From: metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu (metlay)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.ren-n-stimpy
Subject: Re: Big House Blues
Summary: A quick synopsis
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:35:16 GMT
Organization: Atomic City

In article <Apr.14.12.23.08.1992.4838@flounder.rutgers.edu> speno@flounder.rutgers.edu (John P. Speno) writes:
>
>	With the possibility that I may NEVER see Big House Blues, I
>feel that it would be a nice gesture if someone would describe this
>episode in as much detail as cartoonly possible. 
>	 It would be sad indeed if all the original R$S fans who have
>seen BHB used this fact to intimidate all of us newer converts to insanity.

Hrm. Well, I've never posted here before, but until recently (thanks,
Drukmoid) I was in the REVERSE situation: I had seen the unexpurgated
movie-theatre version of BHB and had NEVER seen anything else! 

So as a public service, here's a sketchy synopsis of "Ren Hoek and Stimpy
in Big House Blues". (YES, Ren HOEK and Stimpy is how they were listed!)

The story begins on a street in the city, similar to the beginning of 
"Fire Dogs" but with a wider pan-shot. A slightly country-sounding 
narrator was explaining how Ren Hoak (and Ren faces the camera and 
snarls, "That's Ren HOEK! HOEK! HOEK!") and Stimpy were starving, and
Old Man Hunger was gnawing at their bellies (quick shots of an old man
in a diaper gnawing therir bellies), but how even through all despair
and gloom, there was still a ray of hope-- (The two look up with joyful
eyes to a single sunbeam through the clouds... and get smeared by a truck)

The truck stops and backs up next to the lump of squashed flesh with 
four blinking eyes, and the dog catcher picks it up with a spatula.
His comment is something like "Two more! I made my quota!"

The next scene is a huge party taking place in the Pound. Ren and
Stimpy are wearing party hats, as are all the other dogs and cats,
some of whom are waving bottles about and dancing. A bulldog (I foget
his name) tells Ren and Stimpy about how wonderful life is in the 
Pound, then gets grabbed by the neck by the dog catcher and hauled 
away. 

Ren asks where he's going, and another dog says, "He's being put to sleep."
Ren says that's a great idea, and fluffs up Stimpy as a pillow and zonks out.

The next morning, Ren, still asleep, is mumbling to a woman in his dreams
and kissing Stimpy, who's also still asleep. When Ren wakes up and sees
whom he's been licking, he renders up a prayer to the Porcelain Deity.

Later, Ren asks where the Bulldog is, and the same dog as before says,
"I told you, they put him to sleep." Ren says, "So, wake him up." The
other dog says, "There IS no waking up from THE BIG SLEEP." 

Ren (in his inimitable Ren fashion) freaks. "THE BIG SLEEP?! THE BIG SLEEP!!"
Stimpy asks innocently (he has, by the way, VERY few lines in BHB), "What's
the Big Sleep?" Ren looks at him with tears in his eyes, and says, "What's
the Big Sleep? I'll tell you--" He shrieks "IT'S *DEATH!!!* DEATH, DO YOU 
HEAR?!! WE'RE GOIN TO *DIE*!!!!!!" and he collapses in a fit of hysteria.

Later that day, Ren and Stimpy are zombie-like from fear, watching the 
dogcatcher approaching them from behind the bars.... Stimpy gets so scared
that be barfs up a hairball on Ren, who's now got a hariball ring around his
neck and a pompom on his head. Ren is about to cuss Stimpy out for dirtying
him, when he suddenly hears a little girl scream, "I want THAT one! The 
POODLE!"

INSTANTLY Ren puts on the cutest face he can manage, standing on top of
Stimpy. The dogcatcher grabs him by the neck and yanks him out of the 
cage, and as the girl carries him away he points over her shoulder at
Stimpy and laughs maniacally. "I'm FREE! I'M FREE! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

The Stimpy's eyes well up with tears, and Ren wilts on the spot. He leaps
out of the girl's arms and throws up a hand to stop her. "STOP! If you want
me, you'll have to take Stimpy too!" The girl thinks about it for a moment, 
then says, "Okay!" INSTANTLY we hear the sound of a falling bomb, and we see 
both the girl and Ren watch something off screen fly toward and over them, 
finally landing on Ren (it's Stimpy, of course, doing a perfect swan dive).

The last scene is inside a typical 1960s cartoon house, where the girl's
mom gives each of the two new pets (who are ecstatic at their new home)
a present. I forget, alas, what she gives Ren, but she gives Stimpy a 
litter-box, which he hugs fiercely (getting Ren buried in the process)
saying, as he does in "Fire Dogs," "MY FIRST MATERIAL POSSESSION!"

No, it's NOT perfect, all you completists out there who actually HAVE
BHB on tape (please send me a copy?!), but it's enough so everyone can
now "place" the snippets seen in the opening credits, all of which are
from BHB. 

Ciao,

--
metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu  ||               "Oh, JOY!"