A Cartoon

Plot

The episode is a parody of nature documentary series, with Ren and Stimpy starring as Marland Höek and his bumbling assistant. They travel to the Galápagos Islands to study local fauna, as Charles Darwin once did. The duo encounters strange creatures resembling them: some birds resemble Ren, some reptiles resemble Stimpy. A sea turtle's eggs produce many offspring; one is seemingly targeted by a seagull, but the seagull only intimidates the turtle into lending money.

In a cave, albino cave salamanders resembling Ren have literal radar in their heads and use their tongue like a hand to grab insects. Ren notes the importance of camouflage, but the duo hides in a moose's head to no effect. A crocodile resembling Stimpy vocalizes like Stimpy's "Happy Happy Joy Joy" quote, is bipedal, and boards a school bus. The duo finds a rare bipedal yak; Stimpy accidentally tranquilizes Ren instead of the yak, allowing it to escape, and tags Ren.

In the final moments, Ren introduces a frilled lizard resembling him; its expanding gular fold attracts photographers, and Ren tags Stimpy's tongue in retribution.

Production

The episode was conceived in October 1990 and spent much of 1991 in production. John Kricfalusi conceived the spoof of nature documentaries and reviewed every drawing personally. Bob Camp contributed to the story but was not credited due to space on the title card; he clarified that "Untamed World" was the sub-series name. Jim Smith did many of the drawings. Lacewood Productions in Ottawa handled the frame-by-frame drawing and painting. This was the last aired episode animated by Lacewood, as its poor working conditions and subpar output led it to stop animating further episodes, though Kricfalusi approved of their work.

Reception

American critic Dawn Taylor rated the episode as one of the best of the first season, noting its "truly disturbing Galapagos Island nature footage". Karen Schomer of The New York Times called it a "strange episode" with "odd-looking animals [that] had no happy ending". Thad Komorowski gave it four and a half out of five stars, deeming it a worthy tribute to Tex Avery's travelogue comedy animated shorts and a humorous episode.