Ren & Stimpy (2021 TV series)

 Ren & Stimpy  is an American animated comedy slapstick television series which is a reboot to Nickelodeon's for The Ren and Stimpy Show. The series premiered on Comedy Central on June 6, 2021 and is the only series in the Ren & Stimpy franchise to not have the involvement of the series' creator John Kricfalusi after his sexual assault allegations in 2016 with Billy West reprising his role as the title characters.

The series was created and developed by Paul Rudish, who developed the Mickey Mouse shorts for Disney Channel. The series received mixed reviews, praising its animation, acting, slapstick violence, and faithfulness to the original series including its first episode, We Move In.

Synopsis
The series follows the later lives of best friends Ren and Stimpy (both voiced by Billy West), who are now living in an apartment located in California, in which the mayor is Jason Davids (voiced by Brian Stepanek). Like always, Ren is the manipulative one while Stimpy is the one looking for adventures. When they are hungry, they go to a Chinese restaurant owned by their friend Mr. Horse (also voiced by West).

The show introduces new characters such as Tara Mikey (voiced by Christina Ricci in one of her voice roles), a girl who becomes Stimpy's friend, Dr. Johnny Gordon (voiced by Bill Hader), an doctor at California's hospital, and Jerry (voiced by Jeff Bennett), an young boy with a man's voice who is also obsessed with coffee, milk, candy, and cookies. Other returning characters include Powdered Toast Man (voiced by Corey Burton), the spokesperson for his company Powdered Toast and Muddy Mudskipper (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker), an mudskipper who live in Ren and Stimpy's shared apartment.

Ren's favorite television show is a comedy adult series called North Park while one of Stimpy's friends is an old witch named Yaba (voiced by Jodi Benson), who is surprisingly nice. Yaba the Witch owns two dogs named Simmons and Norman (both voiced by Nolan North and Rodger Bumpass respectively), in which the dogs are always seen playing chess or Go Fish. They only appear for five episodes.

Mr. Horse has six jobs, in which he is portrayed as an actor, restaurant employee, entertainer, magician, basketball player, and an animator. The show intends to make fun of negative-received films including Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, Norm of the North, and Foodfight! and negative-received shows such as for Teen Titans Go, Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain, and ''for The Powerpuff Girls 2016. Ren and Stimpy usually go to Gurubank Bank'' to receive their money. The bank is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Pipe (voiced by West and Cheryl Chase).

The group of firefighters are lead by The Fire Chief, in which his real name is unknown. He is voiced by Harris Peet, the former voice for Muddy Mudskipper while Ralph Bakshi, famously known for directing the 1972 adult film, Fritz the Cat, would voice The Fire Chief whenever Peet was unavailable, though this only happened for eight episodes. In one episode, Anthony returns as an adult, once again being voiced by Anthony Raspanti, who sent the first fan letters to the original series.

Episodes
All episodes are 21 minutes long.

 Main article: List of Ren and Stimpy (2021 TV series) episodes 

Production
In August of 2020, it was announced that Comedy Central (the same service that aired South Park) was developing a reboot of Nickelodeon's The Ren and Stimpy Show. The title characters' voice actor Billy West confirmed that the show's creator John Kricfalusi would not have any involvement in the series due to his sexual assault allegations in 2018. Production started one week later, but was later postponed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After this, not much news about the series was spread, and it had rumors that it was cancelled.

Though one month later, West confirmed that the show would continue production, but would only be done remotely at homes. Some of the new cast members includes Christina Ricci (in one of her voice roles since The Hero of Color City), Brian Stepanek, Dee Bradley Baker (replacing Harris Peet from the original series), Bill Hader, Jeff Bennett, Jodi Benson, and Nolan North and Rodger Bumpass. Animation and storyboard art for the series was done by Nickelodeon Animation Studio and Framestore.

On December 23 of the same year the show released, it was renewed for an second season, which released on May 2, 2022 while its third and final season (consisting of 21 episodes) released on February 15, 2024.

Writing
The writing for the show's episodes took two months. Eventually, Trey Parker (creator of South Park) had served as some of the few writers for the series, despite not liking Ren & Stimpy along with his co-partner Matt Stone, who served as one of the directors for the episodes and was also the co-creator of South Park. Karla Sakas Shropshire, who served as an writer for The Loud House (which also aired on Nickelodeon), wrote the first five episodes for the series before leaving after the episode, "Hockey Ren". Rudish stated her resignation on an interview saying "That Loud House episode No Such Luck really attracted a massive amount of haters which damaged Karla's career. She though that when people see her name in the credits they would probably attack her, so that's why she left after episode five."

Norman and Simmons, the pets of Witch Yaba, were originally intended to be different animals. Norman was supposed to be an cat while Simmons was supposd to be an dog, making an reference to one of Nickelodeon's 1990s shows, CatDog. However, writer Shropshire was not interested with the idea and abandoned it, making both Simmons and Norman dogs. The idea of Ren and Stimpy living in an California apartment was conceived by animation director Tony Cervone after moving into an apartment in the same state with his wife Allison Abbate.

The show was originally titled The New Ren & Stimpy Show but was later dumped and changed the name to Ren & Stimpy. Though the original title is used by most fans of the original show. Billy West, voice of Ren, Stimpy, Mr. Horse, Mr. Pipe, as well as the additional voices, reprised his role for the show as long as it did not have any references to Ren and Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon".