A Yard Too Far

"**A Yard Too Far**"
"A Yard Too Far"
The Ren & Stimpy Show episode
Episode no.	Season 3; Episode 2
Directed by	Bob Camp
Story by	Bob Camp; John Kricfalusi (uncredited)
Production code	RS-305
Original air date	November 20, 1993
Episode chronology
← Previous; "To Salve and Salve Not!"	Next →; "Circus Midgets"
	List of episodes

A Yard Too Far is the second episode of the third season of The Ren & Stimpy Show that originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on 20 November 1993.

Plot

Ren and Stimpy are starving and homeless again. At the house of Mr. Pipe, Ren and Stimpy are attracted by the smell of hog jowls. To get the jowls, Ren and Stimpy first have to cross the backyard, where they are attacked by a vicious baboon. The baboon keeps the duo out of the backyard. Ren creates a "sexy" baboon puppet to distract the baboon. The baboon falls in love with the puppet and proposes marriage to it, which the puppet master Ren is forced to accept. Stimpy plays a minister and marries the baboon to the puppet, which still has Ren's hand struck in it. The baboon goes off to consummate his marriage while Ren and Stimpy eat the jowls.

Cast

Billy West as Ren, Stimpy, and Mr. Pipe
Bob Camp as Baboon

Production

The script for A Yard Too Far was written by John Kricfalusi and was intended for the second season.^[1] Kricfalusi had planned to direct A Yard Too Far as an exercise in educating his employees at the Spümcø studio about story structure.^[2] Kricfaulsi based his story on the 1958 Yogi Bear story Pie Pirates.^[2] When the Spümcø studio lost the contract for The Ren & Stimpy Show on 21 September 1992, A Yard Too Far was reassigned by the network to the Games Animation studio.^[3] The delivery of stories for the second season was so haphazard and late that A Yard Too Far was held over for the third season.^[4] A Yard Too Far was directed by Bob Camp who decided to play the story for laughs and displayed a "sense of self-restraint" that kept the "more repulsive moments appropriately nonchalant".^[2] After Kricfalusi complained about being uncredited, on the second airing of A Yard Too Far on 12 March 1994 the credit "Written by John Kricfalusi" was added.^[5]

Reception

The American journalist Thad Komorowski gave A Yard Too Far three stars out of five,^[6]

Books and articles

Dobbs, G. Michael (2015). Escape – How Animation Broke into the Mainstream in the 1990s. Orlando: BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1593931100.
Komorowski, Thad (2017). Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1629331836.