YMMV / Rocko's Modern Life

• Accidental Aesop: "Scrubbin' Down Under" has the lesson of not trying to solve your problem in a fit of rage as you'll likely make things worse.
• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Several viewers interpreted the character Crappie Jack's name to be another innuendo. While this show is no stranger to these kinds of jokes, a crappie is an actual fish, and the character in question was a sailor/fisherman (though this was almost certainly intended to be a Double Entendre).
  • This line from "The Good, the Bad and the Wallaby". For context, Rocko's trying to practice roping with Heffer:
  Heffer: Come on, tie me up, Rocko!
  • From "A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic", there's this line that can make some dirty-minded people snicker...
  Rocko: Oh cobblers! Heff's been sucked!
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In "Kiss Me I'm Foreign," was Filburt taking his role as Rocko's fake wife too seriously, or was he just playing it up because he knew the department of immigration would be watching?
  • In "Power Trip", Smitty's warning to Rocko was to not push the green button, which transforms whoever's sitting in the chair into a rude, abusive, Bad Boss. Was Smitty trying to save Rocko from a fate much like his because he wanted Rocko to remain a good person, or did he simply not want to return to work and find out he could no longer bully Rocko?
• Ass Pull: Played for Laughs in "Manic Mechanics". Rocko breaks his car, and all seems hopeless....until he notices a "Broken/Fixed" switch on the engine.
• Anvilicious:
  • The Boom! Studios comic book leans towards a rather overbearing anti-consumerism and anti-corporations angle in its final arc, with Conglom-O depicted as a bunch of greedy jerks who can't stop manipulating people into buying their useless products until they're poor, the consumers retaliating to the CEO of Conglom-O's being tricked into publicly calling them easily manipulated idiots by burning down Conglom-O, the entire town descending into anarchy because of this, and all the chaos apparently being depicted as a good thing.
  • "Wacky Deli" is essentially fifteen minutes of carping about how Viewers Are Morons who only want the lowest common denominator.
• Awesome Art: The show boasts brilliant character designs, delightfully wacky and rubbery backgrounds (which ignores parallel lines to attain great stylistic effect), and highly expressive animation.
• Awesome Music: The main reason why the Musical Episode "Zanzibar" is so beloved. The Spring Cleaning song and the Recycling song are both insanely catchy and keep the episode's Green Aesop from being Anvilicious. And the reprise of the latter towards the end of the episode is especially good.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The show definitely thrives on this trope, but there are a few standout examples.
  • The scene with the naked fairies and the shaved voyeur gopher in "A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic".
  • Heffer being abducted by aliens who look like him in the episode "Cruisin". Even though they went into the Bermuda Triangle and went through a time warp, this makes no sense in relation to the rest of the episode.
  • In "Fortune Cookie," Filbert's unlucky streak montage is directly followed by a scene at a local O-Town park where Really Really Big Man tries to talk a pigeon out of "dropping the big one" by gazing into his "nipples of the future" to see that he still something to live for. Which somehow involves the pigeon thinking he's going to get front-row tickets to a Barbra Streisand concert (who apparently exists in this universe). He then breaks out into a rendition of a song about laundry - which evidently this version of Streisand is known for because the entire crowd of onlookers randomly starts to sing along ("Closet full of filthy clothes!/When you go to the Laundromat/Don't forget to clean the lint trap!/Laundry!") This almost works until Filburt shows up causing Really Really Big Man's nipples to go out of control and the pigeon to become furious at the deception. But the idea of a Streisand musical about laundry is never revisited again.
  • The finale of “Uniform Behaviour.” Yes, it’s clearly a parody of The Shining but in terms of the story, no idea what’s going on especially with the ghosts of those old security guards.
  • The following exchange in "Bye Bye Birdie" (which might be a quick example of Seinfeldian Conversation). Though they don't move there, Rocko and Heffer do go and visit France in a later episode:
    Heffer: Hey Rock, do you want to move to France? (not taking eyes off TV)
    Rocko: Not really. No. (eyes also glued mindlessly to TV)
    Heffer: Yeah, me neither. (and they just continue watching TV)
  • In "Wacky Delly", when Rachel needs help from her dad, we briefly see what they're doing - Bev is being chased around the house by Ed, who is inexplicably inside a giant hamster exercise ball, both are shrieking and look like they're rolling face on MDMA. The hell?
• Broken Base: Which theme song is superior? The Pat Irwin version or the B-52s version?
• Cargo Ship: Canon: Spunky's forbidden romance with a mop. The Psychiatrist is shown later to be wining and dining said mop. And how does Spunky get over it? He falls in love with a fire hydrant! Static Cling takes his mop obsession up to eleven with him watching a 10-hour video of mops and ordering several mops through express delivery.
• Critical Dissonance: The show received a D+ rating in a 1993 issue of Entertainment Weekly in spite of being one of the most revered Nickelodeon shows to this day.
• Cult Classic: The show was never quite as popular as The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rugrats or SpongeBob at the time; the best it could manage was this. The cult fanbase, though, was enough so that the show was on MTV for a brief while. As of 2017, over twenty years since the show ended, the dedicated fanbase has become so strong that Nickelodeon greenlit a TV movie that was later released on Netflix.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Dr. Hutchinson, who was actually intended to be this according to Joe Murray and managed it wonderfully. Executive Meddling wanted a strong female character, and even though Murray was reluctant, he complied and she proved to be quite a hit with the staff, the fanbase, and even Murray himself. See? Tropes Are Not Bad.
  • Bloaty and Squirmy. Anytime they show up, someone is bound to be singing their theme song.
  • Sheila is VERY BIG one. Despite only appearing in one episode, she is seen in TONS of fan works! It helps that she served as a love interest for Rocko in her only appearance.
  • Rachel Bighead due to being a self-portrait of the series' creator, Joe Murray (who also voiced the character). Rachel's shows, Meet the Fatheads and Wacky Delly, are well-liked among viewers. Her coming out as trans in Static Cling both increased her popularity tenfold and was thematically relevant.
  • The bus driver from "I See London, I See France". Despite being a One-Shot Character, he's quite popular for his hilariously deranged personality and Tom Kenny's Large Ham performance.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The Boom! Studios comic's conclusion is supposedly intended to be seen as a happy ending because it has Rocko see himself as an equal to the other inhabitants of O-Town after exposing the underhanded business strategies of Conglom-O, but the fact that he incited the other denizens to destroy Conglom-O in a riot and caused the town to descend into anarchy as a result makes it a bit of a stretch to call the ending a happy one.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Out of all of Rocko's love interests depicted in the series, the majority of the fandom prefers him to be with Sheila. After Static Cling, however, many fans (especially newer ones) prefer to ship him with Rachel over any of the canon love interests.
• Friendly Fandoms: Tuca & Bertie has been called this show's direct successor by many of it's fans, being another Zany Cartoon about navigating adulthood set in a World of Funny Animals. Humorously enough, in one episode Filbert has a pet bird named Turdy, why kind of sounds like a portmanteau of "Tuca and Bertie."
• Growing the Beard: While the first half of season one was certainly funny, it was much more low-key, as it focused more on its Vanilla Protagonist Rocko. The show's evolution into an ensemble comedy not only brought the much funnier side characters center stage, but provided some of the funniest jokes, eventually leading to the excellent third season which even Joe Murray agrees was the one where the show was really firing on all cylinders.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Heffer's eating habits are mostly Played for Laughs, but then you realize that this aspect of the character was inspired by Joe Murray's struggle during his teen years with binge eating.
  • O-Town being all rainy on Christmas Eve in "Rocko's Modern Christmas" and Ed's comment on how it hasn't snowed on Christmas in O-Town for decades becomes a lot more relevant after the 1990s, as less areas in the USA generally have snow around Christmas nowadays due to global warming.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • On April Fools' Day 2013, The 90s Are All That announced they'd air a lost episode of the series, which turned out to be a picture of mayonnaise (ala the "Wacky Delly" episode). 3 years later, the sequel special Static Cling was announced. Looks like Rocko is back for real.
  • Before production on season 1, Joe Murray's first wife tragically killed herself. Murray later revealed that she was the one who made him more environmentally conscious and encouraged him to recycle, meaning that she was the inspiration for the much-loved Musical Episode "Zanzibar" three years later.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In one episode there's a plumber named Dr. Phil. In the fourth Scary Movie Dr. Phil claims he's really an electrician.
  • Episodes written by Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh like to feature characters named "Ferb".
  • "Heff in a Handbasket," the episode where Heffer sold his soul to be on a game show, was once pulled due to its blasphemous content. Eventually, the episode did air again on June 6th, 2006 (6/6/06) on Nicktoons TV. Guess the Nickelodeon censors didn't see why this would be inappropriate.
  • In one episode, Filburt has a tube of a toothpaste-like substance called "Spirit Away". It's also funny if you're a Touhou Project fan, as Ran has a spell card called "Yukari's Spiriting Away".
  • One episode features Heffer choking to death, and the Grim Reaper comes and mockingly tells him he was killed by his own gluttony. Heffer cries, "I'M A GLUTEN!!!" This was a good long while before the anti-gluten diet craze.
  • The entire episode of "Fish-N-Chumps" seems to be writers Stephen Hillenberg and Mark O'Hare testing the waters for their own nautical-themed show. In fact, a 2002 episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, "Clams", was based off "Fish-N-Chumps".
  • The "Wacky Delly" cartoon short made by Rocko, Heffer and Filburt can be seen as a Spiritual Predecessor to your average YouTube Poop. The episode is also about Rachel Bighead; voiced by Joe Murray creating an audacious cartoon that is accused of polluting the minds of children but maintains a cult following years after its cancellation.
    • "Wacky Delly" is about a bunch of food people doing random stuff. Years later, Adult Swim would air a show about a bunch of food people doing random stuff.
  • Considering that Dr. Hutchison's voice actress eventually came out as a lesbian, it's pretty amusing to see Filbert being told that Hutch would never marry him in "The Big Question."
  • Also in "The Big Question", when Dr. Hutchinson's mother lifts up Rocko's car with him, Heffer, and Filburt in it, Heffer mistakes her for a man and calls her "Mr. Crab."
  • "Rinse & Spit" ends with a foot named Gordon, who is a parody of Johnny Carson, talking about visiting the dentist often. 5 years later, PBS Kids would air The Noddy Shop, a series with a character named Johnny Crawfish who sings a song about the Tooth Fairy in one episode that mentions both visiting the dentist and cavities.
  • "The Big Answer" had the boys being drunk on ice cream, not unlike how SpongeBob and Patrick did in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
  • With Static Cling revealing that the Bigheads' child is now a transgender woman, her debut episode being titled "I Have No Son" takes on a new meaning.
  • One of Rachel’s NEVER! Moments in said episode shows her wearing a dress and an apron, which end as a hint to the future.
  • The vet/pet psychologist in "Clean Lovin'" is named Dr. Katz. Two years later, an unrelated psychologist character named Dr. Katz would hit the airwaves.
  • One episode has Heffer in a children’s scout troop. Not only would Joe Murray’s next show be about scouting, but Heffer would turn out to be the real scoutmaster in the last episode of the show.
  • In the episode "Gutter Balls", Rocko, Heffer and Filburt's bowling team is named "The Losers". 22 years after it's premiere in 1995, "The Losers" would become the name of a team in Battle for BFDI.
• Iron Woobie: No matter how badly to world treats Rocko, he's determined to fulfill his obligations to his friends and live the best he can. He never feels sorry for himself or looks for someone to blame. Barring the very few times he hits the Rage Breaking Point he remains his upbeat and positive self. This is one of the reasons he's so well liked by others.
• LGBT Fanbase: Attracted a large gay and transgender following after Static Cling, which featured a very well-received trans female character. Even before that, the show's many gay moments and Rainbow Lens jokes made it popular with LGBTQ+ fans.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Filburt! Sell some Really Really Big Man comic books!"
  • "Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby."
    • As of July 19, 2017, it's been taken up a notch by the original voice actors.
  • "Never! Never!! NEVER!!!"
  • "I AM THE CHEESE! I AM THE BEST CHARACTER ON THIS SHOW! I AM BETTER THAN BOTH THE SALAMI AND THE BOLOGNA COMBINED!"
  • "I'm a wild pig!"
  • "HOW DARE YOU?!"
  • "You turn the page, wash your hands. Turn the page, wash your hands..."
  • "X Day is a very dangerous day."
  • "That was a hoot!"
  • "My meme is a bathroom!"
  • "Eat steel, Rocko!"
  • "YOU CHEAP LITTLE ROTTER!"
  • "Have you learned nothing?!"
  • ”Wow. You’re an idiot!”
• Misaimed Fandom: "Who's For Dinner?", the episode where Heffer discovers he's adopted, was lauded upon its premiere as "groundbreaking". Joe Murray was confused as to why everyone but him was taking such a silly cartoon so seriously.
• Narm Charm: This is the whole reason "Zanzibar" is a musical. While Joe Murray is a self-proclaimed environmentalist, he was reluctant to do an episode about the environment out of fear that it would be too sentimental or pushy. The other writers convinced him that a Musical Episode would allow them to be tongue in cheek without harming their message, with Murray's only condition being that Rocko wouldn't sing, lest it be too silly.
• Once Original, Now Common:
  • Upon its premiere, "Wacky Delly" was beloved for its sheer unabashed randomness and Stylistic Suck, which is now a dime a dozen on YouTube and [adult swim].
  • Back when it first premiered, the amount of innuendo was extremely impressive, and shocked many people. Lots of kids' cartoons nowadays, however, do the same thing, and so Rocko may not seem that impressive to some people who are used to watching Adventure Time or Regular Show, the latter of which got "pissed" past the censors.
• Padding: The original "Trash-O-Madness" indie short, which is Murray's animated solo, is only eight minutes long, so the broadcast version added new scenes from the overseas studio, and it's quite obvious which is which: the Murray animation is looser and has rougher audio, while the overseas animation is more on-model, has cleaner audio and doesn't much affect the plot, with the slight exception of the extra scenes of Spunky playing with the slime ball, since in the original pilot, the slime ball was completely inanimate, while in the extended version, it is completely sentient.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The only licensed game the cartoon has to its name is Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day, which is wall to wall Escort Missions of Rocko having to keep Spunky out of danger as he mindlessly wanders through the levels.
• Rainbow Lens: The Rocko's Modern Life episode "Closet Clown", in which Ed Bighead lives a double life as a clown before being "outed" to his family and neighbors while performing at a party; the episode had tons of Does This Remind You of Anything? moments. Word of God confirms that this subtext was entirely intentional.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Tom Kenny would go on to play Dog on CatDog and did many characters on 90s Cartoon Network shows, but really became famous as SpongeBob SquarePants.
  • Likewise this was Doug Lawrence's first major role voicing Filburt. He'd go onto voice Plankton in SpongeBob SquarePants and Edward in Camp Lazlo.
  • For a number of prominent names in animation, Rocko's Modern Life was one of their first real gigs. Stephen Hillenburg, whose first professional job in the animation industry was as animation director for Rocko, would eventually go on to create Nickelodeon's flagship TV series SpongeBob SquarePants. Rocko was also one of the earliest professional gigs for both Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, who first met on Rocko and would eventually go on to create Phineas and Ferb for Disney Channel.
• Squick: The end of the episode "The Fatlands", not only does Dr. Hutchinson give Rocko all of the fat that she sucked out of Spunky... Heffer ends up eating that fat.
• Strawman Has a Point: In "Keeping Up With The Bigheads", while Ed is a jerk about it, he is within his rights to be angry at Rocko and Heffer, since their terrible housekeeping resulted in a weed killing his prized flower garden.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: During the Chariots of Fire parody in "From Here to Maternity", the show uses a sound-alike version of the theme from the film.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Although the show itself stays the same, tons of people agree that the Pat Irwin version of the theme song is much better than the B-52's version.
• Unintentional Period Piece: In "Flu-in-u-Enza", the wrestling event that Rocko tries to attend is the Wild World of Wacky Wrestling Federation, which was a spoof on World Wrestling Federation, which would later be called World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • In "Power Trip" Smitty had given no indication that the extra help he ordered Rocko to hire would be anything more than a temp, so the expectation that he give a permanent position to Filbert seems a bit unreasonable.
  • In "No Pain, No Gain", The Chameleon Bros. are stuck up and haughty, but Heffer causes untold property damage at their gym and repeatedly inconveniences other customers, so them kicking him out is reasonable.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Rachel can come off as this. She humiliates her father by saying she wanted to be a cartoonist in public, when she could’ve mentioned this in private. While her tense relationship with Ed is understandable, Bev has done nothing to warrant insults.
• Values Dissonance: This series aired in the early-to-mid-1990s, the last time tobacco use was considered acceptable in a children's cartoon. While none of the main characters smoked, many background characters (particularly in Season 1) did, as did Mr. Smitty. Nowadays, this wouldn’t pass on kid’s TV unless it had An Aesop against it.
• Values Resonance:
  • One of the reason's behind the show's lasting appeal is how it's arguably the first cartoon to discuss the struggles of "adulting" (i.e., being self-reliant as an adult), a universal concept among young adults in The New '10s and beyond.
  • The second episode of the series (6th in production order) "Leap Frogs" deals with Bev Bighead feeling neglected by Ed, her needs aren’t met anymore. So she decides to release that pent-up sorrow by seducing Rocko. The topic of sexual harassment is handled very well here, even in a cartoonishly exaggerated way. While it's still comedic, Rocko is seen being very uncomfortable and Bev is not depicted heroically. The point is this all makes Rocko very uncomfortable, with Bev being forced to explain her feelings to Ed when they're caught in a compromising position.
  • The 1996 episode "Closet Clown" has a thinly veiled allegory about being privately gay, which sees Mr. Bighead realizing he likes to be a clown despite initially being hostile towards them and ending with his friends and wife expressing their support for him.
  • The two-parter "Cruisin'", which teaches a lesson about having empathy for the elderly, has held up very well, especially since the trope Scatterbrained Senior has always been a great source of cheap humor, regardless of generation.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Rocko is a deliberate example. The show is about him being the Only Sane Man of the zany world of O-Town in contrast to the much quirkier and inane side characters.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: You would be really surprised to find out that this show gets a TV-Y rating. Aside from the hidden dirty jokes and crude humor (some of which has been cut from reruns), the show's deals with themes you'd find on adult cartoons like The Simpsons (back when it was the sitcom to watch to laugh at jokes about how hard modern life can be), such as infidelity, immigration, racism (shown as "animalism" on the show), death, cults and in regards to the 2019 special: the dangers of the Nostalgia Filter, the ridiculousness of 21st-century life, and trans awareness. This show even helped some modern kids in The New '10s grow up.

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