# Powdered Toast Man (The Ren & Stimpy Show)

"Powdered Toast Man" is the second episode of the second season of The Ren & Stimpy Show. It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on August 15, 1992.

## Plot

Powdered Toast Man is a superhero who lives under the disguise of Pastor Toast Man, a well-liked youth deacon and government clerk; like Superman, he successfully hides his identity with only a pair of glasses despite his exceptional appearance. His assistant is the only one who knows of his second life and notifies him whenever help is needed. He sets off to his daily superhero routine of fighting evil.
Powdered Toast Man notices a cat almost to be run over by a truck; he assesses the situation and spits raisins at a nearby airplane, which crashes on the truck, severely injuring everyone on board yet the cat is miraculously unharmed. He nevertheless foolishly throws the cat aside before leaving, causing it to be actually be run over by another vehicle.
Powdered Toast Man flies to Antarctica, where he finds the Pope tied to a barrel of TNT, being held hostage by a malevolent Muddy Mudskipper. He teleports through the keyhole and saves the Pope after incapacitating Muddy with powder shots from his armpit. Just as the barrel is about to explode, he pretends to save Muddy, only to tie him on the barrel instead as punishment. The Pope grabs onto Powdered Toast Man's buttocks to ensure he does not get blown off, but is temporarily relocated on an iceberg while Powdered Toast Man continues his work. He flies to Ren and Stimpy's house to provide the duo with powdered toast, which they do not find appealing until he farts on it.
Powdered Toast Man finds his "toast particles" dissipating, realizing the President is in trouble. He teleports to the White House, only to find the President has his intimate part caught in his zipper. Powdered Toast Man helps him with this menial task, but his brutal method renders the President unable to work, hence he makes Powdered Toast Man the President. Powdered Toast Man is distracted by a cold breeze, as he realizes that the fireplace was not lit; he burns two dusty documents revealed to be the United States Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States, ending the episode by roasting food on the fireplace with the assistant.

## Cast

* Powered Toast Man – voice of Gary Owens
* Catholic Schoolgirl Assistant – voice of Cheryl Chase
* The President of the United States – voice of Jim Smith
* Ren – voice of John Kricfalusi
* Stimpy – voice of Billy West
* The Pope – voice of Frank Zappa
* Muddy Mudskipper – voice of Harris Peet

## Production

John Kricfalusi had wanted to do a "special" episode that would feature the voice of Frank Zappa, whom he idolized and inspired him to write "Powdered Toast Man". At the time, Zappa was dying of prostate cancer and his performances were recorded at his home, as Zappa was too ill to travel to Spümcø at Los Angeles. The character of Powdered Toast Man had first appeared in the mock TV ads in the first season of The Ren & Stimpy Show. Kricfalusi had wanted to do more with the character in the second season. Unlike many of the other episodes of season two, and unusually for an episode directed by Kricfalusi, "Powdered Toast Man" was completed on time for its scheduled premiere in August 1992. The episode was animated at Rough Draft Korea in Seoul.

## Reception

Thad Komorowski gave the episode three and a half out of five stars. Irish journalist Padraig Cotter praised "Powdered Toast Man" as the "ultimate parody of superheroes". Cotter wrote: "Powdered Toast Man is a dark, but somewhat loving, parody of superheroes and comics. Despite being universally beloved within the show itself and having an ego to match, he's hilariously ill-suited to saving people. His lack of care often causes fatalities and, in most cases, it would have been better if he wasn't around to save the day at all...The fact nobody within Ren and Stimpy appears to realise how awful he is becomes part of the gag".

## Legacy

"Powdered Toast Man" generated a firestorm of controversy when it aired in 1992, being widely denounced for being "anti-American" owing to the scene where Powdered Toast Man burns documents notable to American history. Nickelodeon and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was flooded with complaints over the "anti-American" episode, with one viewer, Kay Claire, writing in to the FCC to say that, after watching "Powdered Toast Man", "I was so repulsed, I couldn't calm down. I was outraged when I saw that program. I want that cartoon pulled from the air because it has no social value whatsoever". The burning scene attracted so much attention that the overtly sexualized appearance of the character known only as Catholic Schoolgirl Assistant, implications of a romantic relationship between the two after their fireplace dinner in the White House, and a scene where the Pope clings to the oversized buttocks of Powdered Toast Man passed almost unnoticed. In subsequent airings, the burning scene was censored while the rest of the episode went uncensored.
The character of Powdered Toast Man became so popular as a result of the episode that in 1993 he had a cross-over appearance in the Spider-Man comics where he faced Spider-Man, as Marvel Comics published comics based on the series. In 1994, the character of Powdered Toast Man returned in the episode "Powdered Toast Man vs. Waffle Woman", which was a pilot episode for a possible spin-off series featuring him.

## Books

* Klickstein, Matthew; Summers, Marc (2013). Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age. London: Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 9781101614099.
* Komorowski, Thad (2017). Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1629331836.