The eighth episode of the fourth season of Rocko's Modern Life.
S.W.A.K.
Rocko has a crush on his new mail-carrier, but tries to keep a love note from falling into the hands of her hulking big brother.
Magic Meatball:
Ed Bighead gets a promotion, but becomes dependent on a fortune-telling toy in order to keep it.
"S.W.A.K." provides examples of:
- Continuity Nod: Wallace, Alicia's older brother, was first seen in "Junk Junkies".
- Fun with Acronyms: Sealed With A Kiss.
- Hope Spot:
- Rocko manages to save the letter from going through the mail slots, but he gets picked up by a crane and drops the letter.
- Wallace opens Rocko's love letter, but he can't read it. Rocko calms down, but then panics back in full force when Heffer offers to read it aloud for him.
- Kissing In A Tree: Heffer teases Rocko over his crush on the mail carrier by singing this.
- Love Letter Lunacy: Rocko goes through a lot of shenanigans just to get Alicia's love letter back.
- Mistaken for Gay: Rocko signed his love letter "to my mail carrier". And guess who just happened to be delivering letters that day? This is what actually prevents Rocko from getting beaten to a pulp, because Wallace assumed the love letter was for Heffer.Wallace: You mean... you? And you? [He begins to tear up] That's so sweet!
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Implied to be the case with Wallace, who gets furious when Rocko and Heffer come to the door with the love letter for Alicia.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: Heffer has a job as a mail carrier in this episode.
- Packed Hero: Rocko gets compressed into a box shape as a part of an Amusing Injury he suffers.
- Relative Error: Rocko initially thinks Wallace is Alicia's boyfriend, but the end of the episode reveals that they're siblings.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: The end of the episode implies Rocko's feelings for Alicia are requited.
- Unstoppable Mailman: Heffer refuses to give back Rocko's love letter when asked because he thinks it's his sacred duty to deliver the mail.
- Where It All Began: Rocko hitching a ride to the post office to get his love letter back results in a series of shenanigans that send him right back to where he started- his house.
"Magic Meatball" provides examples of:
- Absurd Altitude: As Ed gets promoted, his office gets higher and higher, until he has a view of Earth from sub-orbital space.
- Accidental Misnaming: When Mr. Noway gives Ed his own office, he writes Ed's name as "Ded Bigfed".
- Alliterative Title: Magic Meatball.
- All Take and No Give: Ed hallucinates the Magic Meatball acting like this.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The Magic Meatball seems like this, but eventually becomes subverted when Ed has some Sanity Slippage due to his dependence on it.
- Companion Cube: Ed ends up forming this sort of relationship with the Magic Meatball, up to and including marrying it.
- Delayed Reaction: When Ed finish his paperwork on his first night, Noway shows up with another employee and calls out Bighead for not keeping up until he realize Bighead was indeed done.
- Floating Advice Reminder: As Ed slacks off into the dead of night, the transparent floating head of of Noway yells at him to keep up or get out.
- Literal Metaphor: Ed moving up in the company's ranks is represented by his office literally being elevated.
- Magic 8-Ball: The Magic Meatball is a parody of the 8-Ball.
- The Peter Principle: Ed rises in Conglom-O's ranks and does well up until the meatball breaks and he has a nervous breakdown, resulting in him getting demoted to his original position.
- Sanity Slippage: Ed depended on the Magic Meatball so much that when it breaks, he loses it and hallucinates it coming to life.
- Tempting Fate:
- Ed remarks that being an executive is easy. Right after that, he is greeted with a mountain of paperwork that reads like word salad to him.
- "Behind this door lies the answer to all our problems!" Mr. Noway opens the door to reveal Ed having a mental breakdown.
- Tropaholics Anonymous: At the end, Ed joins a support group for people obsessed with using a Magic Meatball.
