Ren and Stimpy are the eponymous characters of two American animated television series created by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi. Ren Höek, a neurotic "asthma-hound" chihuahua, and Stimpson J. Cat (a.k.a. Stimpy), a fat, red, simpleton (but occasionally intelligent) cat, wander around in nonsensical adventures reminiscent of the Golden Age of American animation. Kricfalusi created the characters around 1979, while working for low-budget TV cartoons after moving to the United States. The characters were originally conceived as individual doodles unrelated to one another, and it was Kricfalusi's co-worker Joel Fajnor who told Kricfalusi to pair them together.

A product of the children's cable network Nickelodeon, The Ren & Stimpy Show had a reputation for subversiveness. Its level of gross-out humor, often involving nasal mucus and flatulence, was surpassed only by shows such as Beavis and Butt-head or The Brothers Grunt. While primarily controversial for its grotesque imagery, the series also frequently lampooned elements of western culture, such as materialism and superstition.