Rocko's Modern Life

Waiting at the DMV	Filburt's Birthday Party	Camping at the Mall?	Family Portrait

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Australian immigrant, Rocko, tries to make it in the American corporate feudal paradise of O-Town.

Before SpongeBob SquarePants, there was Rocko's Modern Life. In fact, I often call this show "proto-Spongebob", since a lot of plot devices and character dynamics introduced here would influence the development of SpongeBob SquarePants, to say nothing of the fact that Stephen Hillenburg's first gig was a storyboard artist and director on Rocko. Also, the running gag of someone or something being called "Ferb" was no co-incidence, since this show was also the début of Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh. Their very first collaboration was here, on 1.10a-"The Good, the Bad, and the Wallaby", so Rocko could be considered a proto-Phineas & Ferb as well.

This show was a bit before my time. Well, not really, but I was only aged 2-5 while this show was on the air. I only ever saw it once, probably as a last-minute time filler to take over for a show that had been cancelled and its replacement wasn't ready yet, at gran's place after school in 1998. I distinctly remember Heffer eulogising Filburt's pet mynah bird and saying "Beans, beans, the magical fruit--" before being quickly silenced by Filburt, so that would have been 3.01a-"Bye-Bye, Birdie". Also, something about Richard Simmons (1.07a-"No Pain, No Gain").

10 out of 10 stars

This show, along with Dexter's Laboratory on Cartoon Network, 2 Stupid Dogs on TBS, and Hey Arnold! on Nickelodeon, are basically the pinnacle of 1990s animation. There's hardly any limited animation or repetition and the typical Ren & Stimpy-type of "gross out" visual humour is kept to a minimum (it does happen, but plots are not reliant upon it). Also, the show's music, while containing a Roland SC-55, also makes use of acoustic instruments. Notably, the racist and sexist microaggressions that most other cartoons of the time relied upon simply don't happen here, going to show that you don't need to be racist to be funny (see, Jack Albertson?).

There was 1 special made of this show. In 2019, it was brought back for 1 telefilm on Netflix, called Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling. This is the reason I referred to the Bighead family's child as Rachel, rather than "Ralph", as she was called on the main programme. I like that, honestly; there was no real need to make Ralph Bighead transgender, but Joe Murray did it anyway, and she was shown to be happier than she had ever been before, running an ice cream truck instead of another "make us a million" TV show. I won't go into it too far in case the special is still available (or you can find it on another website).