Jerry the Bellybutton Elf

Plot

Ren is reading a newspaper while Stimpy messes with his bellybutton, jabbing it and putting dangerous stuff inside for fun. Later that night, Stimpy is grinding pencils into his navel, which also accidentally sharpens Ren’s finger when Ren gets annoyed. Something inside his bellybutton urges Stimpy to climb into it, and he does, his whole body collapsing into a small button. Inside, he has a wild, trippy trip through his own body and ends up in a barren place where Jerry the Bellybutton Elf lives.

Jerry says they’ll “play,” but really he wants Stimpy to do chores, and hands him a skirt made of lint. When Ren wakes up, he sees the button, thinks Stimpy is dead, and starts crying. He bites the button and hears voices. Inside, Jerry congratulates Stimpy, then chases him after Stimpy serves a lint loaf.

A bunch of characters show up: Mr. Horse, the Ghost, Powdered Toast Man, Kowalski, Muddy Mudskipper, and his new wife. Jerry chases Stimpy with a car, and Stimpy makes things worse by offering to microwave the loaf. Jerry tears off his own skin, turning into a scary pork-chop demon named Adonis, Lord of Chaos. A party starts at Ren’s house.

Stimpy tries to escape for help, but Adonis pulls both him and Ren inside and eats them. Everyone leaves, and Mudskipper’s wife eats the button, which might have killed Adonis.

Production

Ron Hughart, trusted by both John Kricfalusi and Nickelodeon, directed this episode. Steve Mellor wrote it, making it the first not penned by a Spümcø alumnus and his final writing credit. The story parodies Alice in Wonderland. Hughart noted that the song 'Climb Inside My World' was added after the initial storyboard; he boarded and timed that sequence himself.

Reception

American journalist Thad Komorowski rated the episode zero out of five stars, calling it a pitifully unfunny episode and one of the worst in the series, though he considered the psychedelic scene stellar. Critic Witney Seibold praised the climax and Gottfried's voice acting, noting that Gottfried pushed his voice to 11, shrieking and mutating into a giant murderous porkchop.