Friday, October 11, 2019

Sugar Frosted Frights / Ed is Dead : A Thriller (Rocko's Modern Life Season 3 Episode 3) - 'Toon Reviews 36

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Sugar Frosted Frights


When it comes to holidays to make creative animated experiences out of, Halloween is one of, if not the best contender.  The atmosphere, costume designs, and what can be done with its traditions seem to leave itself open for imagination from my experiences.  You can imagine how investing the holiday can turn out when taking place in the world of a show that creatively interprets modern life as well as this one. 
This show’s Halloween cartoons takes full advantage of the fright factor too with funny parodies of spooky story tropes such as opening up with a creepy host with a lit match. The funny part is that the match ends up burning the host.  This leads us to the actual story where Rocko in an inflatable Really Really Big Man costume and Heffer with a glow in the dark pumpkin face set out to go trick-or-treating.  Filburt, however, is hesitant to go as usual, and not just because of his usual anxieties over life in general.  For all the Halloweens he can remember, he’s spent them with his Crazy Aunt Gretchen who always told him about the dangers of Halloween candy.  Because of his time with her, Filburt has been conditioned to believe that taking part in Halloween will get him caught by the resident spook of O-Town, the Hopping Hessian. 
Rocko and Heffer think nothing of that, writing it off as a mere tall tale, and bring Filburt along to show him all the joys of going out for Halloween.  Through a few blunders, Filburt ends up trying his very first piece of Halloween candy.  It’s here where despite Crazy Aunt Gretchen sounding like she was forcing a heavy mindset on Filburt, her words actually do have some legitimacy.  As hyperactive kids tend to do when having sugar, Filburt goes incredibly insane with getting more of it.  Aside from pouring an entire bag of the stuff down his mouth though, it’s hardly shown in reality.  However, fantasy sequences of turning into a demon scouring town for sugar to Night on Bald Mountain is very reflective of how crazy candy makes this usually neurotic turtle.  Plus it’s a great way to bring the scary side of Halloween and the innocent trick or treating side together as one. 
This craze leads Filburt into the cemetery where the Hopping Hessian resides, and it’s only here when he comes out of his sugar high.  Still, there’s more legitimacy to Crazy Aunt Gretchen’s warning as the Hopping Hessian is very present.  Through a photo booth symbolizing his territory, a crazy laugh, and searching for a missing leg, the ties to a certain Horseman enhance the Halloween feel.  The atmosphere ends up being very funny, but also fearful when Filburt and the others end up hit by the Hessian’s missing leg. 
Then it turns out that this whole cartoon was just a flashback with a present Halloween actually ending the cartoon.  With Filburt referencing a story for a completely different holiday and he and the others going over photos of last Halloween, things seem to end humorously.  After all, that’s more appropriate for a show like this than scary and ominous.  Even everyone including the Hessian and who he actually threw, Gordon the talking foot, wondering who took the pictures feels more of a laugh than a fright. 
This Halloween cartoon is a solid mix of both frights and laughs.  Its influences from actual Halloween legends and even real-life physical disorders certainly help.

A+

Ed is Dead: A Thriller


A Thriller is kind of an appropriate way to describe this cartoon.  It builds itself on conventions most would typically find in horror films.  Heck, the whole thing starts off with Heffer doing a humorous take on the intro to a show hosted by the great Alfred Hitchcock.  Moreover, the actual cartoon feels like a great fit for such a story, not necessarily because of the nature of the genre, but mostly what’s known about the featured characters. 
The Bigheads have been established as a mess of a married couple.  Sometimes they’re completely devoted to each other, but other times they’re constantly arguing to beyond the average extent.  Their neighbor, Rocko, is often at the mercy of their hysterics despite only one of them actively disliking him.  At first, the cartoon features them at their usual dysfunction with Bev admonishing Ed for not doing his share of the yardwork. 
Then everything changes when Rocko sees and hears a frightening commotion over at the Bigheads’ house at night.  It’s not just their usual fighting that’s prominent over there.  In silhouettes, Bev appears to be using an assortment of weapons on her husband including a spade.  In other words, it looks like Mrs. Bighead has gone too far with her tempers at Mr. Bigbead that she killed him.  Rocko witnessing it all gives him an appropriate fright right down to getting a sleepless night out of paranoia.  Even when he believes that it was all a bad dream the next morning, the fright factor keeps on coming.  He ends up on the Bigheads’ property and keeps seeing all sorts of signs that reflect his dark theory.  For one thing, Ed is nowhere to be seen, but that hardly means anything.  There’s an actual hole in Ed’s shape, all sorts of sharp objects and electrical devices on the bed, and Bev sounding sinister whenever she talks to Rocko. 
Now, there’s always the possibility that everything Rocko saw was a coincidence, but the possibility that Bev killed her husband exists.  There is at least one recorded moment in the show’s run where she attempted to flirt with another person behind his back which many fans would not have seen on TV.  Plus, she’s shown more favor to others than to him with Earl the dog whom she adopted revealed to be still living with her.  Along with the believable sight of Bev harming Ed, it hardly feels like Rocko’s overreacting.  For that, there’s an effective climax when Spunky gets over to the Bigheads’ yard causing Rocko to go after him with a frightening storm highlighting the tension. 
What follows is interesting staging for Rocko to learn the truth about everything he saw.  As Bev brings logical explanations, the atmosphere doesn’t let up on the storm and dark music as well as Rocko still accusing her.  Even with a break to what actually happened with the spade, the tense tone is still there as Rocko keeps confronting her.  Only when Ed finally returns alive does he truly keep calm.  If you’ve been thinking of a possible logical reason for Ed’s disappearance, it would be easy to predict that it had to do with a peculiar-looking wart on his butt seen at the start.  It’s a typical moral of not overreacting, and the episode cleverly reinforces it when it looks like Ed’s going to murder Bev at the end, only for him to be gesturing a make-out. 
This cartoon is a solid break from comedy with an effective scare factor of the extreme yet possible unknown keeping with what’s known about the cast.
A+

The Ranking

1.      The Emperor’s New Joe

2.      Ed is Dead: A Thriller

3.      Bye Bye Birdie

4.      Sugar Frosted Frights

5.      Schnit-Heads

6.      Belch of Destiny

 
 
The next Rocko's Modern Life review features fish fishing for people, and Rocko getting a bit avant-garde.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews, it's time to "Enter the Dragon" in Xiaolin Showdown.
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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