Time for more What The Funny!

Well, this is it, folks. The last of my Rocko’s Modern Life favorite short breakdowns.

Yeah, I know that there are many more Rocko shorts that I could cover here, but as I said back at the very first segment, I don’t want to get bogged down with doing every single episode of RML; I’m only doing my absolute favorite shorts. I’m about ready to move on to another show or franchise to cover, and I think that 5 is a good round number to stop on. Now just so we’re clear, this isn’t the last WTF; it’s just the last one that I’ll be doing for this particular series. We don’t know what the next one will be just yet, although we have some ideas. And it may be myself, or Damon or even both of us doing the next crop of WTFs.

Anyway….on with the merriment. Here’s Popcorn Pandemonium

POPCORN PANDEMONIUM

Synopsis: In this episode Rocko dreams of going to a drive-in movie, but he and Heffer settle on the local movie theater.

Highlights:

The short starts with Rocko and Heffer in the car watching TV through Ed Bighead’s window. Rocko is annoyed because this is not tantamount to watching a movie at a real drive-in. Heffer uses a remote control to change the channel to a scary movie and Bighead changes the channel back to his program. Soon, Heffer and Bighead continuously flicker the TV channels back and forth, which cause Bighead’s TV to explode.

Heffer suggests that he and Rocko should go to Googa Plex Cinemas, a local movie theater that offers numerous amount of movies. The two pay roughly $100 for two tickets and buy their refreshments (while waiting hours in a long line). Heffer is caught sneaking his own snacks into the theater.

The Googa Plex Cinema has many theaters, all of them showing the same movie: “Lethal Odor IX”.

They enter a movie theater, only to find that they mistakenly entered a restroom. I hate it when that happens!

One running gag that I like is that the staff at Googa Plex are all wearing shirts identical to Rocko’s, and because of this, Rocko is continually mistaken for an employee.

Rocko: (to the cashier) Might I say, that’s a very dapper shirt you’re wearing!

Cashier: Yeah, management makes us wear these stupid things!

Rocko and Heffer go to theater #42, where we’re treated to this exchange:

Rocko (to an employee): Excuse me, where’s theater #42?

Employee: You should know, man. You work here!

Rocko: I don’t work here.

Employee: Me neither, unless the boss is watching.

Rocko and Heffer see the a preview of the family movie “The Cuddly Little Poots” Guest starring the super hero Really, Really Big Man.

Then there’s a preview withing the preview telling the audience to watch for the Cuddly Little Poots on a World War II submarine, in the feature “Das Poot”! This pun is so bad that even the characters in the theater collectively groan at it.

Next, we get a trailer for “Garbage Strike: The Musical”, which is a parody of the Disney feature, Newsies, a 1992 musical about striking paperboys.

There’s also a preview for the movie “Lang Chow: Gerbil of Death” complete with bad dubbing. We also see Lang Chow eating breakfast.

After a preview of a movie about Dracula’s demise, the movie blurs out before it shows the feature presentation. Filburt, the movie director, listens to the guests’ complaining and hit his head on the top of the opening of the window, causing his glasses to fall off his face and reflect the light of the movie projector to start a fire, which trails through the carpet and into the popcorn storage room. This causes the popcorn to overflow through the building and Rocko and Heffer run out just in time to make it to the car. But when they find that the overflowing popcorn has caused the building to collapse, they find that it has become a drive-in and stay to watch the film. As the popcorn continues to overflow, the Garbage Rats from the film appear and sing their strike song.

Popcorn Pandemonium wasn’t a complicated plot. Rather, it was mostly a series is spot gags with a continuing theme. This short had an old-school Looney Tunes feel to it, and I’m a big enough Looney Tunes nerd to appreciate that.

My Rating: 4 out of 5.

Next time: A completely different show! Stay funny.