Prehistoric Stimpy

"**Prehistoric Stimpy**"
"Prehistoric Stimpy"
The Ren & Stimpy Show episode
Episode no.	Season 4; Episode 6
Directed by	Bob Camp
Story by	Bob Camp; Ron Hauge
Production code	RS-322
Original air date	November 5, 1994
Guest appearance
	Jack Carter as Wilbur Cobb
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Lumber Jerks"	Next →; "Farm Hands"
	List of episodes

Prehistoric Stimpy is the sixth episode of the fourth season of The Ren & Stimpy Show that originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on 5 November 1994.

Plot

Ren and Stimpy visit the Museum of Natural History where Wilbur Cobb is the guide who gives a confused, rambling and mostly inaccurate account of prehistoric life.^[1] Cobb states that life on earth began as single-celled amoebas and the story goes back in time hundreds of millions of years into the distant past where amoebas lived in the sea.^[1] One amoeba that resembles Stimpy annoys an amoeba that resembles Ren, causing the Ren amoeba to slap the Stimpy amoeba, which then divides into new amoebas.^[1] In the present, Cobb then moves forward in time to the age of the Stimpyfish, which crawled out of the ocean onto land, only to fall into a tar pit while another Stimpyfish crawls out of the ocean to avoid the tar pit and instead is run over by a bus.^[1] Ren dismisses this story until Cobb shows him a prehistoric bus.^[1] Cobb then moves forward in time to speak of the Stimpysaurus, the "stupidest creature of all time", a dinosaur that resembles Stimpy which he is shown to be of very low intelligence as it slapped around by a dinosaur that resembles Ren.^[1] In the present, Stimpy asks Cobb how the dinosaurs went extinct and receives baffling bizarre answers in response such as the dinosaurs went extinct because they watched too much television.^[1] Cobb is arrested as he is revealed not to be a museum guide and as he is carried away shouts "I killed the dinosaurs!".^[1] Ren and Stimpy prove their low intelligence by walking into a tar pit that is part of an exhibit and both drown.^[1]

Cast

Ren-voice of Billy West
Wilbur Cobb-voice of Jack Carter
Stimpy-voice of Billy West

Production

The episode was illustrated by the Mr. Big Cartoons studio of Sydney.^[1] The cartoon was largely created by the showrunner, Bob Camp, who felt sorry for the financially distressed actor Jack Carter, and Prehistoric Stimpy was intended to be a showcase of Carter's vocal talents that would also give him some needed money.^[2] The scene where Stimpy rips off pieces of Cobb's face was censored by the network.^[3]

Reception

The American critic Thad Komorowski wrote that the episode was one of the stronger episodes that featured the recurring Wilbur Cobb character.^[2]

Books and articles

Dobbs, G. Michael (2015). Escape – How Animation Broke into the Mainstream in the 1990s. Orlando: BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1593931100.
Komorowski, Thad (2017). Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1629331836.