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Hair Licked
It’s important to know that hardships in life don’t just come
from things you want to do or have to do.
They can sneak up on you when you least expect them. The show tackling this variation of the
concept makes it well-rounded as well as more open to creative interpretations.
This cartoon is an example of
hardships that sneak up on Rocko at a very bad time when he endures a bad
hair day when he needs his hair to be the best it can be. The reason for this is honestly pretty flimsy
and presents Rocko as far more naïve than usual. When he asks his boss, Mr. Smitty, about a
raise, he tells him that instead of that, Rocko’s going to be named employee of
the month where he gets his picture in the newspaper. Given how cruel Mr. Smitty usually is to
Rocko, and how this sounds like a weak excuse for Rocko not getting a raise, it
doesn’t feel like something Rocko should be this excited for. Not to mention, this honor is meaningless
since, as far as the audience can tell, there are no other employees at the
comic book store.
Disregarding that, the
rest of the story plays out well as Rocko, having no decent existing photo,
gets an opportunity for one when Filburt invites him for a photoshoot. However, Rocko wakes up the next day to find
his hair in a total mess and not suitable for employee of the month
photos. Following this, the cartoon, for
the most part, is nothing but Rocko’s attempts at fixing his hair going
wrong. Heffer comes by and nobly tries
to help Rocko by serving as the barber to fix his hair. While he simply makes the problem worse, it's clear that he meant well to help as good friends typically do. Heffer also has the best solution for the
problem while also admitting that he was not the right fit for the role of
barber. He takes Rocko to the characters
who seem to pop up in all the show’s plot-convenient professions, the Chameleon
Brothers. As usual, they bring solid
style and class to what Rocko’s dealing with.
It’s fun to watch their artistry at work as they deduce how bad Rocko’s
hair is just from him wearing a bag, how they use the barber tools, and finally
their various hair styles. By the end,
it’s impressive that Rocko ends up with a nice photo-worthy haircut this early
in the cartoon as opposed to near the end.
However, it’s for this reason that things continuing to go wrong for him
doesn’t feel appropriate. Although
Filburt takes a lot of admirable photos, he does so with no film in the
camera. When he does reload, the moment
is instantly followed by Heffer messing up again making Rocko’s hair an even
bigger mess just as the photo is taken.
It’s as if Rocko might as well should’ve gone straight to work if his
fixed hair was going to get ruined again.
Once again though, Heffer does adhere to his friendly side despite his
dimwittedness and fixes Rocko’s hair by having it photocopied.
While this move does capture Rocko’s hair
fine, the end of the cartoon shows that the rest of him was seen as a total
smudge. After all this trouble, Rocko
does not end up with a good picture in the paper at all. Even Rocko being content with this obvious
mess doesn’t work because the last shot includes sounds of many of his
neighbors laughing at the stupid looking image.
He may be happy, but this ending implies that he’ll be laughed at the
moment he leaves the house. In short,
the payoff to everything is poor.
Thankfully, through a friendly tone from the featured characters, solid
comedy, and sheer relatability, the cartoon is still a pretty enjoyable bad
hair day.
B
Gutter
Balls
When it comes to characterization, it’s impressive when a
jerk character has believable weight to certain behaviors. Ed Bighead is such a jerk when it comes to
certain activities like bowling.
He’s
the coach of a women’s bowling team consisting of his wife, Heffer’s mom
Virginia, and a minor character, Tammy the pig.
With this team, he’s incredibly overbearing, making it sound imperative
that he wins the trophy, a goal that’s completely petty and suggests he has no
real life.
He's so desperate, when no opposing team are available, he appoints three inexperienced bowlers, Rocko, Filburt, and Heffer to
compete. For good measure, Ed tries to
inconvenience Rocko and his friends further.
Lackluster shirts are a start, but they become more amusing through the
humorous style of bowling shoes.
Heffer’s especially leave a funny impression being huge platform shoes
left behind by the only person you’d expect to wear them, a rock star.
Even funnier is how frequently the
inexperienced bowlers strikes. They usually
do so in many unusual ways through accidental tumbles or ending up using their
feet to finish the moves. The most
impressive strikes work off of Ed’s attempts to sabotage his opponents’
strategies. From balloon bowling balls
floating and backfiring to Ed accidentally choking on Heffer and spitting him
out for an accidental strike, it’s all entertaining karma. I just can’t get enough of how these
off-the-wall moves from amateurs get them so close to beating Ed’s team, and it
feels so deserving. This is especially
true when Ed hits a new low by insulting both Virginia, who gets the least
strikes, and her son very harshly. Once again, it's all over a petty little trophy. It’s so bad that Ed is instantly called out
for this move and his entire team abandons him.
Now, Ed has always be a jerk, and looking at his scenes during the match
by themselves, they seem to just simply add to his established traits. The thing that sets his behavior apart from
other cartoons is the weight to his feelings on bowling. Throughout the cartoon, there are brief
flashbacks to his last bowling match from back in the day. He was once a master bowler, and in the last round,
he only needed to knock one pin to win.
Even in these flashbacks, he’s not made to sympathetic through bringing
the humiliation on himself. He rolled a
gutter ball on purpose, cockily claiming he didn’t need two tries. On the second try, Ed didn’t just fail. He brought on a comedic destruction that
brought down the entire ally, but not one pin.
All of this is a believable reason why he’s such a harsh unforgiving
bowling coach and is desperate for trophies, but it certainly doesn’t justify
his rudeness. It feels very right that
his team deserts him.
As for the ending,
he arrives disguised as Bev to finish the match. He successfully conquers his anxieties and
bowls a perfect strike which in normal cases would be great character
development. While this is so, the
cartoon knows this doesn’t make up for his behavior. When the real Bev suddenly
appears, Ed is disqualified for impersonating his teammates. Finally, the ending line where Rocko sounds
like he’s going to give Ed the trophy only to say he’ll just keep it in his
window is a hilarious blow to Ed’s ego.
As
a cartoon on its own, it’s a really fun bowling match with enjoyable character
moments and plays on expectations.
However, through fleshing out a jerk character and still realizing he’s not
good enough to deserve what he wants makes it especially great.
A+
The Ranking
- Rocko’s Modern Christmas
- Tickled Pinky
- Boob Tubed
- Gutter Balls
- Uniform Behavior
- Kiss Me I’m Foreign
- The Lounge Singer
- Road Rash
- I Have No Son
- Commuted Sentence
- Cruisin’
- Born to Spawn
- Down the Hatch
- Pipe Dreams
- She’s the Toad
- Hair Licked
- Hut Sut Raw
The next Rocko's Modern Life review follows Rocko have a garage sale, and struggles just to get some sleep after working an all-nighter.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the first half-hour Steven Universe cartoon, "Bismuth."
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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