{"id":33630,"date":"2021-02-04T00:00:25","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=33630"},"modified":"2021-02-17T18:43:55","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T23:43:55","slug":"the-loyal-subjects-nickelodeon-ren-stimpy-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2021\/02\/the-loyal-subjects-nickelodeon-ren-stimpy-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"The Loyal Subjects Nickelodeon: Ren & Stimpy reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ren & Stimpy<\/i> is one of those mysterious properties that was made by no one - like Min<\/a>ecraft<\/a><\/i>, it came from space. It certainly wasn't created by a child predator who's dumbly mired in his own past<\/a>. Maybe it arrived on the same spaceship that brought us Ender's Game<\/i>, Harry Potter<\/i> and Earthworm Jim<\/i>. [No, I'm pretty sure at least a few of those were created by Hatsune Miku<\/a> --ed.]<\/p>\n

\"Mini-Figure<\/p>\n

Ren Höek is an asthma-hound chihuahua with hyperactive, angry and psychotic tendencies. He's best friends with Stimpy, though he oftentimes takes on the role of the bossy leader of the duo.<\/i><\/p>\n

Every few years, some company gets it into their heads to try making Ren & Stimpy<\/i> figures. Last time it was Jazwares, in their 2012 Nicktoons<\/i> line (a subsidiary of that Hanna-Barbera<\/a> collection), and this time (\"this time\" meaning \"2018,\" when these toys were apparently released) it's The Loyal Subjects, of Action Vinyls<\/a><\/i> fame.<\/p>\n

Whatever unknown force created Ren & Stimpy<\/i> was no fan<\/a> of standardized, repeatable character design, but we'd still say this Ren is more accurate to the cartoon than Palisades'<\/a> was: he's hunched over rather than arched back, giving him a slight pot-belly. His protruding belly button is sculpted, though not the bumps of his spine. The head doesn't feel right, however: it's ovoid, like it typically is in the art, but when Ren's smiling like this, his head usually gets rounder. Additionally, his eyes are too symmetrical, and since he's usually shown in the art with his ears folded back, toys never look right when they have them pointed up. How about an angry variant with lidded eyes, a drooping mouth, and ears that go down instead of up? That would have been neat!<\/p>\n

Ren is small, so he's light on articulation, moving only with balljoints at the head, shoulders, and hips. Because he's so small, he also gets an accessory: it's Log! Log! It's (not) big, it's (not) heavy, it's (sculpted like) wood! It's Log! Log<\/b>! It's better than bad: it's good. It comes up about waist-high on Ren, is molded from brown plastic, and has a pale orange paint app on the exposed top. Nice!<\/p>\n

When the show was pitched, Billy West was intended to voice both main characters, but Nick feared that this (along with his role[s] in Doug<\/i>) would be too much work for him, so Ren was instead voiced by the show's creator... until he was fired for being terrible to<\/a> work with<\/a>, at which point West took over the role that was his in the first place. And hey, speaking of Billy West roles...<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Mini-Figure<\/p>\n

Stimpy is a lovable yet dumb cat. He his<\/i> [sic] Ren's loyal best friend and sidekick, and is always ready to teach you how to be happy?<\/i><\/p>\n

You wanna teach me how to be happy? I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs! [Okay, okay, calm down, Burl Ives<\/a> --ed.] You'd have to be an eediot to release a Ren without also releasing a Stimpy, and Loyal Subjects isn't. At least not in that regard - they still did the thing where a bunch of the boxes for the toys are blacked out for absolutely no reason, and the printed casepack ratios don't match up with either reality or<\/b> basic mathematics, so some things never change.<\/p>\n

In most fiction, it's the cats who are smart and the dogs who are dumb, but Ren & Stimpy<\/i> inverted that. Of course, you may forget Stimpy is supposed to be a cat if he's not actively doing something feline, like coughing up hairballs or pooping in a box of sand. He's a big, potato-shaped lump with a face that takes up half his body and a nose that takes up most of his face. The sculpt is decent, if a little off-model from the cartoons (though at least some of that can be laid at the feet of Action Vinyls<\/i>' brand of stylization). He's got a big smile and his tongue is hanging out of his mouth, but the fact that the eyes are painted looking upward feels like a mistake. The red of his body is lighter than it ever was on the show, too.<\/p>\n

Since Stimpy is so large, he doesn't have any accessories. He does, however, have decent articulation: balljointed hips and shoulders, and swivel wrists and ankles.<\/p>\n

Considering how much The Loyal Subjects loves releasing variations of their Action Vinyls<\/i>, it's weird the only one in this line was a Golden Stimpy which, unless it was based on the Marvel comic<\/a>, comes from nowhere; why not take a cue from Palisades and make them Fire Dogs<\/a>? As something other than an SDCC exclsuive, that is. There was also a \"Naked Stimpy\" exclusive to Hot Topic.<\/p>\n

Ren & Stimpy<\/i> was a victim of its own success. Despite constantly running over-budget and behind schedule<\/a> (the pilot episode aired twice because the second episode wasn't ready yet), it was a smash hit and inspired any number of imitators, most of whom are forgotten today - if you say you fondly remember Schnookums and Meat<\/i>, you're lying - but it was so<\/b> influential and such<\/b> a darling that the crew got swelled heads about their own talent, culminating in a letter sent to the studio executives saying episodes would \"cost what they cost and take as long as they take\" - a \"my way or the highway\" ultimatum that backfired when at least one high-level creator was promptly shown to the nearest metaphorical highway, and told to take his studio with him.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The show's impact on the animation industry can't be ignored though, despite its short original run (and the utter failure that was the 2003 attempt to revive it). Loyal Subjects' Nickelodeon Action Vinyls<\/i> line included not only Ren & Stimpy<\/i>, but also Rugrats<\/i>, Wild Thornberrys<\/i>, Hey Arnold<\/i>, Spongebob<\/i>, CatDog<\/i>, and more, but Ren and Stimpy were the big draws for me. The toys themselves are fine, though they definitely have room for improvement; it's just nice to be able to get a set of the boys that doesn't cost 47 meellion dollars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ren & Stimpy is one of those mysterious properties that was made by no one - like Minecraft, it came from space. It certainly wasn't created by a child predator who's dumbly mired in his own past. Maybe it arrived … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-exclusive-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33630"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33778,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33630\/revisions\/33778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}