I guess you could say that Nickelodeon was in a golden age during the early 1990's. For example, "Doug" was probably the best cartoon show ever made directly for a pre-teen audience.When you wanted straight comedy, you could turn to either "Rocko's Modern Life" or "Ren and Stimpty". For a kid's network, both had alot of adult humor.

"Rcoko's Modern Life" is basically about a quiet, friendly little Wallaby named Rocko living in a world which is bascially the complete opposite of his personality. His best friends are Heffer, a simple minded but kind cow and Philburt, a Wooden Allen-esque neurotic. The driving force of the show was the weird characters and wacky situations that they got into. One episode was about Rocko unclogging his toilet when it turns out a giant fish was the cause of the problem. Another one was about Heffer joining a cult of weiner fanatics.The show has a twisted and random sense of humor which is timed beautifully , and as I said before the show has alot of adult jokes insterted into the episodes. For example, Rocko and Heffer's favorite fast food resteraunt is called the "Chokey Chicken". I suppose I made my point.

Overall,it was one of Nickelodeon's greats. Joe Murray has said on his web site that he's pushing Nick for a DVD release, let's hope so.

Much less offensive, but a lot weirder than 'Ren and Stimpy', 'Rocko's Modern Life' was one of Nick-Toons early line-up. It was also a classic and unique cartoon which I suspect was quite influential on later series.

Rocko is a wallaby. He lives in a place called 'O-Town' (part of creator Joe Murray's obsession with anything with 'O' in the name. 'Suck-O-Matic', 'Conglomo-O', etc). His best friend is a hilariously exhuberant and very, err... large steer called Heffer, who isn't so much stupid as complete devoid of self-consciousness. His main interests are eating, particularly snack foods such as 'Pasture-Puffies', but anything will do, including 'Fathead Vitamin Cheese Tablets'.

His next best friend is a turtle called Filburt, who reminds me somewhat of Woody Allen combined with... Woody Allen from another universe. And then there's his dog, Spunky, who drools copiously. In fact I would have to say this is maybe the wettest cartoon I can think of. Whereas Ren and Stimpy tended to be outright disgusting, with fart jokes and so-forth, Rocko would have lots of saliva, sweat, and, oh yeah, a cartoon show within the show, about two of Spunky's intestinal parasites. In one episode Heffer and Rocko go to visit the national monument, 'Phlegm Rock', famous for the bacteria-rich green water that erupts from it.

I should add that, despite the way this is sounding, 'Rocko' isn't a 'nasty' show. Rocko himself is friendly, tolerant and good-natured, Heffer is a buffoon, and if the emphasis was on pushing the envelope a bit, the first consideration was always being funny.

Basically everything in O-Town is skewed. None of the buildings, roads or anything have straight sides. Everything is curved. The series revels in this ridiculous stylisation, and though I can't say it hadn't been done before, it sure was done a heck of a lot in later series. Everything that happens in O-Town is equally bent. Though Rocko works in a comic store, he briefly works for Conglom-O as a test subject for their 'Mad Experimental Giraffe Repellant'.

The humour is definately 'quirky', to put it mildly. There are a few scenes that simply don't make sense at all. Most of the others do, but be prepared for some pretty bizarre story concepts - like the episode where Rocko takes his appendix to an amusement park, and Heffer's body fat ends up going to heaven.

Truly, 'Rocko' is one of my very favourite cartoons of the 90's. It'd be in the top three to five, and there was some stiff competition in that decade. It was in large part what got me interested in TV cartoons again, when I first saw it back in about 1994. It was the first time in years that I made a point of tuning into the TV at about 5 PM.

It's often been remarked that Nickelodeon has
become very conservative now and would never show something like this again. I don't have cable, don't live in the US, and can't really comment, but if 'Rugrats' is typical of the sort of programming they have now, this claim would seem to have some validity, and I wonder where you might see replays of 'Rocko' now. Episode titles like 'Who gives a Buck?' , 'Carnival Knowledge', and 'Kiss me, I'm Foreign', as well as some over-the-top-of-the-young-one's-heads jokes suggest Murray and his team weren't aiming just for kids.

It's brilliant, one of a kind, and you might be reduced to buying old VHS tapes if you can find them (there are a few left on Amazon), but if you haven't seen this one, and the above review doesn't put you off, you ought to chase it up.