Saturday, August 4, 2018

'Toon Reviews 18: Rocko's Modern Life Season 1 Episode 12: Who's For Dinner?/Love Spanked


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Who’s For Dinner?
 
Most cartoons we’ve covered this season have featured Heffer as a gluttonous but still likable friend.  This one stands out more for going deeper than that by exploring his dynamic with his wolf family. 
It happens when Rocko’s invited to Heffer’s house for dinner.  Although he says he’s inviting him because he’s trying to find a ride home, the hesitation in his voice suggests that he’s a little worried about introducing his best friend to his family.  This would be hard to believe since we’ve seen his wolf family a few times before this cartoon, but you can chalk that up to these reviews arranged in airing order instead of production order. 
Even so, those few appearances didn’t really show what the family is like personality-wise, so this cartoon feels like a proper introduction to them.  We have the loving mother, the isolated and easily-agitated father, the grumpy grandpa with a particular disdain towards wallabies (though he’s near-sided so Rocko’s OK), a mysterious cross-dressing brother, and a mostly silent sister who snaps when things get too intense.  Altogether, this family features an interesting background for Heffer which stands out more since he’s a completely different creature from them, though it’s much stranger for the wolves to deal with than Heffer who seems to go about his life with them just fine.  He even takes part in wolf mannerisms like eating a dead elk raw like wolves typically would for dinner.  If anything it’s Rocko who feels out of place amongst this strange family, not just at dinner, but also through seeing how his friend lives with a family following customs not typically suitable for steers as seen through a few visual gags of noticing the wolves have a room full of Red Riding Hoods and cabinets of the three little pigs on his way to the restroom. 
He’s also likable for being friendly and accepting of his friend’s setup despite his discomfort, but brings about a huge shift in tone when he points out that Heffer was adopted, something Heffer apparently never knew.  It would be an issue that Heffer never really figured out something so obvious, but he’s been established to not be so bright, so this is acceptable.  However, he’s still genuinely shocked about the reveal that he decides to run away and find his real steer family.  It’s not a bad idea for a plot, but it’s a bit of a jarring change of pace for the cartoon that’s mostly established itself as a simple evening with Heffer’s family.  At least they’re still seen looking for him frequently alongside scenes of Heffer being depressed, getting fatter than usual during his search.
As for Heffer, his actions may be extreme, but they are understandable since he is a completely different species from the wolves, and you have to wonder what his real family was like.  With this in mind, when he finally finds the farm he came from, he gets a vision of his dad who’s extremely cold and bitter not wanting anything to do with his son.  It begs the question of how valid this is since it’s just a vision and doesn’t completely solve the mystery to Heffer’s origins, but it’s still a decent one to get him to see sense that his true family are those who love him, even if they are different from him. 
This is one of the more wholesome cartoons of the season for solid introductions to the personalities of Heffer’s family, and is especially a good watch for anyone who was ever adopted.
A-


Love Spanked
 
Finding love is an aspect of life that’s featured a lot in shows.  In a show that gives creative interpretations of life’s challenges, it’s interesting to see how a cartoon tackles this topic. 
Rocko’s love interest here is his neighbor, Melba Toast, and he’s so obsessed with her, he rushes to see her get the paper every day.  The fact that Melba isn’t even seen gives her an interesting feel of mystery of what Rocko sees in her and symbolizes her as a crush who feels unattainable. 
Speaking of unattainable, the cartoon’s relatability is felt when Rocko finds out that Melba now has a boyfriend, which is always a common problem to deal with when someone you like is taken.  Heffer tries to help Rocko by getting him a personal to meet other girls.  Given Heffer’s track record of roping Rocko into strange alternatives to challenges, you can probably guess things won’t go as planned, but you can’t fault his effort to help. 
As it turns out, the dates Rocko goes on offer one mishap after another with many of them turning out far too eccentric for his liking.  They include a pink bunny with a huge desire for embracing while her father quickly goes from calm to enrage out of nowhere, a heavy elephant woman who’s impossible to sail with without sinking, a jogger who gives a moose as a token of appreciation, and a fitness woman who delights in using Rocko as a weight.  This set of dates is mildly amusing in a way, but aside from a few exaggerations, they don’t feel as investing or creative as other interpretations this show has turned out, so the sting of their failures is more prominent.
It also doesn’t feel right that Heffer later sweet-talks Rocko into going on a dating show looking for wallabies.  That’s an even more ridiculous way to find love, and since the personals didn’t work, it’s easy to predict that this won’t work either.  The game show is certainly entertaining with an energetic dolphin host making up stuff about Rocko, and a voting studio audience amusingly too bored to be there which enhances the environment.  It’s through this audience’s carelessness while pushing a random button that decides Rocko’s next date . Rather than getting to date two nice looking women, he’s roped into dating Heffer, whose silhouette makes a convincing human figure.  While it’s concerning that the guy who convinced Rocko to do the show, and his best friend at that, ended up as an option when he knows Rocko’s looking for a girlfriend, it eventually chalks up to bad luck on Rocko’s part since Heffer was just doing a stand-in for the third date. 
In the end, Rocko decides to just be honest to Melba about his feelings for her, but his attempts get sabotaged again when a love column of him pining for her ends up in the paper and she drives away embarrassed.  As a result, the whole cartoon is nothing more than things going wrong for Rocko with little to no good coming out of it.  He may be designed to endure life’s challenges, but he usually gets some positive outcomes, but not so much here.  That’s not even mentioning that this isn’t the best display of his friendship with Heffer who caused most of his misfortunes. 
It’s still easy to get a solid laugh here and there and the cartoon is still good overall since Rocko ends the cartoon content with where he is, but the overbearing misfortunes are not what I call the ideal love-themed cartoon.
C

The Ranking
  1. Popcorn Pandemonium
  2. Cabin Fever
  3. Skid Marks
  4. The Good the Bad and the Wallaby
  5. Canned
  6. To Heck and Back
  7. Who Gives a Buck?
  8. Dirty Dog
  9. A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic
  10. Trash-O-Madness
  11. Jet Scream
  12. Rinse and Spit
  13. Carnival Knowledge
  14. Who’s For Dinner
  15. Keeping Up With the Bigheads
  16. Rocko’s Happy Sack
  17. Sand in Your Navel
  18. Spitballs
  19. No Pain No Gain
  20. Flu-In-U-Enza
  21. Power Trip
  22. Love Spanked
  23. Bedfellows
  24. Leap Frogs
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the last episode of Season 1 where Spunky falls in love with a mop, and Rocko discovers the dangers of laundromats.
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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