Original air date: 1/8/1994 (produced in 1993)
Stimpy wants to make a cartoon to impress his idol, the decaying, senile Godfather of Animation, Wilbur Cobb. Ren, who has no talent, is made the producer and proceeds to work Stimpy to the bone while he does nothing in return. When the cartoon's finished, they take it to Wilbur Cobb and the episode ends with the cartoon finally being shown.
Stimpy's Cartoon Show contains examples of...
- Audience Surrogate: After Wilbur Cobb's nonsensical rant which serves no purpose outside of keeping us in suspense, Ren and Stimpy beg him to put Stimpy's long-awaited cartoon on.
- Big Bad: Peg Pelvis Pete in the "I Like Pink" cartoon.
- Body Horror: Wilbur Cobb seems like an ordinary senile old man, but throughout his introduction it's revealed that he's literally falling apart, although he remains blissfully unaware of it. Underneath his glasses, his eyes are just shrunken holes (though his eyeballs appear to be stuck on the glasses), both his arms fall off, then inexplicably get reattached, and his left ear rots off and falls on Stimpy's stomach. He's basically a walking talking corpse.
- Bowdlerise: A few short scenes during the montage of Stimpy’s creation of his cartoon have been cut from all airings and the DVDs since the original airing on SNICK back in 1994. A brief clip of a boy stealing the aforementioned Flod in the Parody Commercial has also been removed from the DVD.
- Call-Back: When Ren asks Stimpy if he remembers what he told him about cartoons, Stimpy says that he remembers that he told him that they're not real and just puppets.
- Calling Your Nausea: At one point in "I Like Pink", Explodey tells Poopy "I have to throw up now".
- Character Catchphrase: Peg Pelvis Pete's is "Hmmm, ha ha. I'll get the both of you, ha ha. [blubbers] Ahhh... hmmm.".
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Wilbur Cobb.
- False Teeth Tomfoolery: At one point, Wilbur Cobb starts coughing, causing his false teeth to fly into Ren's mouth, suffocating him which forced him to swallow it. Yet, they're suddenly back inside Cobb's mouth.
- Gainax Ending: The ending reveals Wilbur Cobb is in fact in a jail cell, before he submits himself along with Ren and Stimpy to the electric chair.
- Gilligan Cut:Ren: You're living in a dream world if you think the great Cobb will see ya.(Cuts to him and Stimpy in Cobb's office.)
- High-Voltage Death: The episode ends with Cobb, Ren, and Stimpy getting executed in an electric chair.
- I Shall Return:Peg Pelvis Pete: You win this time Explodey, but I'll be back!
- Inelegant Blubbering: "I can't draw...!"
- Jungles Sound Like Kookaburras: The sound effect was heard at one point in the "I Like Pink" cartoon.Explodey: There's nothing wrong in Montana, Poopy.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After putting Stimpy through hell as producer, Ren ends up getting the worst of it in their meeting with Wilbur Cobb, getting choked by his flung dentures, suffocated by his bad breath, and then sent to the chair with Cobb and Stimpy.
- Last-Second Word Swap: "(Stimpy's normal voice) Ren— *cough* (his Poopy voice) I mean, Explodey..."
- Malaproper:Ren: If you think that I'm going to help you, YOU'RE BARKING UP THE WRONG CHICKEN!!!
- Meaningful Name: Explodey... explodes when Poopy kisses him.
- Mockumentary: Most of the episode is about Stimpy engaged in the tedious, time consuming, and boring animation process. It shows Stimpy drawing individual animation cels, creating story boards, taking camera shots of each cel, editing the footage, and finally submitting the finished product for approval. All the while The Producer (which is Ren) does nothing except boss Stimpy around, crush his spirit by giving the axe to most of Stimpy's Story Boards, charge Stimpy money for supplies and lay around like he's on vacation. At one point Stimpy is so desperate for animation cels that he slices off pieces of a log as thinly as possible to create them (though Stimpy mistakenly believed that he needed to draw 1000 frames per second, so the dwindling supplies were more his fault than Ren's).
- Orifice Invasion: A hermit crab from Cobb's seashell phone crawls into his ear. He didn't seem to notice.
- Rambling Old Man Monologue: Wilbur Cobb gets some impressive examples of this trope.
- Standard Snippet:
- Dance of the Hours plays twice in the episode.
- The overture to Romeo and Juliet plays when Stimpy is admiring a picture of Wilbur Cobb.
- A movement from Swan Lake is heard in another scene.
- The cat's theme from Peter and the Wolf, then later Habanera from Carmen plays when Cobb talks to Ren and Stimpy.
- Stars and Stripes plays at the end of the "I Like Pink" cartoon.
- Pomp and Circumstrance plays when Cobb congratulates Stimpy.
- And finally, Ode to Joy plays when Cobb, Ren, and Stimpy get executed.
- Stylistic Suck: Stimpy's cartoon, animated by writer Ron Hauge.
- Take That!:
- According to the DVD commentary, the idea for the episode was that it was meant to be an allegory of "Artists Vs. Non Artists" related to John K's experiences in the animation industry battling with executives over content.
- When the episode was finished without Krisfalusi, the remaining creative team changed the role from executive to producer, basically pointing out how he was not that different in his stifling of the creative process. Some of the stuff Ren does as a producer is apparently similar to how John K. himself acted when in charge of Ren and Stimpy. Ren even wears horn-rimmed glasses similar to the ones John wore.
- Stimpy's explanation to Ren of what a producer does certainly qualifies:A producer is the guy that tells the artists what to do, and later, makes all the changes. And then, when the cartoon's done, he takes all the credit.
- "Lots of people make cartoons that can't draw!" It's not directed at anyone specifically, but the intention is there.
- While reminiscing about his film career, Wilbur Cobb goes on a short rant about Walter Lantz, describing him as a "no account son of a bus driver." Considering who's saying it, it's hard to tell whether it's genuine of not.
- Tears of Joy: Stimpy after his cartoon finally gets him the respect of his idol, Wilbur Cobb.
