I remember hearing about the Ren and Stimpy episode “Sven Hoek” secondhand when I was in high school. Didn’t catch it while it was on the air, but I remember having a visceral reaction to the name. It just sounded so funny to me, and I couldn’t explain why.

On John Kricfalusi’s blog a while back, he took some time to meditate on stereotypes in general and possible reasons why noone complained when he made about his funny little Nordic cartoon pal.