Ren's Pecs is the fifth episode of the third season of The Ren & Stimpy Show that originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on 18 December 1993.
Plot
Ren and Stimpy are on a beach somewhere in California where Ren is humiliated by a bully whom the "beach babes" prefer.[1] Ren wishes that he was not so scrawny, and at which point Charles Globe (a parody of Charles Atlas) emerges from the waves.[1] Charles Globe tells Ren that he should get a Pec-Toe-Plastic surgery to give him the pectoral muscles he desires.[1] Stimpy volunteers his fat from his buttocks to assist with the operation.[1] After a painful operation, Ren is endowed with the pectoral muscles of his dreams.[1] Ren returns to the beach where he beats up the bully and wins the love of the "beach babes".[2] Ren becomes a Hollywood star and credits his success to Charles Globe.[2] Ren lives in luxury in a penthouse in Los Angeles while Stimpy works as his maid.[2] Ren has forgotten whom Stimpy even was.[2]
The episode was written for the second season of The Ren & Stimpy Show by Richard Pursel and John Kricfalusi of the Spümcø studio.[2] After Kricfalusi was fired on 21 September 1992, the episode was assigned to the new Games Animation studio who held it over to the third season.[2] The original version called for the episode to be half an hour long and was to feature Ren's fall from being a Hollywood star and to return to Stimpy at the end.[2] The Games Animation studio cut the story short by leaving Ren as a Hollywood star.[2]
Reception
The American journalist Thad Komorowski gave Ren's Pecs two and a half stars out of five.[1]
Books and articles
Dobbs, G. Michael (2015). Escape – How Animation Broke into the Mainstream in the 1990s. Orlando: BearManor Media. ISBN978-1593931100.
Komorowski, Thad (2017). Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media. ISBN978-1629331836.