The tenth episode of the third season of Rocko's Modern Life.
An Elk For Heffer
Heffer is tasked by his family with bringing an elk home for dinner, but ends up falling for his prey.
Scrubbin' Down Under
After an embarrassing incident involving spinach in his teeth, Rocko has a crazy dream about personal hygiene.
"An Elk For Heffer" provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Heffer forgets his own name and blurts out "Tom" instead.
- Ambiguously Gay: Peter. When Heffer is chosen to go through his manhood rite of passage, he asks George why Peter can't do it. Peter sarcastically replies, "Oh, yeah, that's gonna happen," then adds, "I'm late for class." George suspiciously says, "What class?" Cut to Peter in a tutu and ballet tights, grumbling, "Here we go: judge, judge, judge."
- Brain with a Manual Control: Heffer's heart has control over his emotions, and is seen sitting at a control panel with levers that say such things as "Look Stupid", "Stumble Over", "Forget Name", and "Try to Impress Her".
- Brotherhood of Funny Hats: In this episode, George and Virginia are revealed to be members of the Pack of Wolf Elders, who all wear beanie fezzes.
- Carnivore Confusion: It is revealed in this epsiode that it's a Wolfe family tradition to kill and eat an elk when you come of age. When Heffer brings back a live, sapient elk, they didn't care in the slightest that she was sapient.
- Comically Missing the Point: When George and Virginia want Heffer to bring an elk home for dinner, Heffer thinks they mean to bring home a living, female elk as a date. Justified in that Heffer is an adopted steer.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Heffer casually asks Elkie if she would like to see some embarrassing pictures of himself as a child.
- Explosive Breeder: During Heffer's montage of his date with Elkie, the two go through a tunnel of love together. Behind them are a rabbit couple. When Heffer and Elkie go out the other end of the tunnel, the boat of the rabbit couple behind them is littered with a herd of newborn baby rabbits.
- Insistent Terminology:
- When Alpha Wolf calls Heffer a cow, George reminds him that Heffer is actually a steer.
- Later in the episode, the bouncer at the Elk's Club refuses to let Heffer in, saying that he's a cow. Heffer then tells him that he's a steer.
- Near the end of the episode, when Heffer reveals to Elkie that he isn't an elk, Elkie asks, "I'm dating a cow?", Heffer tells her, "Well... steer."
- Interspecies Romance: Heffer, a steer, falls in love with Elkie, an elk.
- Iris Out: This episode ends with one on Heffer's face on the Moon.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: George. When Heffer reveals he's not really an elk, Elkie immediately wants to break up. George instantly switches gears from complaining about dinner to defending his adopted son.George: What's the matter?! He's not good enough for you?! ...So what if he's not an elk? He's not a wolf, either, but we love him anyway.
- Juggling Dangerously: Heffer impresses Elkie by juggling anvils.
- Name Amnesia: Heffer is so stunned by Elkie that he forgets his own name.Heffer: My name is Tom! No, wait that's not right! Jeff! Dan! Joe! Bartholomew!
- Paper-Thin Disguise: When Heffer first tries to get into the Elk's club, the bouncer refuses to let him in, saying it's only for Elks. To get into the club, Heffer ties a pair of branches to his horns and passes them off as antlers. This manages to fool the bouncer.
- Rite of Passage: For the wolves, the rite of passage is to bring an elk home for dinner. Heffer, being an adopted steer, misinterprets this and brings over a living, female elk home as a date. At the end of the episode, the elk dinner he was supposed to bring home consists of soy-based elk substitute.
- The Talk: When George tries to tell Heffer about his manhood rite of passage, he says they need to talk. Heffer asks, "Is this about the birds and the bees?", to which George says, "No. It's about passing from boyhood to manhood." Heffer interrupts with, "Oh, so this is about the..." before George calls for Virginia.
- Talking with Signs: When Heffer introduces Elkie to his family, Cindy merely holds up a sign that says, "Hi!". Heffer then tells Elkie that Cindy took a vow of silence. Cindy later holds up a sign that says, "Twisted", when Elkie breaks up with Heffer, and a sign that says, "Gag" when Heffer and George make up with each other.
- Tunnel of Love: Heffer and Elkie go through one during a montage of their date, as do the rabbit couple behind them.
- Wild Take: Heffer's heart's eyes pop out of his head when he sees Elkie.
- Wingding Eyes: Heffer's eyes form a single heart when he stares lovingly at Elkie.
- Wolves Always Howl at the Moon: This episode begins and ends with the members of the Pack of Wolf Elders howling at the moon. At the end, Heffer joins them, but being a steer, he says, "Moo!".
"Scrubbin' Down Under" provides examples of:
- Accidental Kiss: A Type 1 example happens when Rocko wins the "Service With a Smile" award. He's so ecstatic that he kisses Heffer on the cheek, stunning Heffer.
- Bandage Mummy: Rocko ends up in a full-body cast as a result of using a jackhammer to remove a chunk of spinach from his teeth.
- Cigar Chomper: Mr. Smitty. As he smokes his cigar, he spits the tobacco from it into a cup, then drinks it.
- Continuity Nod:
- When Rocko tells Heffer that the awards banquet he's going to is black tie, Heffer makes his own necktie by picking a salmon from Mr. Bighead's salmon bushes and covering it in exhaust from the tailpipe of Rocko's car.
- At the hospital, Dr. Bendova is called to admitting.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The film about personal hygiene that Clean Gene shows Rocko is shown in black and white.
- Dream Episode: After Rocko becomes hospitalized, he has a dream about personal hygiene, where he meets Clean Gene the Hygiene Genie.
- Eat the Camera: After the awards banquet, Rocko keeps trying to remove the chunk of spinach stuck between his teeth, but brushing his teeth several times does not help. He gets more frustrated and starts flossing at the spinach as he moves closer to the camera, and then zooms up so we see a close-up of the spinach chunk in his teeth, and then Rocko's growl turns into a scream that ends up overtaking the screen with black.
- George Jetson Job Security: Subverted. When Mr. Smitty calls Rocko into his office, he hands him a pink slip. Rocko asks Mr. Smitty if he's firing him again, but Mr. Smitty tells him, "Not this time", and that the pink slip is to inform Rocko that he's being nominated for the Comic Book Society's "Service With a Smile" award.
- Iris Out: This episode ends with one on the hospital doors when Clean Gene chases after Rocko.
- Kent Brockman News: After the awards banquet incident, the O-Town Action News program has Fran the newscaster glumly stating, "Bad stuff happened everywhere today..." But then he turns cheerful as he adds, "On the lighter side, a small wallaby with a big dental problem!" and footage of Rocko smiling at the banquet with the spinach in his teeth is shown as Fran laughs.
- Only One Name: Lampshaded when the announcer says Rocko has no last name given.
- Our Genies Are Different: Rocko uses a jackhammer in a misguided attempt to remove spinach from between his teeth, and ends up landing himself in the hospital. While he's laid up in traction, sleeping, he dreams of Clean Gene the Hygiene Machine, a hygiene-obsessed monkey genie attempting to re-educate him about hygiene. The monkey genie is actually the doctor who's treating him in the "real" world.
- Railroad Tracks of Doom: Rocko is forced to watch a movie about hygiene, where the unhygenic bad example kid Jimmy nearly gets run over by a train because he can't hear it coming thanks to his waxy ears.
- Record Needle Scratch: The grainy old "Say Hi to Hygiene" film Clean Gene shows makes this sound when it breaks in the projector at the end.
- Screaming Woman: Done as a Wacky Sound Effect; the initial shot of the spinach chunk stuck between Rocko's teeth, and near the end when we see the x-ray of Rocko's literally filthy brain, a female Stock Scream punctuates the shots.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Rocko runs out of the hospital in fear when Clean Gene tells him he's going to wash his brain.
- Species Surname: Two of the nominees for the award are Cosmo Walrus and Joan Crawfish.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Rocko's final attempt at removing a chunk of spinach from his teeth is by using a jackhammer. Predictably, he ends up hospitalized.
- Too Dumb to Live: It wasn't a very smart idea for Rocko to use a jackhammer just to get a piece of spinach out from between his teeth.
- Two Decades Behind: The "Say Hi to Hygiene" film Clean Gene shows Rocko is a 1950s-style educational film that's Deliberately Monochrome and all scratchy and jumpy, shown on a 16mm classroom-style movie projector. Though it's justified in that he's a magical genie and may have been around for a very long time and has been showing the same film for decades.
- The Unreveal: When the announcer announces the nominees for the "Service With a Smile" award, he addresses Rocko as "Rocko... No last name given."note
- You Won't Feel a Thing!: Parodied; right before Clean Gene is about to use a rather painful-looking drill to get the spinach out of Rocko's teeth, he tells Rocko, "Now this is going to hurt you a lot more than it's gonna hurt me."
