heard from this episode however. Some people say it's the best APC episode ever because this episode gives us a backstory of Ren and at least tell a story, unlike other APC episodes. I haven't found any APC episodes online but I'll say this.

 

The only episode with a plot = / = the the most tolerable episode form a bad cartoon in my opinion, especially I think there are many problems with the story.

 

 

I don't hate this episode because I hate an episode If it offends me (Turban Cowboy episode of Family Guy) but It's definetly an awful episode for so many reasons.

 

Oh and some people said this episode works good as a horror type episode, not as a comedy episode. I don't agree. It doesn't work in both ways. If this is a comedy, then it's not funny, it's so mean-spirited. I can laugh at some mean-spirited jokes, yes but there's nothing funny about animals getting torment. If it's a horror episode, it has to be scare me. This episode isn't scary, again it's mean-spirited. It's so hard to watch animals getting hurt. I watch horror movies to get scared, not to see mean-spirited moments. I also love animals and I can't stand them getting torment. It's not horror, it's sadistic. Oh and there's gross out moments, which makes the episode even harder to watch (Ren's birth, anyone?)

 

My biggest problem with this episode is that it ruins Ren's character. His backstory is poorly done IMO because Ren was never a sadistic to begin with. Yeah, he's a psychopath but that's because he's either annoyed by Stimpy's stupidity (Sven Hoek) or he's jealous of Stimpy (Stimpy's Fna Club). He isn't psychopath because he likes to hurt people. Yeah, he said he likes being angry in Stimpy's Invetion but there's a different between an angry person and a sadistic person. Ren is just sadistic in his backstory, not angry. He hurts animals because he loves to hurt. That isn't Ren, I know. Yeah, I know Ren and Stimpy has no continuty but If you are going to create a backstory, then think of character's behaviours. In original series, Ren is angry; in here, he's evil. Another problem is that it doesn't explain what Ren did to Stimpy at the begining and It doesn't even solve Ren's problem. Then the backstory is there for no reason. We didn't need to see what Ren did in the past. Then the episode ends with Ren is getting arrested, Mr. Horse getting killed and the frog that Ren used to abuse tries to kill himself again but he doesn't die. That's such a bad way to end the episode.

 

That's Ren Seeks Help to you. It's mean-spirited, it's so gross, the backstory is poorly done, it's pointless and it ruins one of my favorite characters of all-time. It's not even a good horror episode.

 

There are still some good things I can say about this episode. Mr. Horse's apperance is gold IMO and there are some nice animated scenes in the episode but overall, this is a really awful episode. A "D-"

[Steel Sponge]

Decided to look back on this and boy oh boy, I wonder if you still stand by this now, Patty.

[Patty Rose]

4 minutes ago, Steel Sponge said:

Decided to look back on this and boy oh boy, I wonder if you still stand by this now, Patty.

Absolutely not, especially since it was made by a evil person.

[WhoBibbles]

On 9/5/2015 at 7:36 PM, WhoBob said:

Well, I guess it's my time to share my thoughts.

 

 

TBH I don't think this episode is really the worst cartoon episode ever created and I personally think Mr. Enter reacted too much when he said "this episode kills hope" like WTF? There are some positive things, I've heard from this episode however. Some people say it's the best APC episode ever because this episode gives us a backstory of Ren and at least tell a story, unlike other APC episodes. I haven't found any APC episodes online but I'll say this.

 

The only episode with a plot = / = the the most tolerable episode form a bad cartoon in my opinion, especially I think there are many problems with the story.

 

 

I don't hate this episode because I hate an episode If it offends me (Turban Cowboy episode of Family Guy) but It's definetly an awful episode for so many reasons.

 

Oh and some people said this episode works good as a horror type episode, not as a comedy episode. I don't agree. It doesn't work in both ways. If this is a comedy, then it's not funny, it's so mean-spirited. I can laugh at some mean-spirited jokes, yes but there's nothing funny about animals getting torment. If it's a horror episode, it has to be scare me. This episode isn't scary, again it's mean-spirited. It's so hard to watch animals getting hurt. I watch horror movies to get scared, not to see mean-spirited moments. I also love animals and I can't stand them getting torment. It's not horror, it's sadistic. Oh and there's gross out moments, which makes the episode even harder to watch (Ren's birth, anyone?)

 

My biggest problem with this episode is that it ruins Ren's character. His backstory is poorly done IMO because Ren was never a sadistic to begin with. Yeah, he's a psychopath but that's because he's either annoyed by Stimpy's stupidity (Sven Hoek) or he's jealous of Stimpy (Stimpy's Fna Club). He isn't psychopath because he likes to hurt people. Yeah, he said he likes being angry in Stimpy's Invetion but there's a different between an angry person and a sadistic person. Ren is just sadistic in his backstory, not angry. He hurts animals because he loves to hurt. That isn't Ren, I know. Yeah, I know Ren and Stimpy has no continuty but If you are going to create a backstory, then think of character's behaviours. In original series, Ren is angry; in here, he's evil. Another problem is that it doesn't explain what Ren did to Stimpy at the begining and It doesn't even solve Ren's problem. Then the backstory is there for no reason. We didn't need to see what Ren did in the past. Then the episode ends with Ren is getting arrested, Mr. Horse getting killed and the frog that Ren used to abuse tries to kill himself again but he doesn't die. That's such a bad way to end the episode.

 

That's Ren Seeks Help to you. It's mean-spirited, it's so gross, the backstory is poorly done, it's pointless and it ruins one of my favorite characters of all-time. It's not even a good horror episode.

 

There are still some good things I can say about this episode. Mr. Horse's apperance is gold IMO and there are some nice animated scenes in the episode but overall, this is a really awful episode. A "D-"

Back when i didn't know the definition of "psychopath"... Moving on.

This episode is the worst case of character assassination I have ever seen and I've sit through many character assassinations in Family Guy. There are some worse APC episodes, walking cycle was good with good animation and Mr. Horse is always a delight but this one deserves to be hated. The fact that this is an origin story of Ren pisses me off. 

[Coffee_lover]

Daily reminder that Seeks Help is still way above whatever the fuck Stimpy’s Pregnancy even supposed to be.

 

 

 

though both are worse than fantastic travelogue but that’s too obvious