"Stimpy's Big Day" is the 1st episode of The Ren & Stimpy Show, which aired on August 11, 1991.
Characters
- Ren Höek
- Stimpson "Stimpy" J. Cat
- Muddy Mudskipper
- Announcer
- Photographer
Log Commercial
- Announcer
- Kid
Summary
Stimpy wins a competition that takes him to the Big-time in Hollywood. Ren, left at home, begins to miss Stimpy more than he ever would of thought. Will Stimpy, rich and successful, remember Ren and return home?
Plot
Stimpy is watching television when Ren comes around and reminds him that he is too old for cartoons. Stimpy shoves him away and watches the Muddy Mudskipper show. He them comes across an ad for Gritty Kitty Litter and the announcer is about to announce a contest, telling all the cats to write a poem of 40 million words or less on why they like Gritty Kitty Litter and whoever writes the best poem wins 47 million dollars, goat cheese, a twelve-hour record set of the top hits of the 1970s, and most importantly, a trip to Hollywood to guest star on the Muddy Mudskipper Show.
So Stimpy writes his poem right away and seals it in an envelope. Before he could mail it in, Ren tries to convince him that cartoon characters are not real, but puppets instead. Stimpy, now feeling irresolute, struggles to put the poem in the mailbox as Ren tries to convince him otherwise. Stimpy puts the envelope inside the mailbox anyway and begs for Ren's forgiveness. But Ren instantly refuses.
Later, as the duo go to bed, Ren wakes up and hesitantly attempts to forgive him until he hears the doorbell ringing. He hops out of bed to answer it and finds a couple of humans asking for Stimpy. Ren tells them that Stimpy is in the room and one of the humans tell him that he won 47 million dollars. A soporific Ren turns to get Stimpy until he realizes the amount of cash, and tries to convince the two humans that he is the cat. Stimpy, however, wakes up and walks into the living room. One of the humans offer him the bag of money, telling him that his poem won first prize. Ren steals the money from Stimpy and tries to convince his friend that he helped him with the poem, but to no avail. Stimpy rides away with the two humans and Ren walks away irate. He then feels devastated and begins to sob.
At Hollywood, Stimpy meets Muddy Mudskipper and is about to start his act. He stars in a cereal ad, where Ren berates him for frittering away the cereal. So as he leaves for work, Stimpy pours all the cereal in a big bowl and gets the prize out of the box. The prize is a Muddy Mudskipper cereal caddy, and Stimpy says bye to the audience as the ad ends.
Production Music
Log commercial:
- Log Blues – Charlie Brissette, Chris Reccardi [Original composition] (opening)
- Log Theme – John Kricfalusi, Bob Camp, Charlie Brissette [Original composition] (rest of ad)
Stimpy’s Big Day:
- Light Cavalry Overture – Franz von Suppe (“Stimpy’s Big Day” card)
- Holiday Playtime – Cedric King-Palmer (Ren’s lecture to Stimpy about TV)
- Fanfare – Robert Sharples (Muddy Mudskipper Show starting)
- Muddy Muskipper Show Theme – John Kricfalusi, Bob Camp, Charlie Brissette [Original composition] (plays on TV)
- Tom Fool – Van Phillips (Gritty Kitty Litter commercial)
- Playbill – Wilfred Burns (the grand prize)
- Hollywood Holiday – Frank Samuels (gloves fall on Ren’s head)
- Spindlelegs – Cedric King-Palmer (Stimpy writing his poem)
- Hackney Carriage – Cedric King-Palmer (Ren & Stimpy at the mailbox)
- Waltzing in Dreamland – Alan Moorhouse (“Good night, Ren.”)
- Largo Op.28 E-Minor – Frederic Chopin, Helmuth Brandenburg (morning)
- Blood in the Gutter – Laurie Johnson (guys show up)
- The Hurry-Up – Kenny Graham (“I’m the cat!”)
- Romance at Midnight – Johnny Pearson (Stimpy waving goodbye from the limo)
- Dramatic Impact 4 – Ivor Slaney (Ren crying)
- Big Show Theme – Robert Sharples (Hollywood)
- Workaday World – Jack Beaver (make-up session)
- Gala Premiere – Laurie Johnson (“There’s a new face in Hollywood today…”)
- Dramatic Impact 2 – Ivor Slaney (mic in nose)
Stimpy’s Breakfast Tips:
- Turkey Trot – John Longmire (cereal commercial)
Gallery
Transcript
To view the transcript, click here.
Watch Episode
Trivia
- The head that pops up at the overhead view of Hollywood is a Kirk Douglas caricature.
- This show and two other Nickelodeon shows, Doug and Rugrats first aired on the same date.
- The music heard under the Gritty Kitty commercial sequence (at the supermarket with Stimpy and Mr. Horse) is the underscore 'Stop Gap'.
- Originally, the microphone was planned to go into Stimpy's mouth at the end. However, it seemed to remind Nick executives of a certain sexual method, so the scene was animated with the microphone going into his nose. The mic in the mouth was never animated.
- The version of this episode on Spike TV does not include the Log commercial.
- The news reporter in this episode strongly resembles Bert from Sesame Street.
- There was a rumor where there were scenes in the episode where Muddy Mudskipper had a cigar and later the cigar was digitally removed. It also claimed that the cigar was originally left in, but later airings had it removed. So far, the rumor has been proven false.
- The episode was featured on the Sabrina the Teenage Witch episode Zelda and Hilda: The Teenage Years.
- Part of this episode was featured in "Sven Hoek".
- This is the first episode of the series animated by Lacewood Productions.
Errors
Stimpy with only pupils for eyes.
- When Stimpy was writing his poem, there was one scene where Ren's eyes and nose turned red.
- The "Stimpy's Breakfast Tips" segment has a brief scene where Stimpy only has pupils for eyes. John K. found it to be so strange that he kept it in.
- When Stimpy looks at Ren and the mailbox wonderingly, Ren's eyebrow is red.