Saturday, July 21, 2018

'Toon Reviews 18: Rocko's Modern Life Season 1 Episode 8: A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic/Canned


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A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic

The purpose of machines is to make daily tasks easier, but in life, things can still go wrong when using them.  When this scenario is brought to light in animation, there’s a lot of creative potential to how you can interpret it.  This show is the perfect place to exercise that potential, and that’s exactly what it does as we watch Rocko get a new vacuum cleaner to clean his unbelievably messy living room. 
His old one is very faulty and can’t suck up stuff very well, which is a very believable reason to get a new and more powerful vacuum cleaner.  He finds one in a commercial Heffer is watching which goes all out hyping up the new vacuum cleaner called the Suck-O-Matic as the best cleaner there is that matches the seductive feel commercials in general seem to have.  There’s even a creative interpretation of how manipulative they are with a scene of the TV reaching out and taking Rocko and Heffer’s brains as they watch, rendering them temporarily mindless to buy it without second thought. 
Once he has the Suck-O-Matic, there are some off-putting things about it like it not looking the way it did on TV and innumerable safety warnings that Rocko and Heffer gloss over like most people in real life would when reading instructions.  I see myself doing that.  Nevertheless, the big vacuum cleaner works very impressively with how fast it sucks up large amounts of dust, cities of bugs akin to something like Godzilla, and other little remnants of things all around the living room.  It has the impression of a vacuum cleaner you wish existed in real life.  However, the fact that the Suck-O-Matic can also suck up really huge things like all the layers of Rocko’s car and an entire plane further indicates that it could go mad with power. 
This is when the Suck-O-Matic starts wreaking havoc.  When taking it outside, the Suck-O-Matic goes loose and sucks up everything in sight.  If that’s not enough, when Rocko tries to put a stop to the senseless sucking, the vacuum cleaner won’t turn off developing a mind of its own.  More creative ways of showing the problems with machines are shown in a fast-paced climax where Rocko and Heffer tries to stop the Suck-O-Matic.  They try returning it, but they lose the receipt, they look for the manual for how to turn it off, but it’s not helpful by literally telling them to prepare to die, and they narrowly avoid getting sucked by it themselves, but the vacuum cleaner breaks itself suggesting that everything is now safe.  However, this relief is ruined by Heffer taking out a chip caught in its throat just because, and everyone suffers from this boneheaded moment. 
They all end up getting sucked up and just carry on with their lives inside it.  In fact, the last shot shows all homes on Rocko’s block sucked up by the Suck-O-Matic, bringing an apocalyptic feel to the ending.  It’s a bit unsettling that the cartoon ends like this, but at the same time is fascinating for creatively showing how common buying machines off of commercials and enduring their problems is for many. 
With a great collection of exaggerated occurrences and creative outcomes from buying and using machines, this is another good example of a cartoon that’s relatable as well as imaginative.
A



Canned

Everybody needs a job to get by in this world even if it’s not the best but is all you can get.  I can only imagine how hard it can be to get a job after getting fired, but what Rocko’s put through gives a good idea. 
He’s let go of his from his old comic book store job for productivity reasons.  After that, the focus is on Rocko trying to find a new job in order to get by.  It even shows the importance of having a job when the now unemployed Rocko is without food for himself and Spunky, and has no money to pay the bills, the latter being creatively interpreted by traffic meters for all the things he pays for going down.  It’s amazing how positive Rocko remains in spite of this which makes him a likable character to follow as he looks to the want ads for a new job.  

The show's main  strength of exaggerating modern life’s challenges is seen through these new jobs.  Rocko uses a jackhammer to make a tattoo on rhino’s tooth as a tattoo artist, becomes a plumber’s assistant who’s only allowed to pull up the plumber’s pants, and has to say “Oh baby” over and over as a special kind of phone operator.  They’re all effective exaggerations of what could happen on these jobs, and jokes coming from the basic idea of the positions even astound with how much the crew was able to get away. 
Rocko’s job attempt that drives the plot however, is a worker at O-Town’s biggest business center, Conglom-O run by his crabby next-door neighbor, Ed Bighead.  By now, his animosity towards Rocko is crystal clear to anyone who’s been watching the show, especially shown in an earlier scene of him berating Rocko’s dog, Spunky, for eating his plants.  Ed tries to humiliate Rocko by giving him a job in the product-testing department.  However, all of the products Ed has Rocko try for humiliation purposes backfire when Rocko actually enjoys the product while Ed tries it out to see what’s wrong, and karma has him endure the product’s harsh effects.  Each use of a product demonstrates the show’s talents for creativity and interesting ways for Rocko to see the good in the product.  A nose modifier give Rocko various nose jobs he enjoys while Ed, who doesn’t have a nose, ends up with two in his eyes.  Rocko tries some gum that gives him a tree on his head while Ed gets an actual beehive on his head when he tries several gum pieces.  A hairstyle helmet gives Rocko several nice styles, and Ed gets a buzz saw.  Finally, Rocko is sprayed with mad giraffe repellant which protects him as the giraffes stampede at Ed instead. 
The basic idea is the same, but the scenes stand out uniquely and are especially entertaining when Ed, a jerk who wants to hurt Rocko who did absolutely nothing wrong, gets consequences for his unjust actions.  Still, he does come out on top by firing Rocko even though he did exactly what he was supposed to do as a product tester.  Thankfully, Rocko does end up with a new job in the end working at a new comic book store, Kind of a Lot O’ Comics.  It is weird to see him start working here in this cartoon since he already was working there in “Power Trip” but we can just chalk this up to faulty airing order. 
As a result, the cartoon stands as a nice watch centering on the importance of employment backed by a successful collection of jokes and a satisfying conclusion for a character often stuck with bad luck.
A+

The Ranking
  1. Popcorn Pandemonium
  2. Skid Marks
  3. The Good the Bad and the Wallaby
  4. Canned
  5. To Heck and Back
  6. Who Gives a Buck?
  7. Dirty Dog
  8. A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic
  9. Trash-O-Madness
  10. Jet Scream
  11. Keeping Up With the Bigheads
  12. Spitballs
  13. No Pain No Gain
  14. Power Trip
  15. Bedfellows
  16. Leap Frogs
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Rocko tries to win a prize at a carnival, and spends most of a day at the beach saving his dog from harm.
If you would like to check out other Rocko's Modern Life reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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