Thursday, October 24, 2019

An Elk for Heffer / Scrubbin' Down Under (Rocko's Modern Life Season 3 Episode 12) - 'Toon Reviews 36

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An Elk for Heffer

The characters on this show are anthropomorphic animals, but still animals by design.  Their animal nature is touched upon in this cartoon of biological customs that combine with relatable human customs of manhood and pursuing relationships.  The animal aspect is uniquely reflected in Heffer, a steer who was raised by wolves, meaning he’s a total misfit among his family’s primary species. 
Like wolves in real life, they’re presented as getting together in a pack, in this case staged as an elder council meeting.  Inciting the conflict, Heffer’s wolf parents, George and Virginia, see that the pack is concerned that Heffer hasn’t done anything to be eligible for manhood, wolf style.  Really, Heffer should be excused from this since he’s a steer and not a wolf which they even bring up a couple of times, but apparently achieving manhood is a requirement to wolves.  As another point, it hardly feels like there’s a good reason that Heffer absolutely needs to be a wolf’s idea of a man.  He even has a brother whose main trait is crossdressing. 
Even if Heffer taking part in this custom doesn’t really make sense, he still goes along with it, making for more modern day human perspectives on the nature of animals.  He learns that elks in O-Town get together at a literal night club where only members of the given species are allowed in.  This makes sense with most animals tending to be with their own kind.  With human nature very much intact with this cartoon, as well as the whole series, Heffer easily fools the guard with his own fake antlers. 
Once inside, under the impression of needing to bring home an elk for a date, there’s a funny visualization of Heffer’s heart giving all the clichéd characteristics of flirting.  They’re all over the sight of an elk resembling a beautiful ideal girlfriend named Elkie.  There’s a lot of appeal to this love at first sight with a funny take on love ballads of Heffer constantly rhyming the word dreams and genuine chemistry between the two.  Heffer and Elkie clearly show great interest in each other as a young couple, but things get complicated when he brings her home. 
First there are a few subtle hints that Heffer’s wolf family is all set on doing what real wolves do to real elks, eating her.  As the plan becomes more explicit, Heffer reveals to Elkie his real species, and she’s outraged that she’s been dating a steer.  Not only is this devaluing to her genuine chemistry with Heffer, but it makes the family outright stating they’re going to eat her in front of her face slightly disturbing. 
Things are soon settled when Heffer puts his foot down and declares that they’re not eating his girlfriend. This is a great way of showing that for all dimwittedness, Heffer’s care for others is easy to see.  Though he and Elkie decide to go their separate ways, they do so with dignity and confirmation that their care for each other is indeed real.  There’s also great closure to the conflict between Heffer and his parents as George expresses pride in Heffer standing up for his beliefs.  It would be much more satisfying if this counted as Heffer being a man in wolf terms as opposed to bringing home an elk substitute unbeknownst to the elders. 
Even with questionable story decisions though, this is a credibly fresh take on presenting the cast of this show both as relatable humans and the animals they really are.

A

Scrubbin’ Down Under



Although Rocko is meant to endure most hardships of life, it never truly feels like the world is out to get him.  More often than not, any problem he faces in each task feels very natural and doesn’t happen because someone hates him for some unwarranted reason.  The few times where it does feel that way are some of the weaker works of the series, but I feel this cartoon leaves that impression the worst. 
It starts off fine when Rocko learns he’s been nominated for an award for good customer service at his comic book store job and is invited to the banquet.  He takes great care to look his best for the occasion, and Heffer comes along with a humorous loophole to the black tie aspect of the banquet by wearing a fish covered in soot as his tie.  Rocko even wins the award, suggesting that this is going to be one of Rocko’s better moments. 
In an ironic sense, this is where the cartoon really goes down in appeal.  With Rocko winning the award comes relatable nervousness over what to say.  That is a very believable challenge associated with winning an award.  When trying to follow Heffer’s advice on what to say, the results could be funny.  However, the joke Rocko tries to sway the audience with is not funny at all and painfully awkward.  It doesn’t even make the least bit of sense covering something as random as two peanuts or a thing like that. 
The one thing that does get Rocko laughter is the one detriment to his good hygiene; a piece of spinach stuck between his teeth.  I have to question why this would be so humiliating.  Isn’t it common for everyone to get food stuck between teeth?  For Rocko to be laughed at for this feels far more mean than acceptable, especially when his best friend joins in too.  I know Heffer is dumb, but he’s constantly shown to be a loyal friend ever since the beginning.  If that’s not enough, Rocko’s spinach tooth makes headline news, granting him nothing but even more scorn.  Exaggeration or not, this is just wrong and unbelievable over something as lame as this being a big headline.  These reactions being conscious choices of the people and not because of being a normal part of a process makes what Rocko goes through hard to bear.  There is some relatability to him being unable to get it out no matter how hard he brushes or flosses which is more in line with the tone of the show.  Then the potential for appeal is quashed when Rocko tries an aggressive means to remove the spinach with a jackhammer which gets him hospitalized. 
While you probably watch bewildered that Rocko’s unjustly punished even more, the rest of the cartoon gets really confusing.  A charismatic hygiene genie called Gene comes to potentially get Rocko’s teeth cleaned at last.  Before that, he puts Rocko through a vigorous hygiene lecture that’s completely unwarranted.  A following short film about good hygiene would be acceptable if not for the fact that Rocko DID follow good hygiene and doesn’t need to see this.  Gene tries to justify the film by claiming Rocko needs to clean other parts of his body and not just his teeth, but he’s done this already too. 
Finally, even when Rocko does lose the spinach, he still suffers with notice of work needing to be done on his brain.  This is all according to Gene who is apparently real, even though it seemed like he was part of Rocko’s imagination before.  Clearly this show is going too far with its own bizarreness at this point.  This along with never letting up on problems for Rocko to a mostly unentertaining extent make this cartoon possibly the show’s ultimate dud.

D

The Ranking

1.      Wacky Delly

2.      The Big Answer

3.      Camera Shy

4.      The Emperor’s New Joe

5.      Ed is Dead: A Thriller

6.      Bye Bye Birdie

7.      Speaking Terms

8.      Sugar Frosted Frights

9.      The Big Question

10.  An Elk for Heffer

11.  I See London I See France

12.  Nothing to Sneeze At

13.  Schnit-Heads

14.  Dear John

15.  The Fat Lands

16.  Belch of Destiny

17.  Tooth and Nail

18.  Rocko’s Happy Vermin

19.  Manic Mechanic

20.  Old Fogey Frog

21.  Fish-N-Chumps

22.  Fortune Cookie

23.  Scrubbin’ Down Under

 
 
 
 

 
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the last episode for Season 3 with an all-musical cartoon about saving the environment, and a silent cartoon about Rocko buying a food processor.

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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