Episode Discussion: Stimpy's Invention

[TheFace]

Aw Taco. You really have grown up with lots of modern cartoons

Yeah. Modern cartoonists are smart, and realize that it's the writing that counts. Hell, everyone's so busy complaining about South Park's art that they can't see how genius the writing is. On the topic of modern cartoons, when I was a little kid, I hated old cartoons, because of the colors. I hated painting-style colors and classical music. I enjoyed newer music and digital ink and paint. Now when I watch cartoons, I don't care about the art or music, but I focus on the writing. However, old cartoons have terrible writing. Just TRY watching Looney Tunes....AND enjoying it.

Sooo...you enjoyed things like the 90s spiderman cartooon? ridiculous intense music and a plot line spat at you so fast only 6 year olds on sugar could understand it? Seriously try watching now that your older, it DOESNT MAKE SENSE.
The classical music in Ren and stimpy scared me as a kid...it was sinister.

[jmekilo]

Aw Taco. You really have grown up with lots of modern cartoons

Yeah. Modern cartoonists are smart, and realize that it's the writing that counts. Hell, everyone's so busy complaining about South Park's art that they can't see how genius the writing is. On the topic of modern cartoons, when I was a little kid, I hated old cartoons, because of the colors. I hated painting-style colors and classical music. I enjoyed newer music and digital ink and paint. Now when I watch cartoons, I don't care about the art or music, but I focus on the writing. However, old cartoons have terrible writing. Just TRY watching Looney Tunes....AND enjoying it.

..........................

Taco, you have A LOT to learn about cartoons before you can shoot your mouth about them. 

Hell! This kid learned alot from listening to the theory of cartoons over here at the board!!! He must've posted this before everyone educated him!!

[Jimmy the Idiot Boy]

Yeah. I did a lot of reading on this subject over the past 2 months, so please don't hold that quote against me. Anyway, I usually concentrate on what characters are saying in cartoons and not the way things look. I tried watching Stimpy's Invention again last week, but this time paying attention to the pictures instead of what Ren and Stimpy were saying. And I loved it! All that I had to do was focus my mind on the art. I even did it with A Scooter for Yaksmas and enjoyed it! Anyway, my favorite artistic moment of this episode was when Stimpy realized that Ren was unhappy.

[Steve Carras]

The voice acting in this one is awesome from John K as both Ren and Stinkly W.

I wish the original master of Happy Happy Joy Joy was on CD or somthing (not that crappy redub one with Bob Camp).

My favorite lines of Happy Happy Joy Joy are definetly " A fly marrying a bumble bee ? That's very funny !" and "I told I'd shoot but you didn't belive me ! Why didn't you belive me !"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051411/

Yeah those lines came from that movie.

Yeah, It's really great movie. Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston are at the top of their acting skills.

By the way, that movie is "The Big Country" (UA, 1958), and I have lush orchestrator Mantovani';s version of its soraing dynnamic gtheme song. BTW the star Burl Ives is gthe next influence with Kirk Douglas and of course mostly Peter Lorre on Ren's orginal voice..

[Stinky Whizzleteasts]

I think the "writing" in Looney Tunes depends on the director. Chuck had witty lines, Fritz mostly had mediocre imitations of Chuck's lines, Tex had way too many puns and Bob had a mix of everything. His cartoons have some of the best and worst dialogue ever, but it all serves the situation.

Stimpy's Invention is not only my favorite R&S episode, but it might just be the greatest animated cartoon ever made. What this episode does, much to the contrary of the discussion above is something that only the rarest of popular artworks have achieved it breaks down the barrier between writing and images. Throuhgout the entire episode, dialogue, visuals and music trade roles, never merely explaining one another. "Don't move - I'll go get the stay-put hat and raincoat!" That's a visual idea, in words. Stimpy explains how his Happy Helmet works, but it's unintended consequences are purely visual. "I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me!" Stinky Whizzleteats (the character, not me) accidentally lets slip a past event which is probably related in someway to his need to be incessantly happy and inforce the same in others. He probably had his mind controlled, and so did every single one of us in the audience. At the exact moment that we hear this, Ren is preparing to remove the helmet by force. the visual aid illiustrates not how the shooting incident happened, but why Ren ought to disassociate himself from the process of dehumanization with which Stinky's song is complicit. It's a complex approach to matching words with imagery, but it doesn't break from conventional storytelling.

John K. has said that this episode "doesn't have an ending." I don't know what the hell he's talking about - it has the most compelling ending of any cartoon ever made. Ren is angry again, meaning that he is no longer being forced to be happy. Therefore, he is happy? All of us get angry sometimes, but aren't we lucky to live in a society where that's allowed? where we can voice our dissatisfaction with authority and mobilize to change it? But wait - let's not forget the most important part: Stimpy never understood Ren's problem. His simple inability to get it and leave Ren alone drove him to create the happy helmet. The helmet was evil, but Stimpy made it out of the goodness of his heart. But wait - isn't Stimpy just a little bit sadistic? Maybe he is, Look how much he enjoys manipulating Ren! Maybe we all are....
 
This has been called a complex cartoon before. Those of us capable of such an understatement must shave their moustaches with a guillotine.