How About That Thing?

You know, it seems like a lot of early 90s cartoons tried to teach us to avoid cults. And if the existence of Q Anon is anything to go by, it’s safe to say my generation didn’t learn a fucking thing. That, or maybe we were looking for the more obvious lunatic in bath robe cultist, and not the thirteen-year-old troll looking over at his friends and saying “Hey, look at what I can make all these losers believe” cultist. But I digress.

“Don’t join cults” was a surprisingly frequent lesson children’s television tried to teach us. I don’t know WHY, necessarily. I mean it’s a good lesson, but my early childhood was far removed from Jonestown, and I don’t think Heaven’s Gate would come until years later… Or maybe they were just being preemptive? Well, whatever the case may be, it came up a lot.

And one particular instance I remember VERY fondly was an episode from one of my favorite cartoons of all time: Rocko’s Modern Life.

Surely, I don’t have to explain what Rocko’s Modern Life is… But just in case, it’s a sort of slice of life comedy about a cartoon wallaby named Rocko, his friends Heffer and Philbert (though Philbert would become a regular somewhat later in the series), and his next door neighbors, The Bigheads. It turned everyday situations like garbage day, grocery shopping, and the like into wacky shinanigan-filled adventures.

In some ways, you can definitely tell it’s showing its age. IE, everybody still uses landlines, everybody still watches TV instead of TikTok or Scoops or whatever the popular thing is now, the internet doesn’t exist, etc. Honestly, though, if that’s the worst thing you can say about ANY show, let alone this one, I think it’s goin to be okay. despite this detail, it’s one of my all-time favorite Nicktoons, and it continues to fill me with warm, fuzzy nostalgia.

I also find it rather astounding that my mom, the woman who absolutely would NOT let me watch Ren and Stimpy under ANY circumstance, somehow had no problem at all with me watching Rocko. If only because there were occasions where I’d argue that Rocko was actually just as gross, if not more so . Then again, Joe Murrai was a lot more intelligent, or at least understood the concept of subtlety when inserting little tidbits the adults would get. More than most can say about good old John K, but again, I digress.

Rocko definitely tackled a lot of surprisingly heavy issues. For example, I can’t think of any other kids show from that era that tackled the topic of adoption. Of course, I knew adoption was a thing, but I’d never really seen it so much as discussed on kids TV till then.

And of course, there’s the topic of today’s article: the season 3 episode known simply as “Schnit Heads”. Once Yeah, emember what I said about Joe Murrai being able to get away with adult jokes? I’m STILL amazed he got that one past the censores, considering all the uptight watchdog groups that hovered around at the time… But yet again, I digress..

Final note: much like the Peggy Hill becoming a fetish model article from August, I wasn’t able to get screenshots because Paramount Plus are dicks and won’t let me screencap anything. So… Yeah, hope you like text. otherwise, I appologize in advance.

The episode starts with some guy talking about finding enlightenment. Most likely, this is a form of foreshadowing. Or the fact Heffer finds the restaurant where the titular cult operates is purely a coincidence. Knowing Heffer, I’d believe either one.

After Heffer does the obligatory fat joke and orders an absurd amount of sausage products, the indoctrination begins. He gets invited to a friendly gathering of like-minded individuals who enjoy bratwurst. On one hand, I can’t help but think a golden opportunity to refer to this gathering as a sausage party has been missed. On the other hand, it’s a kids show, and frankly, they were already pressing their luck with that schnit heads pun.

Heffer tries to invite Rocko to come with, but Rocko is too busy fighting off a sentient glob of mold, crust, and leftover mac-and-cheese that’s decided it ain’t takin’ shit from nobody. So Heffer goes it alone, and makes a good impression at the party, and gets invited to do more fun things with sausage. Such as put on a puppet show with bratwurst. And yes, I’m well aware of the wordplay involved when Rocko exclaims “Heffer’s on TV, playing with sausage!” Even as a kid, I couldn’t help but feel there was a double meaning in there somewhere. Also, there’s probably a Dan Schneider joke in there somewhere, but I can’t think of it off hand.

Eventually, Heffer gets welcomed into the fold, and moves in with the rest of the sausage lovers. He spends his days manning a station on a conveyer belt, and his evenings eating his meals with the rest of the group. Including a character who looks kind of like one of The Bigheads. Seriously, it sucks I can’t take screenshots, because this little easter egg would be great to include here.

Eventually, Heffer comes to learn the same lesson I ended up learning when I first moved out into the world on my own. You can only subsist on one food item for so long before even THAT gets boring. Unfortunately, ordering pizza doesn’t sit well with the cultists, and he’s punished by being forced to work the sauerkraut fields. Suddenly, I find myself wondering: if that’d been a sausage pizza, would they have still gotten on his ass about it? My guess is they’d probably say something about how sausage in its purest form doesn’t need pizza to enhance the flavor, or some sort of dogmatic bullshit like that.

Rocko gets wind of the fact Heffer’s been recruited into the cult, and he and Philbert try to save him. So naturally, the most logical idea is to build a giant metal monstrosity that’s part sausage, part parade float, and try to pass it off as their god. I mean I’D have just hired a lawyer or two myself, but building your own metal sausage monster is definitely another possibility. It’s probably cheaper, too.

This plan actually works in the short term, until it’s revealed Heffer is too fat to fit in it’s mouth and ends up breaking it.

Rocko is knocked unconscious, and upon waking up, he sees the cultists, now dressed like weeners (literally speaking), announce they’re going to chuck bowling balls at them. So sayeth The Book of Bratwurst: “If there be one among you who does not believe in the righteous path, let him go, and do NOT chuck bowling balls at them.”

“See? It says let us go!” Rocko points out.

“It’s a matter of interpretation,” the leader replies.

Speaking of jokes that made more sense when I was an adult. Nice to know fringe lunatic cults can be just as hypocritical and dogmatic as mainstream religion.

Bowling for sinners is cut short, however, as the supreme king of weeners hits the scene. And it’s right about here I have a distinct feeling someone either wrote themselves into a corner. That, or they were going for a Monty Python esque “the fuck did I just watch?” sort of ending, which really has a fifty-fifty chance of working. I’m honestly still debating whether or not it works here, but whatever.

King weenie drops the cultists off on some random island with a grand total of one coconut tree, he takes Rocko and friends home, reveals himself to be Really Really Big Man (the in-universe equivalent of Superman), Heffer learns a convoluted lesson, iris out, end of episode.

In the end, it’s mostly just an excuse to work in as many sausage puns as humanly possible. And yet, it’s still one of my favorite episodes of the show. I guess even then, I was a sucker for wordplay. Or sausage is just one of those things that’ll always be funny. Like pineapples. Or waffles. I’ll believe either, or even both.

As for the underlying lesson of “don’t join cults”… Well, it must have been effective, because I’ve managed to avoid joining a cult.

The closest to joining a cult I’ve ever come in my life was when I was playing with the Meetup app, and found a group that I’ve been advised should remain nameless. For the record, though, it wasn’t The Church of Scientology, or one of the particularly well known ones (to my knowledge anyway). However, after reading their meetup group’s summary, let’s just say I found myself thinking pretty loudly that this was a cult. It wasn’t even subtle! Or maybe it was, and I managed to prove to myself that I was actually smarter than I give myself credit.

SIDE NOTE: you might want to be careful about what groups you join on Meetup. I can’t imagine that cult was the only one looking for new recruits.

While I’ve managed to avoid joining a cult, that doesn’t mean I don’t find them fascinating. Not fascinating enough to join, or even form, but just the idea of groups like that existing just catches my eye for some reason. Whether it be real life examples like Heaven’s Gate, or fictional groups like The Brotherhood of Bratwurst, there’s just something in the concept that captures my imagination.

And on that note, I really have no idea how to end this article. So until next time, remember that all that’s shiny isn’t sausage. Or… Something.