When I was a kid I loved Ren & Stimpy. It was bold, crazy and gross - all things a young boy will like. My tastes have shifted as I've entered the world of a 20-something cynical creature of hate, so I may not adore it the way I once did, but it still makes me laugh. And I've come to appreciate the production quality - something I never appreciated when I was younger. It was such a creator-driven thing, inspired by the classc, fully-animated cartooons that were pretty much gone by this time - or if not then in a big decline. Creator John Kricfalusi wanted his cartoons to be 'fun'. He didn't like that cartoons then were being developed and written by people who weren't cartoonists, or artists, and had production pipelines so divided and departmentalised that there was no room for any creativity along the way, resulting in bland, uninteresting cartoons. "Musicians make music, cartoonists make cartoons" he once said. Whether or not I can fully subscribe to his philosophy and criticisms of the industry I do think he had good ideas and a fantastic approach to creating something original and entertaining.The thing I love most about Ren & Stimpy today is the animation. A lot of people are put off by the extreme drawings and wacky animation, but personally I feel very few animated pieces today can come close to how expressive and entertaining it was.
It's obviously very cartoony, but it uses this fact to great effect. Ren's anger and psychosis is so real and almost scary in this clip. The use of extreme poses, exaggerated movement and even surreal, impossible actions all convey so much through such simple character design. Replicating human motion through animation is impossible - you can try and capture as much as you can, but you're never going to get it all. And why should you? Many shows and films try to do this with animated characters and it just ends up diluted, bland and even uncanny in my eyes. What cartoons let you do is play with exaggeration and cartoon logic not just as a way around the barrier, but as a different way of expressing emotion and life. Much as a caricature can capture someone's likeness through observation, highlighting and warping key traits. Ren & Stimpy did this well, without just being wacky for the sake of being wacky - something I fear too many people do when inspired by animation such as this. As they try to emulate it, but copy the wrong things, or miss out on the principles behind it. Which is something that worries me, hence why studying it is so important from me. Thus far my project isn't developing into anything Ren & Stimpy-esque, but I believe the principles behind its animation are vital.
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