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popculturebuffet · 10 months

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Pride Month Triple Feature Finale: Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling (Commission for Weird Kev 27)

Well this last installment is a bit late, but any month can be pride month if you belivie in yourself, so we end this pride month trilogy with Rocko’s Modern Life Static Cling, something i’ve been wanting to cover for years, but usually something came up or I realized I forgot to include it by the time the schedule was already full up. But with violence, legeslation, and outright bigotry towards Trans Persons only escalating, it felt like the right time.

For those not as familiar with Rocko, quick refresher: Rocko’s Modern Life was one of the earliest Nicktoons, created by Joe Murray and being a hit not just with the networks target demo, but adults who related to the series, a 20 something hang out sitcom but with all the lunacy animation allows. Our Rocko, his doofy friend Heffer and nerdy best friend Philbert dealt with nipples of the future, death, time travel with the elderly, elves, and recyling. The show was very of it’s time but also timeless as MANY of the fairly adult subjects it tackled in it’s unique goofy way still resonate: the show tackled topics like your parents not approving of a mixed marriage, the struggles immigrants face, homosexuality (via clowns), a sexually unsatisfying marriage leading to a wondering eye (done ENTIRELY straight to the point the episode was banned), finding out your adopted, bosses treating their workers like a commodity instead of a person, megacorporations running our lives, credit card debt, and even sex work

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It’s thanks to Rocko we have classics like Regular Show, it’s successor Close Enough and Tuca and Bertie. The kind of show that uses wacky humor while still showing some very real shit we have to deal with.

So in hindsight. .it’s not really a stretch that with changing times, rocko would go from having to use clowns to cover queerness to doing a full coming out episode in it’s revivial special, a pogniant well done story that deeply reconteculaizes a beloved character

Pig you’ve been out since 1996.

So let’s look at this touching tale and all the other neat stuff just in time for the show’s 30th anniversary shall we?

Static cling follows our boy, his bulbous buddy and his somethign else rhyming with b , picking up where we left off.. and the original finale to the series had our heroes shot up into space, returning as the elderly. The last part is stricken from the record Roseanne style, and instead our heroes have largely settled in: Filburt misses his wife tails, he misses her a lot, but otherwise our heroes are doing fine on fatheads reruns... till Filburt notices the remote has been jammed up Heffer’s butt for the past decade, they fight as usual and Rocko has to scream at them to “PUSH THE BUTTON”. TV’s Frank would not abide.

SO with that our heroes return to earth. There’s also a nice small joke in that... most people really aren’t phased our heroes were gone 20 years: while we sadly dont’ get a scene with Heffer’s family , easily one of my faviorite parts of the series with Rocko’s dinner visit being one of my faviorite episodes, we do get to see his beaver hating grandpa, with all his innuendo glory, the only change being

And Filburt naturally easily reunited with Hutch because their perfect and we need that. It’s like our heroes were never gone for the most part. The real exception is ROcko.. and i’ts easy to why: Filburt had a wife and four adoring children eager to finally get to know their dad. Heffer’s family is implictly there and his grandpa is still around only now he can posses lawn gnomes. Nothing’s really changed for either in a way that harms them. Filburt missed most of his kids’ lives, but they seem to have grown up fine. In contrast when you think about it.. no one was really waiting for Rocko. He hit it off with Shiela well, but that was one episode towards the end. I mean he could look her up on face-o-rama, or something, so ti’s not lost, but when you think about the series with his family in australia.. all Rocko had were his friends, mrs. bighead (who warmly welcomes the guy back and gives him some needed support), and Spunky. Rocko really has nothign to come back to: his job is gone and while his friends adapt to the 2010′s really well... it’s all too much. it also makes sense: Heffer always went with the flow and while Filburt seems a bit too accepting on paper, he’ sa giant nerd in a world where he can livesteream being nauseous and blather about his opinons for an adoring public. I mean I woudnln’t of had the tools to do this when the show aired. I was two and the internet wasn’t easy to come by. Six maybe.

While the montage of various “new” things was.. dated even by when it came out and is kinda just there outside of Schlammo, the unhealty energy drink , it hammers home that while his friends have accepted the present.. Rocko is lost in it. He was never one to easily accept new trends in the show itself, usually being pulled into things like health clubs or credit cards by Heffer, so it’s entirley in character that being stuck in a world 20 years later with nothing to really hold him there shatters his normal optimisim. I’ts pretty heartining to see rocko shattered a bit when bev finds him. It makes her trying to support him and help him heartwarming.. but it can’t really fix the problem of feeling like the world’s passed you by. It was striking to realize how deep Rocko’s story comes off, a story about nostalgia and how it can help us when we feel lost.. but how we can cling to it as our only salvation. I’ll admit to having dived into my various coping mechanisms, comics, games, tv, youtube, to escape... and to have a minor panic attack if one’s missing, so I may just relate to rocko a bit.. but it still works. It also kicks off the plot as the fatheads is gone, and Rocko badly needs it. HIs cries for it fall on deaf ears for mr bighead though, who just oopsied at work.. and now his world is collapsing for real, with his job gone and his house soon to be gone. “A tv show won’t solve your problems rocko”. It’s a simple statment.. but one that’s true. TV can offer an escape.. but it’s not going to fix what’s wrong with yoru life. It’s the thesis statment of this special. Granted it can at least save ed’s job and house and conglomo as the special revenue would do it. It’s heavily spoofing how much companjies rely on these revivials and nostalgia pops, with the series lovingly mocking how much money fans think a rocko special would bring nick.. and then accidnetly being accurate as while Static Cling didn’t bring in millions upon millions of dollars, it was still a success all the same.

The problem is the head of congolmo wants the chameleon twins to make it cheap with CG. I mean grante dth eproblem is the fatheads also you know.. ende din the run of the show, but honeslty i’m willing to ignore that for what a good story it is and it could easily be said Rachel just had to go back and make more to pay the bills or something. This was also built both off the actual rumors, that later came true of a CG Rugrats reboot, which honestly dosen’t LOOK bad. So with that our heroes decide to search for the series creator, “Ralph” Bighead, who disappeared during the time skip, as all the money, all the success didn’t make them happy. We get some fun gags including a faviorite of mine “Culturally ambgious pillows”, as our heroes tour the world to find the creator. And thus about halfway into the special they find them int he desert.. and find out why no one had seen them. See while they last saw them as “Ralph”.... our heroes instead find RACHEL Bighead.

And honestly ti’s excellently done for the most part. Before we get to all the good let’s get the elephant out of the room: Joe Murray should not have continued playing rachel. Joe.. is a cis man. A cis man should nto play a trans woman. I can however accept this wasn’t done with any malcious intent, and was likelky done to hide that Rachel was trans now, as the special has it as a twist, wtih Rachel having a hat on and only revealing their trans by steping out of her fatheads foodtruck. Having a new VA might give that away. I still wish they’d swapped them but I get Joe meant well. I mostly get that.. because everything ELSE is done well. When you look back on who rachel was.. they were miserable. They had all the money in the world, but could never find creative fufillment with the fatheads, to thepoint they tried sabotaging a followup with wacky delli. I mean we got the cheese, the best character in the show, but Rachel never found fufillment. It was only by realizing who they always were and making their body into what they truly always wanted that Rachel is happy. Said happiness.. allows her the reconciatlion with her creatoion she never got in the original show, selling fatheads freezie pops. She found a new art, the life she alwasy wanted she’s content. She even refuses to do the special, and rightfully so: while the creator SHOUDL revivie a work if possible, if they don’t want to.. they shoudlnt’ be forced to. Rachel only agrees because her parents are in danger. I also love the acceptance rachel gets: the boys all think it’s neat and instantly accept it, as you should. The reveal itself is simply done: Rachel steps out, says “I’m rachel now”.. and the boys all think it’s neat and accept it, attaching their drone to the ice cream truck and flying off. Bev also fully accepts it, happy their daughter’s happy and even finding her some cute shoes. It makes sense for all involved: while all from the 90′s, Rocko’s group has always been an accepting bunch for the most part, while Bev was always the parent that accepted their kid more. It’s harder for Ed.. but it’s a well done harder. He’s bigoted, and potrayed as stupidly as that sounds: he rejects the idea of the special simply because he rejects the idea he has no son but a daughter. I also like the stealth pun there: he once claimed he had no son when he disowned rachel.. and it turns out he never did. Everyone around him rightfully sees this as stupid, and it’s portrayed as such, but what i Like is that they play this realistically. Instead of Ed throwing out slurs or throwing a tantrum, which sadly could very well happen, he just disowns his child, again, and storms off. He can’t accept a trans daughter because to him it’s a change. To Rachel.. it’ sbeing who she was always meant to be. Rachel ends up still making the special, remembering her past, including biting ed’s eye as a baby.. and using that. And while Ed has to be dragged to the premiere, as many a person has to be dragged into acceptaince... it’s said work that helps Ed see what a fool he’s been. Rachel reworks the fatheads.. but now includes a baby based on themselves. It adds great new jokes to the bit.. but it’s the last one, a reinactment of her “damaging her fathers retina”.. that makes Ed realize what he shoudl have all along: this is his child and who they always were. Being a woman not only allowed them to be happy.. but it dosen’t change who they are.. because this is who they ALWAYS were. And what helps is that... Rachel didn’t NEED ed’s acceptance. Their disapointed, but when he wails no at it, she simply says yes. They do the short because, even if Ed dosen’t accept her, she wont’ leave her parents homeless and still loves them both. And it’s ED who has to come around and accept that he has a daughter, he always did.. and that’s wonderful. We also get Rocko.. not accepting the change. A baby, how dare he.. but ed talks him down, getting to the point of the special in a truly lovely speech.

“Rocko we can’t live in the past, we can be grateful for it, but life isn’t permenant, and if we don’t embrace what’s now, we miss out on a lot of the important stuff. “ I couldn’t of said it better myself and belivie me i’ve tried. And it’s a perfect message for this special.. and for Rachels’ story. embrace what you have, not what you thought you had. This special is phenominal, with tons of great gags, a truly amazing story at the core, and lots of great cameos in some lovely animation. Check it out wether your new to rocko or want to revisit an old friend. Thanks for reading and happy belated pride.

#rocko's modern life #static cling #rachel bighead #rocko rama #heffer wolfe #philbert #ed bighead #trans #lbgtqia+#pride month

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