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Ren Hoek
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Name
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Ren Hoek
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Species
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Chihuahua
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Gender
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Male
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Relatives
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Friends
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First Appearance
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Voice
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John Kricfalusi
Billy West Alfonso Obregon (Latin Spanish) Igor Cruz (Spanish, APC) Salvador Aldeguer (European Spanish) Santiago Ziesmer (German) Kai Taschner (German, Sabrina the Teenage Witch) Alexander Lenkov (Russian) Marco Ribeiro (Brazilian Portuguese) Andre Maia (European Portuguese) Alain Choquet (Canadian French) Gerard Surugue (European French) Imre Harmath (Hungarian) Dan Castellaneta (The Simpsons Brother from the Same Planet) |
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Personality
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Spiteful, hyperactive, childish, mean, psychotic, violent, selfish, greedy, angry, crazy, sometimes evil,indifferent, sometimes understanding, nice (rarely), comical,
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Appearance
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Small scrawny peachy brown-orange chihuahua, floppy body, long ears, neon-pink eyes with dark red pupils, red (or sometimes light brown) eyelids, long pink tail, brown small triangular nose, small nails in fingers and toes, small strands of hair on the head, sometimes a few spots on top of his head.
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Affiliations
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Good (sometimes bad, possibly neutral)
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Marland T. "Ren" Höek: Ren is a scrawny "asthma-hound" Chihuahua with a floppy body, donkey-like ears, neon-pink eyes with dark red pupils, red (or sometimes light brown) eyelids, and a fairly long, rat-like, pink tail who often calls Stimpy an idiot ("eediot", to quote the character) and slaps him around, quite literally. Ren is vain, spiteful, hyperactive, abusive, and gets irritated (especially by Stimpy) very easily. His lifelong ambitious personality is to have huge pectoral muscles (which somehow, in real life, is uncommon). Ren's name is the real name of Kricfalusi's building manager. He was born on Tuesday the 17th.
Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman of Animation World Magazine described Ren as "scrawny," "dyspeptic," and "violently psychotic." On some occasions Ren "lost his mind" in a "cumulative process," resulting in Ren becoming, in Goodman's words, a "screaming klaxon, neon-pink eyes dilating into twin novae inches above his jagged, monolithic teeth." Andy Meisler of The New York Times described Ren as "adventurous," "intelligent," and "emotionally brittle."
sad Ren in "Stimpy's Fan Club"
Ren is voiced by John Kricfalusi. Ren was later voiced by Billy West in Season 3-5. In the pilot, Pierre Decelles provided Ren's signature diabolical laughter, while West performed Ren's laugh in the series.
Ren's Tail
Ren had a long, pink, rat-like tail. It is seen alot in Big House Blues, Stimpy's Big Day, and The Big Shot. After that, Ren's tail would constantly disappear (in the episode "Stimpy's Invention", Ren's tail keep disappearing and reappear and that counts as an error),
Ren with his tail visible
to the point of not being seen at all, his tail was destroyed by George Liquor in "Dog Show" when he tied a rubber band around it causing it to cut off the circulation and it popped it, it later grew back at the end of that episode. His tail is never seen in the Adult Party Cartoon (not counting Man's Best Friend or Big House Blues).
The reason for Ren's tail disappearing all together was that creator John Kricfalusi hated animating it, so most of
the time, he just left it out, after he was fired, Games Animation's episodes rarely had his tail showing as well. When Ren's tail vanished completely, it was replaced with human style buttocks (similar to Stimpy).
Personality
Ren is a bad-tempered, scrawny, dyspeptic, very hyperactive, emotionally unstable, greedy and violently psychotic chihuahua, He has stated once in "Stimpy's Invention"' that he "likes" being angry. He is extremely selfish and childish sometimes, and at tense times mentally
Ren hacking up his bed in "In The Army"
unstable. In the episode "Ren's Bitter Half " Stimpy used his genetic chemistry set to create a substance called x49. Ren accidentally splashed the chemical onto himself, causing Ren to split into his evil personality and his indifferent personality. In the episode "Space Madness " Ren slowly went insane from constant extended isolation. In "Stimpy's Fan Club" Ren is jealous that Stimpy has more fans than him and tries to murder Stimpy in his sleep, but stopped when his brain was overheating and stinging him, Ren's behavior carries many implications of Sociopathy as well as psychosis.
Ren showing his mean side
Ren's ambitions vary from episode to episode. His first ambition was to develop large pecs. He also attempts multiple money schemes.
On some occasions, Ren is actually somewhat understanding when Stimpy accidentally does something. In some episodes Ren has a malevolent, evil laugh when he had psychotic episodes. Whenever Stimpy gives him something special, he thanks Stimpy and celebrates. Ren has occasionally accepted and even enjoyed spending time with Stimpy. Despite his violent temper, Ren does not seem to be very physically strong and has been overpowered by Stimpy on a number of occasions.
Ren's fiery temper is shown in many episodes, where he would often go off on violent, psychotic rages which would often result in the harming of Stimpy, other characters and even himself. Ren's violent rage was however toned down in the Games Animation episodes, yet still was shown frequently. Ren is often prone to fits of psychosis, which would often
Chicken pot pie
result in him becoming violent or breaking down into tears.
In Space Madness, he was hungry by thinking of glazed ham, chocolate covered raisins, and chicken pot pie. Instead, he thought that a soap bar was a bar of ice cream, so did Stimpy.
Ren eating an "ice cream bar"
Acting like a real dog
Although anthropomorphic, Ren is seen acting like a real dog sometimes. In Big House Blues, he whimpers like one and is kept in the pound, even wags his tail. In Son of Stimpy, he's seen on all fours on top of Stimpy's litterbox, he's seen walking on all fours in Dog Show, yet again, wags his tail. In School Mates, he reunites with an old friend and the two are seen running on all fours and barking whilst chasing after Stimpy.
Relationships
- The Ren and Stimpy Show
Though both physically and verbally abusive to him at the most part, Ren has been shown to like Stimpy as a friend on some occasions. Their relationship started out with Ren always picking on Stimpy and usually beating him up whenever he made Ren upset, but as the series progressed Ren didn't pick on Stimpy so often anymore and call him an "Eediot" on a regular
Ren slapping Stimpy silly
Stimpy basis like he always did during the show's early years.
- Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon
In this variation of the series he and Stimpy are seen as a couple. However, Ren does not seem to see Stimpy as a partner, but as a friend (as mentioned in the episode Ren Seeks Help), although they had sex in "Onward and Upward" and Ren constantly violates Stimpy in some way, such as in "Alrtuists" when he put his hand in Stimpy's butt. And they had a "baby" together in "Stimpy's Pregnant".
Ren and Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"
Ren from "Naked Beach Frenzy"
In the "adults-only" spin-off series, Ren is now revengeful, racist, a chain-smoker, and tries to abuse Stimpy whenever he can. In "Altruists", Ren's physical abuse of Stimpy escalates to a sexual nature when he touches Stimpy's buttocks at one point, and in the episode "Ren seeks Help", Ren seemed to emotionally scar Stimpy during an argument with insults that Mr. Horse described as "fucking crazy." Despite all that, Ren is still affectionate towards Stimpy and they still have great adventures together.
"Ren Seeks Help" also displayed more of the character's backstory compared to other episodes in both the original and Adult Party cartoons. Ren, who apparently displays an eidetic memory, describes that his sadistic nature originated from the trauma of being spanked right after birth, leading him to desire inflicting that same pain on others. He reveals himself as an animal abuser, specifically tearing legs off caterpillars, burning ants with firework fuses, licking a tick with his barbed tongue, and brutally torturing a frog and letting it live out of spite.
The APC confirms that Ren is bisexual for his attraction to women, and his apparent relationship with Stimpy. Despite Stimpy's love for him, Ren only sees Stimpy as a friend, not a lover or companion.
Ren's Voice
During the duration of the series Ren has had a total of Two voice Actors.
- John Kricfalusi
For the first two seasons of the Ren & Stimpy Show (except for "Monkey See, Monkey Don't", "The Great Outdoors", and "Cat Who Laid the Golden Hairball") and the Adult Party Cartoon, creator John Kricfalusi provided Ren's voice. He voiced Ren in a manner he described as a "Bad immitation of Peter Lorre", giving him a slight Austrian/German accent. In a nutshell, John K. did Ren's Spumco-era voice, until he was fired.
- Billy West
Billy West was the voice of Ren during the third season to the fifth season. After John K. and Spumco were fired, Billy West took over as the voice of Ren for the Games Animation episodes. West, who already voiced Stimpy, provided Ren's laugh throughout the series (even when John K. was still the voice of Ren). West provided Ren's voice using a combination of Kirk Douglas, Burl Ives, and a slight "South of the boarder" accent.
- Chris Edgerly
Edgerly voiced him in the "NickToons Baseball" game.
Trivia
- Kricfalusi received inspiration, used when drawing the first drawings of Ren, from a Elliott Erwitt black and white photograph of a chihuahua in a sweater next to a woman's feet.
- Billy West also auditioned to play Ren but the creators of the series believed that having West voice both Ren and Stimpy would give him too large of a workload. So Kricfalusi voiced him instead.
