Trash-O-Madness

''Trash-O-Madness'' is a 1992 short film and the pilot episode for the American animated series ''Rocko's Modern Life''. It was directed and written by series creator Joe Murray, with Carlos Alazraqui providing all voices. A new version of the pilot, that was extended for the purposes of including it as a regular episode, was produced and released as part of the first season. It also features an extended end credit sequence to accommodate the names of production crew behind "Trash-O-Madness". On February 7, 2012, the original pilot version found its way onto Shout! Factory's season 2 DVD as a special feature. In '' Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day'', the second level is named after this episode.

Plot

The sun rises over O-Town as Earl, a dog who escaped from a laboratory wakes up, growling and barking crazily, biting off the lid to the trash can he resides in, and drinks weed-killer, and gazes at a house behind him. In the house, a dog and his owner are asleep. The dog, named Spunky, has his stomach rumbling, awakening his owner Rocko. Noticing his dog's stomach bump, he yawns and tells Spunky that he's "too hungry to dance." He glances nostalgically at a family photo, remarking that they never had a real breakfast since they migrated from Australia. Rocko dresses up and clips his toenails while promising Spunky a good meal. Suddenly, he hears a noise and finds a Hill-O-Stench garbage truck driving erratically and crushing someone's car flat. Rocko realizes that it's garbage day, and that the garbage men have never been by for around six months, and figures out that their license has been reinstated. Rocko frantically attempts to gather the large hoard of trash in his house, Spunky quickly eats Rocko's toenail clippings out of hunger.

Downstairs, Rocko puts multiple piles of garbage while Earl sneaks around the house while peeking through the windows occasionally. Rocko plugs in his vacuum cleaner, the Suck-O-Matic, while Spunky stands in front of the sucking tube. Spunky's tongue is stuck in the vacuum, which sucks a comically big amount of things from his nose, including screws, nuts, bolts, a small wedge of cheese, and a fish, before being sucked in whole. Rocko saves Spunky by flicking a switch to reverse the vacuum function, but not before Spunky expands like a balloon and gets blasted onto the ceiling.

In the kitchen, Rocko frantically throws out all the garbage in the fridge. He opens a container implied to be emergency rations (a sign reads "Buy War Bonds" is on it, only to find a slime ball being what's left in it, disgusting Rocko. He empties the container as the slime ball is disposed of. Spunky, amused by the ball, attempts to play with it, only for the ball to reveal itself as a living creature and squirt black ink onto Spunky.

Rocko silently instructs the dog to spit that back out into the can. The dog hesitantly tries, not only to realize that it's also sticky, but while running out the window, the garbage men are coming closer. Rocko puts the rest of the trash out onto a now-huge pile of garbage. Spunky digs himself into the pile before Rocko carries it out to a trash compactor, the Compact-O-Matic, which is in the kitchen. Rocko compacts the garbage into the size of a Chinese restaurant take-out box, not realizing Spunky is in the pile of garbage. He notices the garbage men are getting even closer (and crushing more cars), and Rocko hurriedly attempts to carry the now take-out-box-sized garbage out to the front lawn's trash bin, only to be jump-scared by Earl. He quickly shuts the door and looks out the peephole. He nervously chips off his fingernails with his teeth.

Atop the roof of his house, Rocko ties the trash and dog to a fishing pole to lure Earl into the garbage truck, only to realize that Spunky had been compacted in that pile of garbage. He reels back, and Earl follows, swallowing the compacted trash cube and Spunky. Rocko lets go of the pole in shock, causing Earl and the pole to plummet to the ground. Rocko follows Earl and attempts to reason with him, only to be punched in the face. He leaves and returns angrily with a steak, which did not work on Earl. Having been forced to his breaking point, he launches at Earl's face and screws it up, pulling the line from the fishing pole, then wrestles with the tough dog, and socks him straight into the snout then pulling it back out, realizing that he angered the dog. Rocko fights with Earl after Earl spits the cube out. A battered Rocko emerges victorious and attempts to revive Spunky by kneading him into shape and inflating him, only for Spunky to wake up.

At night, Rocko takes a bath with Spunky, apparently able to take out the trash in time and expresses his gratefulness for Spunky's companionship, only to realize that Spunky had the slime ball in his mouth the whole time. The slime ball explodes after coming in contact with water.

Production

Joe Murray originally wrote "A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic" as the pilot episode. Still, the executives decided that Heffer Wolfe might be "a little too weird for test audiences." Murray, instead of removing Heffer from "A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic," decided to write "Trash-O-Madness" as the pilot episode.

Murray co-produced the pilot episode with George Maestri, Marty McNamara, and Nick Jennings at Joe Murray Studio in Saratoga, California, United States. McNamara assembled a cadre of animators. Murray animated half of the pilot, and several San Francisco Bay-area animators such as Robert Scull, Maestri, Jennings, and Timothy Björklund animated the other half. Jennings created all of the production backgrounds.

Murray then hired a camera company. Once the plan fell behind schedule, Murray, Nick Jennings, and George Maestri modified a 35 mm camera to film at night. Tom Schott acted as the cameraman. In the daytime, the team transported the film via automobile to San Francisco for processing. After viewing the completed portions, the team arrived in Saratoga to continue the production. Murray rented a motel room for team members to take shifts sleeping and showering; Murray, Jennings, Maestri, and Schott took shifts there. Policemen visited the animators on numerous occasions due to the noise produced by the studio.

The team completed the film on schedule; the crew later expanded the film to 11 minutes for use in the series. Murray describes the animation of "Trash-O-Madness" as containing "variations in the Rocko models" and "a lot more stretch than usual" in the animation.

Differences between the original pilot and the Nickelodeon version

* The music, sound effects, and some of the voices were completely different. Marshall Crutcher composed the music for the pilot, with Pat Irwin replacing him in the actual show. Tom Kenny had not been involved with the show during the original pilot's production, as Carlos Alazraqui did all the voices.
* The pilot featured a completely different opening, which began with a photo album, showing Rocko through the years, and then showed clips from the pilot episode, along with sketches of Rocko with Ed and Bev Bighead and Heffer. The Nickelodeon version simply began with a recolored version of the original title card along with the credits.
* Rocko was originally yellow, but was changed to beige due to a toy company's attempt to market the series and its failure.
* The original pilot was 8 minutes long. In the Nickelodeon version, roughly a minute and a half worth of footage was added for, as stated above, the purposes of including it as a regular episode. An extended end credit sequence was also created to extend the length of the pilot.

References

{{Rocko's Modern Life

American television series premieres
Rocko's Modern Life
Films directed by Joe Murray
Animated films about kangaroos and wallabies
Animated films about dogs
1992 animated short films
1992 American television episodes
1993 American television episodes