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Radar: Rocko's Modern Life

REAL SUBTLE.

Because it is a children's cartoon show from the mid 1990s, Rocko's Modern Life had a virtual laundry list of "adult" jokes and innuendo that (for the most part) got by without the censors intervening. It can be said that this show did a better, subtler job of this art than its contemporary at the time (John Kricfalusi's The Ren & Stimpy Show), but, as always, Your Mileage May Vary.

Throughout the series, the main characters' favorite fast food chain is called "Chokey Chicken"◊ — until season three, when the censors finally caught on and changed it to "Chewy Chicken."
In the episode "Canned," one of the jobs Rocko takes on is that of a "specialty phone operator", which turns out to be a phone sex line, portrayed by him on the phone saying "Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby" in an unenthusiastic monotone to somebody on the other end. This was made even clearer by a poster hanging in Rocko's cubicle reading "Be hot, be naughty, be courteous", and made clearer still when they showed both his and Mrs. Bighead's Oh Crap reaction when they recognized each other's voices (and with them both immediately hanging up) — much like anyone would if such a thing happened.
- The scene was even cut from reruns on Nicktoons, but has since been reinstated for The '90s Are All That reruns.
In "Gutter Balls," Rocko, Heffer, and Filburt are playing a board game with a spinning monkey in the middle with suggestively-outthrust buttocks, and they're holding paddles, but the name of the game is never actually stated. For those who don't get it, they are literally spanking a monkey in what has got to be the most blatant Visual Pun of all time.
"Closet Clown" was just one big Does This Remind You of Anything? that shows Ed's clown obsession as either an allegory of being a cross-dresser or being a homosexual.
In once scene from the camping episode ("Hut Sut Raw"), Rocko is seen picking berries from a bush and then accidentally grabs a bear's genitals. Sadly, this was one of many innuendos that only made it past the radar the first time around. The reruns in America have the scene cut just as Rocko is about to pick the berries from the bush, but a lot of overseas airings have the scene uncut.
- Also featured in that episode was a bumper sticker that read: "Leave My Guns Alone Or I'll Kill You. :D" One of the few "adult"-themed jokes that's not about sex, but about another Moral Guardian bogeyman: violence (gun violence, specifically).
The episode "Schnit Heads" (which, much like "Who Gives a Buck" and "Carnival Knowledge", is a very dubious pun that no sane kids' show would consider using for humor) is basically the writers saying, "Hey, how much sausage innuendo can we get past before the censors notice?" as well as a Simpsons-style satire on organized religion (or cults).
"Flu-in-You-Enza" featured a scene in a hospital, where a call for "Doctor Philiac, Doctor Necro Philiac" is heard.
- Also in this episode, the crazy doctor Ben Dova (who, according to the hippo nurse, is a mental patient who was supposed to be strapped to the bed) cupping Rocko's crotch and asking him to cough, then doing something to him that involved a rubber glove and ended with Rocko walking shakily out of the doctor's office. Later, Dr. Dova appears as a pro wrestler, and is introduced as "the proctologist of pain".
One episode featured Rocko and his friends watching a horror movie entitled "Night of the Shaved Kittens," a barely concealed reference to a particular grooming style of the female genitalia.
Nickelodeon managed to catch on in a few cases, though: the episode "Leapfrogs," where Mrs. Bighead tries to seduce Rocko, was eventually stricken from the airwaves (though it occasionally returned in reruns on the original Nicktoons Network).
In one episode Heffer is the victim of a milking machine, much to his enjoyment. He later bids the machine a heartfelt farewell, thanking it for the good times they shared. This ended up being edited in reruns.
In the episode where Rocko and Heffer go to the gym, there's a scene where Heffer was sitting at a weight training station with his back to the camera. All we see is his arms moving back and forth. A woman comes up and asks if he needs any help, to which he replies. "Yeah" then holds up a plate, a pair of chopsticks, and says, "these plastic things can't cut my burrito."
- The same episode also has Rocko using a virtual rowing machine. Rocko chose The African Queen, but the machine immediately went to Deliverance, complete with "Now, we're gonna make you squeal, piggy!" (on RML, it was making a pig laugh by tickling it with a feather).
- In that same episode, a bull bodybuilder has his arms ripped off by an exercise machine, with both bones and blood visible.
The Credit Card Plot episode "Who Gives a Buck?" — of which the title itself is questionable at best — features Heffer watching a television channel called 'The All Scottish Show'. When the name of the show appears on the screen, the acronym it forms can clearly be seen.
- In the same episode, when Rocko has to buy Spunky a new dog bowl, the sleazy salesman invites he and Heffer to take a ride on a train through the store with the stipulation that they must "sit" "Doggy Style."
- "Everyone on their hands and knees~?"
"How 'bout we trade math equations, baby?!"
- For that extra kick, that line is coming from an overly-amorous rabbit. Multiply like Rabbits, get it?
One episode involved Rocko chasing a bird that kidnapped Spunky. The bird flies over a nude beach. Rocko slips out of his swim trunks and goes in (but not before a blue-shaded censor slaps a black box over his butt).
- She then tosses Rocko out to sea, whereupon he returns with a literal buoy in his pants. Cue a walrus telling him that in a strange, British-sounding accent.
One episode has Rocko getting a new, gigantic vacuum cleaner with multiple functions. One bit has Rocko pointing at a rebus-like design that shows a dog minus two baseballs as he says, "We'll try the neutering function later."
In one episode named Clean Lovin, where Spunky falls in love with a mop, when Rocko searches for him he listens to a noise in the closet which sounds like something being scrubbed on a plastic floor until it squeaks and Spunky grunting, he opens the door to find Spunky lying next the the mop with a relieved look on his face and a puddle in front of him (the puddle could be seen as just water that's been colored incorrectly, but given the show's glut of adult humor, one begins to wonder...).
- Later Rocko takes Spunky to a pet psychologist and after some observation he takes Spunky and the mop inside the room and the same squeaking is heard and he tells Rocko "Your dog is normal but we have a very sick mop" and he tells Rocko he'll keep it overnight and that same squeaking is heard yet again, and at the end he takes the mop to dinner at a fancy restaurant.
Honestly, the whole of the episode "Wedgie Boy," which ends with Heffer wearing nothing but a g-string.
In the premiere episode "Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic," right after Rocko, Heffer, and Spunky leave the house, there are naked fairies flying around some flowers. When the Suck-O-Matic sucks it up, a gopher in underwear is seen holding binoculars, looking up and panting.
In the carnival episode, one of the ride operators (a slug) is clearly "reading" a magazine with the title "Playslug." The cover shows a slug with some rather large female assets, although they are covered.
- On the carnival episode (which was titled "Carnival Knowledge"), there was also a ride called "Elevator to Hell." The "Hell" wasn't crossed out and replaced with "Heck" or "Hades," nor was "Hell" obscured by something strategically-placed. In fact, the reruns of it didn't edit the scene or alter the sign at all.
In the episode where Rocko tries to get a good picture of himself for the newspaper (to get a promotion at his job), he enlists Filburt to take the picture of him. Before Rocko and Heffer enter Filburt's trailer, several women leave (and all that's shown are their legs). When Heffer comes in, he says, whilst blushing: "I spilled my puffies..."
- It didn't help that said women's legs had the uber-high, Jessica Rabbit-esque highheels... and they were followed out by a pair of bare rabbit legs.
For the purposes of comparison, here's one scene that didn't get past the radar: Rocko and Heffer find a hotel to stay in on a stormy night. the manger informs them that they are all full, but then he says, cue past-the-radar One. "Ah, room just opened up, premature departure." When they tell him they'll be staying the night he exclaims, astonished, "The WHOLE NIGHT?!". Cue an external shot of the motel and the creaking of bed springs. "Sheila?" "Heffer!"
Hef's grandfather's insistence that Rocko is a beaver, particularly in this line: "Ah, 'coyote', eh? Well, ya can't fool me. I can smell a beaver from 30 miles away — beaver."
- At the dinner table he yells, "I say we eat the beaver!"
In one episode, Spunky sees a poodle across the street and gets...well, excited, and turns into a red rocket and launches. When he comes back down, he has a "pleased" expression on his face.
There was also the recurring joke of Heffer's stepbrother, Peter, being Ambiguously Gay— like in his introduction episode, where he is seen going to cheerleader practice dressed in a female cheerleader's outfit, and his father screams while his mom says, "We were afraid to tell you." Then on the episode where Heffer is chosen to go through his manhood rite of passage, Heffer asks his dad, George, why Peter can't do it. Peter sarcastically replies, "Oh, yeah, like I'm really gonna do it," then adds, "I'm going out." George suspiciously says, "Where are you going?" Cut to Peter in a tutu and ballet tights, grumbling, "Here we go again: judge, judge, judge."
In one episode Rock goes to a jackhammer store called Jack-o-rama. A TV commercial Rocko watches says to go there, "for all your jacking needs."
- In the same episode, Rocko is in the yard, practicing his jackhammering, only he can't see very well, so he's land the jack hammer on Spunky. Heffer dives taking Spunky out of harm's way at the last second, but Rocko lands the jackhammer on Heffer's back-side instead. Rocko apologizes for running him over, but Heffer says that he "kind of likes it" while biting the grass and looking extremely pleased.
  - Another episode features a banner with the much more tasteful Jack-All-U-Want.
In "Kiss Me, I'm Foreign," Rocko and Ophelia (Filburt as a girl) are in an argument until a knock on the door in which when they open they scream "What in the hell" before quickly adding an "o" with a change in tone.
In "Skid Marks" Rocko's car is impounded, and there are numerous references to prison rape. In one scene, the car is calling from the junkyard asking for Rocko to get him out of there. The scene cuts to Rocko on the phone, listening to his car yelling and begging to bail him out, with the sound of cars ramming each other in the background.
"The other cars call him 'fancy fenders.' Term of endearment, I'm sure."
In "Rocko's Happy Sack," during Rocko's tirade about how he went through hell to beat the supermarket sale deadline and should pay the $1.50 for groceries instead of $150.00, one of the things he mentioned is being "threatened by your Gestapo security guards" (even though that scene never appeared in the episode). Kinda tame, but these days, you'd never see a Nickelodeon cartoon make a light reference to Nazi Germany (the Gestapo were Hitler's secret police force).
Rocko tried to get the autograph of a baseball player. He accidentally poked some people's butts. The first two were offended but the last one seemed to like it.
In the episode where all of Ed's bugs crash at Rocko's house, there is a scene where a female caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Her boyfriend then turns into a screw, symbolizing that he got "screwed" over.
In the episode where Rocko watches Filburt's bird, the bird snatches off Mrs. Bighead's bikini top, causing her to smile suggestively and say, "Such a naughty bird" (with Rocko zipping up his eyeballs after seeing Bev topless)
In "Sand in Your Navel" there is a scene where a crab sees a crab shack and exclaims "me pica el culito," which is Spanish for "My little ass itches."
In "The Big Question", Hutchison's mother, the widow Hutchison, doesn't want a turtle and cat together, paralleling some people's disdain for interracial marriages.
In "The Big Answer" Rocko and Heffer throw Filburt a bachelor party where they eat a bunch of ice cream, which is substituted for alcohol.
- In the same episode there is a scene which shows what appears to be a woman dancing, shaking her butt. Zoom out to reveal an ice cream man stirring a milk shake.
In "Bedfellows," Heffer throws a nudist party with Bev taking a perverted interest in it (and even had her own at the end of the episode).
In the episode "To Heck and Back," Heffer goes to Hell. In Hell, there is a sign that has the word "HECK" on it. Underneath the C and the K, there are Ls. Then, when Heffer corrects Peaches about where he is, Peaches slaps a hand over Heffer's mouth and says, "Censors!".
- In the same episode, Peaches, the devil, is shown at the end playing paddle-ball. He is counting the hits and gets to 665. Then he messes up.
"Heff in a Handbasket" might as well have been named "Let's See How Many Times We Can Get Away With Referencing The Number 666." Also, Heffer's grandma spits into Heaven.
One episode, "Love Spanked," has Rocko spotting his love interest Melba Toast and his heart pumps back and forth from his chest to his butt. Look carefully when it reaches his butt: it resembles a nut sack and it's got hair on it. Don't believe me? Look at this.
- And they also mention fetishes directly in the episode. No innuendo or anything, just a direct reference.
The episode "Cabin Fever" featured Bev playing (and winning!) Strip Poker with Rocko and Heffer.
In the episode involving Dr. Hutchison and Filbert having children, of Dr. Hutchison's babies resembles Heffer.