The sixth episode of the third season of Rocko's Modern Life.
Manic Mechanic
Filburt offers to help Rocko fix his car in time for a big race.
Rocko's Happy Vermin
A band of bugs that have escaped from Mr. Bighead's stash take refuge in Rocko's house.
Manic Mechanic provides examples of:
- Alliterative Title: Manic Mechanic.
- Bittersweet Ending: Rocko and his car win the race, but Filburt's motor scooter and Rocko's car get destroyed at the end.
- Continuity Nod: Uncle Jib's cattle truck and Jezebel the dead horse from "The Good, The Bad and the Wallaby" appear in this episode. They can be seen during Heffer's reverse ride. The background music for "The Good, The Bad, and the Wallaby" can also be heard when Heffer is in the drag race.
- Funetik Aksent: While trying to fix Rocko's car, Heffer reads the service manual with a goofy accent. When Rocko tells him to drop the accent, Heffer responds that the manual is written that way.
- Deliberately Monochrome: During the Frankenstein parody, the screen turns black-and-white.
- Here We Go Again!: Said by Filburt after Rocko's car and his motor scooter get wrecked. He puts on the silly headdress from earlier as the show closes out.
- High-Speed Train Reroute: Heffer speeds out of control in reverse when he takes Rocko's car for a test drive after his, Rocko's, and Filburt's attempts to fix it. At one point, Heffer gets onto a set of train tracks and is being chased by a train. When Rocko and Filburt catch up to him on Filburt's motor scooter, they come to a switch, and change the points to divert Heffer away from the train.
- Inventional Wisdom: Rocko and his friends are trying to fix Rocko's car, but are unable to despite trying everything, until Filburt notices the car has a "fixed/broken" switch on the under the hood that's currently set to "broken".
- Noodle Incident: At the beginning, Heffer asks Rocko if he's still upset over "The Poodle Incident".
- Shout-Out: Filburt proclaims he can take Rocko's broken car and return to it "that spark that is the breath of life itself!"
- Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: This happens to Rocko's car when it gets wrecked. At the end of the episode, this happens to Rocko's car and Filburt's motor scooter.
"Rocko's Happy Vermin" provides examples of:
- Ash Face: Happens to Ed after he puts his tongue on his stove's burner.
- Brick Joke: Rocko suggests the bugs go on a vacation instead of staying at his house. At the end of the episode, the bugs take him up on that offer.
- Condensation Clue: To make sure Rocko gets the message about Ed's true intentions for the bugs, Flecko writes "He's going to eat us you idiot" on the jar he is trapped in.
- Deadly Euphemism: Mr. Bighead offers to "take care" of Rocko's pest problem and "send them to camp".
- The Dreaded: The second Ed arrives in the bug-infested kitchen, the bugs flee in terror.
- Everyone Has Standards: Rocko immediately understands that the bugs need a place to stay, but while he is a Friend to Bugs he isn't Adoring the Pests.
- For the Evulz: Mr. Bighead is a toad who eats bugs, and that's a normal way of life. What isn't a normal way of life is the bizarrely sadistic pleasure he takes in eating the bugs alive.
- Freudian Slip:Mr. Bighead: Uh, Rocko, could I borrow a cup of bugs— [stutters unintelligibly] butter?
- Friend to Bugs: Rocko's kindness to bugs is what leads the escapees from Ed to invade Rocko's house.
- Killer Rabbit: Spunky barks at a tiny little bug on the ground. The bug roars at Spunky, baring its ginormous fangs.
- Shaking the Rump: Flecko does this to trick Ed into putting his tongue on the hot stove.
- Tongue Trauma:
- Flecko pulls a switch in the sink that causes this to happen to Mr. Bighead.
- Later on, Ed is tricked into putting his tongue on a stove's burner, causing it his tongue to disintegrate like the fuse on a stick of dynamite.
