Jerry the Bellybutton Elf


"Jerry the Bellybutton Elf" is the twelfth episode of the third season of Ren & Stimpy Show. It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on April 9, 1994.

Plot

Stimpy plays with his navel while Ren is reading a newspaper. Stimpy pokes grotesquely and injects hazardous substances into it for his own amusement. At night he is sharpening pencils into his belly button; this also sharpens the finger of an angered Ren. Stimpy is suddenly goaded by his belly button to crawl inside it; he obliges, nonsensically able to enter, with his body imploding into a literal button. Stimpy experiences a psychedelic journey inside his body. Stimpy lands in a desolate region, where he finds Jerry the Bellybutton Elf. Jerry invites him to "play", but not before giving him a lint miniskirt.
Ren wakes up the next morning, only to find the imploded button; believing him to be dead, he mourns Stimpy and bites on the button, until he hears voices inside it. Stimpy is being congratulated by Jerry, only to be chased after serving Jerry lint loaf, whom he despises. Mr. Horse, the Ghost, Powdered Toast Man and Kowalski join in, with Muddy Mudskipper and his new wife appearing. Jerry chases Stimpy with a car, only for Stimpy to make it worse by offering to microwave the loaf. Jerry rips apart his skin, revealing himself to be a demonic pork chop-like being named Adonis, Lord of Chaos. The commotion at Ren's house soon turns into a full on party, with Ren agreeing to serve drinks. Stimpy gets out of the belly button to seek help, only for Adonis to pull the duo inside and devour them. Everyone leaves and Mudskipper's wife eats the button, presumably killing Adonis.

Cast

  • Ren – voice of Billy West
  • Stimpy – voice of Billy West
  • Jerry the Bellybutton Elf – voice of Gilbert Gottfried
  • The Salesman – voice of Billy West
  • Muddy Mudskipper – voice of Harris Peet

Production

Steve Mellor wrote the episode; it is the first episode to not be written by a Spümcø alumnus as well as the last episode he worked on. The task of directing "Jerry the Bellybutton Elf" was assigned to Ron Hughart, an individual considered to be reliable by both John Kricfalusi and Nickelodeon executives. The story was intended as a parody of Alice in Wonderland. Hughart said of his work on "Jerry": " was added to the episode at some point after the initial storyboard was given to me. A couple of the guys didn't want to board the sequence or at least didn't know what to do with it. I boarded it and timed it".

Reception

American journalist Thad Komorowski rated the episode zero out of five stars, calling it a "pitifully unfunny" episode and one of the worst episodes in the series. However, he considered the psychedelic scene to be stellar. By contrast, the critic Witney Seibold praised the climax and Gottfried's voice acting, writing: "Jerry has one of the most vocal and unusual freakouts in a show full of them. Gottfried didn't just employ his well-known voice, but pushed it to 11, shrieking at the top of his lungs and mutating into a giant murderous porkchop. What a class act".