Ren's Bitter Half

"Ren's Bitter Half" is the fifteenth episode from the third season of The Ren & Stimpy Show. It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on June 4, 1994.

Plot
Stimpy is working as a scientist in his laboratory when Ren storms in, angry that Stimpy has not made him dinner yet. In his rage, he shakes Stimpy's new genetic formula Xb49 despite's Stimpy's advice not to and spills some of the chemical onto himself. Being exposed to Xb49 causes Ren to split into two with Evil Ren (who represents the dark side of his personality) and Indifferent Ren (who represents the apathetic side of his personality) emerging from the split. Evil Ren torments Stimpy, a Girl Guide who tries to sell him cookies, and Indifferent Ren with the latter not caring at all. When Stimpy and Indifferent Ren return from a walk, they discover that Evil Ren has a built a bunker in their basement whose architectural style resembles that of the New Reich Chancellery while dressing himself in a SS-like uniform complete with a red armband with a white circle that features a black R.

Evil Ren proceeds to further torment Stimpy by throwing a record of his favorite song, "The Happy Happy Joy Joy Song", his favorite toy mouse, and his litter box into a vat of acid where all of Stimpy's treasured possessions dissolve. Evil Ren takes both Stimpy and Indifferent Ren prisoner and tells them of his intention to conquer the world. To create an army of clones, Evil Ren exposes himself to Xb49, which instead creates a feminine version of himself, Hideously Evil Ren. Evil Ren falls madly in love with Hideously Evil Ren and she with him, which causes him to forgo his plans for world conquest. Evil Ren and Hideously Evil Ren celebrate their love by getting married. After exchanging their wedding vows, Evil Ren and Hideously Evil Ren attack each other. The newly married couple board a car that instead of a string with cans has a string with Stimpy and Indifferent Ren attached. Despite the pain of being dragged down the street, Stimpy expresses his joy at the marriage while Indifferent Ren says "who cares?"

Cast

 * Billy West as Ren, Stimpy, Evil Ren, Indifferent Ren, Hideously Evil Ren and the Minister
 * Cheryl Chase as the Girl Guide

Production
The episode was largely the work of Michael Kim, who had joined the staff of the Games Animation studio in 1992. Kim had been working in the animation industry since he was 16 and he had been recruited to work for the Spümcø studio by its founder John Kricfalusi. When Kricfalusi was fired as the showrunner on 21 September 1992, the Spümcø studio lost the contract for The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Kricfalusi called the animators who left Spümcø to work for Games Animation, which had assigned the task of animating The Ren & Stimpy Show, "traitors". Kim stated in an interview: "I just wanted to get back into doing shows more like the original episodes that were just centered around Ren and Stimpy. I was just feeling my way around, I had never directed before. But I had a good idea of what I wanted and basically drew it all myself".

As usually the case with episodes of The Ren and Stimpy Show, the drawings for the episode were done in the United States, but the laborious work of coloring in and painting the episode frame by frame was subcontracted out to a studio in Asia, in this case the Rough Draft Korea studio of South Korea. The Games Animation studio in Los Angeles were not able to make use of the services of the Carbunkle studio of Vancouver for "Ren's Bitter Half", which led to a notable decline in visual quality compared to the first and second seasons. Bob Jaques, the manager of the Carbunkle studio, has expressed regret that his studio was not able to work on "Ren's Bitter Half", but stated that in 1994 Carbunkle had too many orders to fulfill from various American studios.

Reception
The episode was favorably reviewed in 1994 with the journalist Dan Parsons comparing it to the well received "Stimpy's Invention" episode of 1992. Parsons suggested that "Ren's Bitter Half" was a form of one-upmanship by the Games Animation Studio against the Spümcø studio, a claim that Kim vehemently denies, who insists that he just wanted to tell a good story.