02.09
So here we reach the end of our journey.
I apologize for the length of time between this installment and the last but you see, if you have never seen this program you wouldn’t understand. As you can see I am no longer Desensitized, but merely the Spark Of Spirit- you may call me Spark, Sparky, SOS, or ‘kind Spirit’ (Yes, Dickens-esque!) for short). I am no longer the person you once knew. I have since cleansed my soul of this vile concoction of rubbery animation and evil writing and am here to tell you that not only am I still alive, but a stronger human being for it. As any person who sat through the Adult Party Cartoon will tell you, there is no way to sit through it without telling yourself lies about it in order to fight away those malicious tendencies to end it all.
“Well, the animation makes it watchable, at least!”
“It’s edgy and shocking and that’s all we need.”
“John K without his gloves on shows the real mind of an adult making cartoons and we could all learn from it.”
“This is what cartoons were meant to be.”
“It’s not that bad.”
Okay, those are all embellishments of things people have said in regards to this pile of fecal matter in animated form, but you have to understand that people simply couldn’t believe what they were seeing when watching this show.
Adult Party Cartoon outright killed Ren & Stimpy, no one will deny that. While the Games episodes were mostly forgettable and tedious with some bright spots, nothing was outright offensive to good entertainment (it did get close, but at worst it was forgettable) or the entire medium of animation. Adult Party Cartoon tries very hard to offend you, but in the way a small child will try to get a rise out of an adult by hiding their keys or saying a swear, or a teenager will talk back to their elders in an attempt for recognition of being an adult. In other words, it tries to be something it isn’t to appeal to those who had no problem with the way it was.
Would you see episodes in the old series (either era) where Ren sat around torturing helpless creatures with no punchline for twenty minutes? Or how about gay jokes, those are adult, right? Who needs subtlety,writing, and timing when characters can sit around spitting on each other for a whole episode? That’s right, Adult Party Cartoon is the equivalent of the “deep” kid who sat in the back of your middle school math class and whined all the time in order to fool his peers into thinking he was deeper than them when ironically his bids for credibility make him shallower than those he thinks he’s above. Yes, APC is that kid.
This entry will be short because it is not meant as a review so much as a warning. Do not seek this show out, do not attempt to look it up, and do not attempt to understand it or sympathize with shattered fans or disillusioned staff members of said show. You will not gain anything from watching it. You will not find any entertainment from watching it. You will not want to continue living after watching it. It is best left as what it is, a complete forgotten and hazy memory in the animated world that will never be remembered for anything other than driving the final nail in the coffin of a franchise that was once brimming with potential.
And that was the end of Ren & Stimpy. The series is now dead and vanquished to the nostalgia of those with precious memories of their youth in the 1990s and pop culture obscurity. A sad end for such a breath of fresh air of a cartoon.
So what did we learn from our trial? Well, we learned that some sleeping dogs are best left sleeping. Ren & Stimpy was a good idea that was milked hard and warped into things it was never originally meant to be in order to keep it from fading away from the public eye. But ironically, if the show had ended when John K was fired, it would probably be missed more than it is now. As a result, a franchise is dead, a creator is bitter, and fans all over the world are left confused and disheartened. If we learn anything else coming from this trial; it is that without the soul behind the words, there is no meaning. When the show lost its soul, it lost its meaning as well. And if this show can stand as a reminder of how not to lose yourself in your own world and ego to others out there, than at least it has that purpose to serve if nothing else.
Thanks for sitting through this with me.