Rocko's Modern Life - Legacy

Legacy

The fourth Nicktoon to debut, Rocko’s boasts a sizable cult fan-base to this day. Tom Kenny cited Rocko's Modern Life as vital in him learning how to do voiceover for animation. He recalled that seeing Charlie Adler have a two-way conversation with himself as the Bigheads without any edits was "dazzling." It was a very early job for Mr. Lawrence.

Many members of the Rocko's Modern Life staff have, in recent years, gone on to become incredibly successful. Stephen Hillenburg later went on to pitch a new series to Nickelodeon in 1998, regarding which Murray said "If it goes well, it'll be a blessing to us all." The network bought the pitch and SpongeBob SquarePants premiered the following year, becoming an enormous popular, critical and financial success. Hillenburg stated that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his time on Rocko's Modern Life and noted that "a lot of people came off of Rocko that work on SpongeBob." Tom Kenny, who voiced Heffer Wolfe, performs the voice of the title character, SpongeBob. Two writers for the series, Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, went on to create Phineas and Ferb for the Disney Channel; the show became a ratings success and received numerous award nominations. When Murray returned with a new animated series, Camp Lazlo, in 2005, much of the former staff of Rocko's Modern Life joined him. Murray stated that "We always kept in touch and they told me to look them up if I ever did another project," adding that the crew already knew his sensibilities and an extra decade worth of experience. Carlos Alazraqui, who played Rocko, also ended up playing the main character of Lazlo. Derek Drymon and Nick Jennings, both part of the staff, went on to be responsible for the tone and visual looks of a lot of very successful animated series that came later.

In recent years, the show has seen renewed acclaim. Brahna Siegelberg of Slate said that the aspect that was most compelling was that the show had "a really poignant critique of the materialist demands of American life." She added that she "realized that Rocko was really a show about how to navigate the adult world; one that could be appreciated by kids for its slapstick humor and absurdity, but had even more to say to young adults—like me." IGN called the show a prime example of the "sophisticated, intelligent brand of children's programming" during Nickelodeon's golden age. The A.V. Club also called the show "one of the best series" from that era, praising the show's "impressive commitment to expressive character acting, well-drawn sight gags, and cartoony jokes that play with the form’s slapstick strengths." New York compared the series' humor, in retrospect, to that of Office Space (1999) and praised the subversive, anti-corporate stories.