Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Born to Spawn/Uniform Behavior (Rocko's Modern Life Season 2 Episode 9) - 'Toon Reviews 24


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Born to Spawn
This cartoon is on one of the more natural parts of life.  It’s something that everyone goes through whether they like it or not, and that’s facing adulthood.  Despite being a so natural, there’s plenty of room for the show’s ways of creatively portraying things. 
Filburt is usually neurotic, but in this cartoon, facing adulthood makes his usual physical trauma worse.  He gets overblown with rashes and develops a huge bump on his head as the planets align.  When he arrives for his 21st birthday, his strange behavior is given a reason as he sculpts a cake into his birth island, Kerplopitgoes Island.  Being a turtle, he’s naturally drawn to return to his birthplace upon turning 21, which I believe is loosely based on migration patterns of real turtles, sea turtles to be exact.  If this is true, then this is an ingenious way to show that despite being anthropomorphic, the characters of this show are still technically animals at heart. 
Nevertheless, Filburt’s human-like traits of neuroticism are intact.  For his own nerdy reasons, he fears going back to face adulthood which feels somewhat believable, prompting Rocko and Heffer to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t go.  For that, the cartoon mostly consists of their attempts to have Filburt stay put from there.  However, as long as the planets are aligned, the natural order is in force.  This means, whether it’s against his will or not, Filburt constantly pushes to get out of Rocko’s house to go to Kerplopitgoes Island.  The ways around the attempts aren’t anything special though.  Filburt just puts on disguises to take advantage of Heffer’s unintelligence and somehow convinces Spunky to use power tools to get him out of a cage.  Even if these aren’t impressive ways around having him stay put, these moments uniquely show adulthood happens no matter how much people try to stall it.  Plus, they lead to a funny outcome when Filburt does finally escapes.  There’s a news report of him using a boat-themed seafood restaurant to get to Kerplotitgoes Island while clamoring for fish sticks.  Rocko and Heffer find out about this on a TV when they run errands which admittedly begs the question why they left Filburt alone to begin with. 
Anyway, they travel to Kerplopitgoes where we get another clever visualization of adulthood.  With the planetary alignment, all sorts of turtles come to party for the occasion of Filburt’s 21st birthday.  They all look handsome and have a strong desire to party with an upbeat background tune selling the tone of affairs.  The tone of the moment sets itself up as emotional as Filburt acts like he wants to stay and party and Rocko and Heffer being forced to deal with it.  The fun party continuing and the music still playing further shows that life goes on despite all emotional events. 
However, all that emotion is devalued when as soon as the planets stop aligning, Filburt and the other turtles turn back to normal and go home.  It’s really devaluing that they built up so much genuine emotion only to retcon everything.  Then again, I guess this can be seen as growing up and never feeling older.  Plus, while it was said that Filburt had to return to his birthplace, it was never confirmed that he had to stay there.  Basically, even if it makes a waste of apparent emotional weight, the ending has merit when all is said and done.  It also can’t be faulted for being an interesting look and depiction of what growing up is like and how the whole universe is powerless against it.
A


Uniform Behavior
Dumb characters sometimes provide little to no good to the people around them, but that doesn’t always hurt their appeal.  Sometimes, this direction can offer a dumb yet imaginative approach to one of life’s challenges.  That’s where Heffer comes in.  Sometimes he’s a total freeloader who makes things worse, and sometimes he’s helpful in his own way. 
This cartoon is simply on a misguided way he operates on a normal day.  He causes a problem to his family’s finance with his weight and disregard for safety rules by wrecking the car after not wearing a seatbelt.  His best option for a job to get the money to fix the car is as an evening security guard at Conglom-O. 
The first point of interest to this direction is how seriously Heffer takes this job.  It may seem hard to believe since he’s already really dumb and his earlier disregard for seatbelts.  However, in Heffer’s own bizarre, dumb, yet creative way, he grows to understand the importance of adhering the law.  He has a dream of being visited by a group of udders of justice whom he vows to remember the teachings of as he takes on the role of security guard.  Also of note is how he seems to follow the basic rules of being a security guard from watching the monitors and going out to patrol the halls on a trike right on schedule.  He even has a believable opinion on the assignments through finding watching the monitors dull and 12:00 patrol to be more exciting with a lot of action. 
That’s not to say Heffer’s completely devoid of being dumb.  He applies his security guard mindset even when he’s not on duty, giving tickets to Rocko and Filburt for menial deviant acts and sees nothing wrong with it.  He also has no knowledge of who works at Conglom-O as he arrests Ed Bighead, a well-known employee, for taking a few lightbulbs home.  This right here is typical letting power go to Heffer’s head along with his principal trait.  He’s clearly not doing things right even if the effort he shows is big and genuine. 
For all his havoc, he’s interestingly punished in different manners of speaking.  Some consequences are self-inflicted as Heffer takes a soda break.  Everything is tinted a hellish red making it seem like he’s selling his soul for a soda.  If that’s not enough, everyone he wrongfully gave a ticket to appears in the seats behind him as if to suggest he’s a little aware that he’s gone mad with power.  While it’s a small sign, the staging is enough to show that this scene is all in Heffer’s head.  What’s clearly not in Heffer’s head is his consequence from outside sources.  His unintelligence has him run out into the streets naked which gets him arrested. 
Ultimately, while Heffer was ultimately a detriment to the well-being of society, he’s still a fine character to take the starring role.  He’s appropriately punished, shows that he was at least trying to do his job well, and while he remains in prison, he has genuine acknowledgement of what he did wrong.  It isn’t easy to successfully make a problematic dumb character a likable lead, but this cartoon stands as a good example of how with the right execution, it can be done.
A+
The Ranking
  1. Rocko’s Modern Christmas
  2. Tickled Pinky
  3. Boob Tubed
  4. Uniform Behavior
  5. Kiss Me I’m Foreign
  6. The Lounge Singer
  7. Road Rash
  8. I Have No Son
  9. Commuted Sentence
  10. Cruisin’
  11. Born to Spawn
  12. Down the Hatch
  13. Pipe Dreams
  14. She’s the Toad
  15. Hut Sut Raw
The next Rocko's Modern Life review is of Rocko having a bad hair day and Ed Bighead facing the consequences of being a jerky bowling coach.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the DuckTales episode, "Jungle Duck."
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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