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49-443: Rocko first appeared in a never-released comic, where he is named "Travis". Joe Murray , creator of Rocko's Modern Life , believed that the personality of a wallaby suited Rocko after observing a zoo wallaby "minding his own business" while elephants and monkeys "screamed for attention". After the event, Murray said that "It kind of clicked. Rocko would be at the center of the hurricane of everything swirling around him. He'd be like

98-444: A "pudgy little wallaby star" who tries to "do what's right" and is devoted to his friend Heffer and dog Spunky . Prescott has called the character "lovable." Common Sense Media reviewer Andrea Graham, whose review is posted on Go.com , describes Rocko as " paranoid and obsessed with cleanliness" and that he initially perceives his neighbors to be "loud and messy." Graham describes Rocko as accepting of his neighbors' faults and seeing

147-519: A Suit series for the platform. KaboingTV premiered on March 11, 2011. Murray worked on the PBS animated series Let's Go Luna! , which aired from November 2018 to November 2022. Murray also worked on the hour-long Rocko TV special Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling , which premiered on Netflix on August 9, 2019. This included reprising his voice role as Rachel Bighead . In October 2019, Murray and his wife relocated from California to Belgium , and at

196-410: A book on creating and producing an animated TV series, and working on producing a new short series, entitled Frog in a Suit for his web network; KaboingTV. On April 20, 2010, Murray launched a donation drive on Kickstarter to fund the project, KaboingTV, a web network entirely dedicated to cartoons. By June 5, the project surpassed its goal of $ 16,800 and Murray developed episodes of his Frog in

245-508: A building with the MTV logo branded onto his buttocks. My Dog Zero , released in 1992, was Murray's third independent film and first color film. Murray said that My Dog Zero was his "most gratifying" artistic project to date because of his own "stubbornness" in resolving the obstacles and issues involved in the production, such as lack of funding and lack of resources. With a grant he employed twelve people, mostly university students, to cel-paint

294-577: A full-time artist, drawing caricatures of people and animals at an amusement park in his spare time. Taking the position of political cartoonist for a newspaper in San Jose, Murray's cartoons often targeted then-President Jimmy Carter . In a 2007 entry on his website, he said that he admired Carter's post-presidential work. Murray has cited Pablo Picasso , Henri Matisse , Walt Kelly , Mark O'Hare , Max Fleischer , Jay Ward , Tex Avery , Bob Clampett , and Chuck Jones as his main influences. As

343-534: A girl who hangs out at the roller rink, and becomes jealous when it is implied she is attracted to Heffer. In the end, he wins her over after saving Heffer's life. She then rides on a jackhammer with Rocko. In "I See London, I See France", Rocko tries to win over Claudette, who turned out to be his female wallaby pen pal from Paris , but she is more interested in Heffer. Rocko is the main playable character of Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day and also in

392-593: A new feature to his website, The Tin Box , where Murray posts some of his independent work. The first work posted was "Where's Poppa", a short episode of The Family Pop . Murray decided to return to television cartooning, this time selling his work to Cartoon Network Studios . In 2005, he produced a pilot for the cartoon Camp Lazlo , which was picked up for a 13-episode first season and ran for five seasons, with production ending in November 2007. On September 8, 2007,

441-593: A playable character in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl , Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway , and the Apple Arcade exclusive game Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis. Rocko, alongside Invader Zim , Danny Phantom , Jenny XJ9 , and Powdered Toast Man , were released as playable skins for a limited-time Nickelodeon-themed event in Smite on July 12, 2022. Rocko and the additional characters for

490-463: A separate television series called Rocko's Modern Life . Murray created, and was the executive producer, for the animated series Rocko's Modern Life , which aired on Nickelodeon from 1993 to 1996. He voiced the character Ralph Bighead in the episodes "I Have No Son" and "Wacky Delly", and a caricature version of himself in "Short Story". Originally, the character Rocko appeared in an unpublished comic book titled Travis . Murray tried selling

539-430: A young adult, Murray was hired as a designer at an agency. He invested his earnings from the company into independent animated films. At age 20, Murray founded his independent illustration company, Joe Murray Studios (or Joe Murray Productions), in 1981 while still in university. His early attempts at animation date back to 1986 when he joined De Anza College . Murray created several short animated films, his most successful

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588-534: Is roller skating . At the local skating rink, he is known as "The King", and performs his own skating routine at the request of the patrons. Heffer's biological father lives with a female cow named Joyce in a trailer in the Canoga Park section of the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles . A shaved and elderly character resembling Heffer appears in the series finale of Camp Lazlo as

637-704: Is a sister. Murray created a narcoleptic older sister character named Magdalane "Maggie" in the episode "Wake Up Maggie" about her, but chose to never air the episode and never use the character. Magdalane was created as a mother with 2 children. Although personally hygienic, Rocko has an almost pathological tendency to neglect his living space; several episodes, such as " Unbalanced Load ", involve Rocko attempting to rectify severe messes or lapses in maintenance. Nickelodeon South East Asia 's website describes Rocko as "generally very polite and sometimes shy" and that provocation can lead Rocko to become "determined and forceful." Jean Prescott of The Sun Herald described Rocko as

686-419: Is actually the plotting lines showing where the wolves were going to divide him. The Nickelodeon UK page describes Heffer as a "devoted friend" who "loves life". Heffer's lack of fear mostly stems from stupidity instead of genuine bravery. The Nickelodeon South East Asia website describes him as an "overgrown slob". Despite being obese, he can drive; unlike Rocko he does not wear seat belts , mostly because

735-505: The Netflix special Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling and the comic book series of the same name. Tom Kenny provided the voice of the anthropomorphic steer . Heffer is best friends with the title character, Rocko . Joe Murray , creator of Rocko's Modern Life , partially based Heffer on an adopted friend who enjoyed bologna sandwiches and "had an interesting take on life". Heffer first appeared on an ID spot aired on MTV in 1989;

784-480: The Rocko's Modern Life concept and submitted it to Nickelodeon, believing that the concept would likely be rejected. According to Murray, around three or four months later he had "forgotten about" the concept and was working on My Dog Zero when Linda Simensky informed Murray that Nickelodeon wanted a pilot episode. Murray said that he was glad that he would get funding for My Dog Zero . In 1992, two months prior to

833-408: The Rocko's Modern Life pilot, he created all of the character layouts in his mind and other animators used the layouts to create works. Murray said that when Rocko became "high volume", Murray taught Americans and Koreans how to draw the characters. Murray described Rocko as the most difficult character to draw, and he said that therefore he decided to adjust his character design in order to assist

882-512: The San Francisco Bay Area and "clean up the loose ends I had left hanging". To his surprise Nickelodeon approved new seasons. After season 3, he decided to hand the project to Stephen Hillenburg , who did most work for season 4 and created SpongeBob SquarePants shortly after that; Murray continued to manage the cartoon. Murray said that he would completely leave the production after season 4. Murray said that he encouraged

931-582: The Bigheads live on "Boogie Blvd." In early concept sketches, Murray indicated that Rocko bears a strong crush on a character named "Melba Toast". Rocko expresses this trait in Season One, bearing a crush on the unseen character until he discovers that Melba has a serious boyfriend named Dave in "Love Spanked". Melba has only been mentioned once since. In subsequent episodes, Rocko bears crushes for other characters. In "S.W.A.K.", Rocko has been vying for

980-622: The Hedgehog , Bobby's World , and The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat , while working as a freelancer at Drew Takahashi's now-defunct Colossal Pictures studio. In 1988, he did two network IDs for MTV , and left in 1991 in hopes of starting his own projects. One of the MTV ID's Murray created involved the future Rocko's Modern Life character Heffer Wolfe ; the ID featured Heffer being pushed out of

1029-466: The ID spot depicts Heffer as flying out of a television with the MTV logo branded on his buttocks . Heffer's design was altered to be more anthropomorphic for Rocko's Modern Life . Murray originally wrote "A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic" as the pilot episode; the executives decided that Heffer would be "a little too weird for test audiences". Murray, instead of removing Heffer from "A Sucker for

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1078-522: The Moon to Dinner? (1999), The Enormous Mister Schmupsle: An ABC Adventure (2003), Hugville (written by Court Crandall) (2005), and Funny Cryptograms (written by Shawn Kennedy). Murray was working on a web-based cartoon named The Family Pop , which was produced in Flash and was in the middle of negotiations for this cartoon just prior to the onset of Camp Lazlo . On September 30, 2008, Murray added

1127-475: The Suck-O-Matic", decided to write "Trash-O-Madness", an episode without Heffer, as the pilot episode. Originally, Murray did not include any information about Heffer's origins in his pitch to Nickelodeon. Vince Calandra wrote Heffer's origin plotline in season 1. Murray auditioned Tom Kenny in a large casting call in Los Angeles and chose him as the voice actor for Heffer. Kenny based Heffer's voice on

1176-605: The TV film Camp Lazlo: Where's Lazlo? . Born and raised in San Jose, California , Joe Murray said that he developed an interest in working as an artist as a career when he was three years old, but his father didn't approve. According to Murray, his kindergarten teacher told his mother that he was the only student who drew zippers on pants and breasts on women. Murray credits his Leland High School art teacher Mark Briggs for teaching him "so much about my art." At age 16, he became

1225-498: The TV movie Where's Lazlo? won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program (For an Hour or More) . During the production of Camp Lazlo , Murray underwent a divorce. Once production finished for Camp Lazlo , and the final episodes were delivered, Murray developed a new television series. While he is working out details about production and distribution, he has started work on his next independent film project, Fish Head , and publishing Creating Animated Cartoons with Character ,

1274-453: The attention from the pretty kangaroo mail-lady that comes to his door every day; he writes her a love note that he is too scared to send so Heffer does it for him instead. Rocko fails to retrieve the letter and gets the impression that the mail-lady would rather go out with Heffer. This turns out to be a joke on the mail-lady's part and she actually returns Rocko's feelings. In " Wallaby on Wheels ", Rocko learns to roller skate to impress Sheila,

1323-479: The character "Rocko Rama". The writers considered the family name "Stretchbrain" because the character's brain popped out of his head during "odd moments." The writers scrapped the idea, leaving the character mononymous . Some websites, including Hot Topic , give him the family name "Wallabee" and the middle name "James". In the first two issues of Marvel Comics Rocko's Modern Life series, he's addressed as "Mr. Rocko." In an early character profile presented to

1372-560: The color, so Murray changed the color to beige and disliked the choice. On his website Murray said, "He was always yellow to me." Murray said that the company later backed out of the commitment and did not create the plush series. Murray auditioned Alazraqui in San Francisco , and chose him as the voice actor for Rocko. Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, a storyboard writer, describes Alazraqui's voice for Rocko as "not really an accurate Australian accent " [ sic ]; according to Marsh

1421-443: The comic book in the late 1980s, but was never successful of getting it in production. Murray wanted funding for My Dog Zero , so he wanted Nickelodeon to pre-buy television rights for the series. Murray presented a pencil test to Nickelodeon Studios , which afterwards became interested in buying and airing the show. After deciding that My Dog Zero would not work as a television series, Murray combed through his sketchbooks, developed

1470-647: The console version of Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots , an actor in Microsoft 's Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker , and Rocko and Heffer make a cameo appearance on one of the loading screens in Nicktoons MLB . Rocko and Heffer are playable characters in the web browser game Super Brawl Universe , and are both playable racers in Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix . Rocko also appears as

1519-533: The design as " Tombstone -shaped". Heffer was raised by wolves in O-Town who fattened him up to eat him. Eventually the wolves grew to love Heffer, so they instead raised him to adulthood. Despite their obvious differences, Heffer has no knowledge of his adoption until Rocko accidentally revealed the truth when the Wolfe family invited him for dinner. The mark which Heffer believed to be a " birthmark " on his buttocks

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1568-460: The event were revealed via a CGI trailer a week before the event's launch. Joe Murray (animator) Joseph David Murray (born May 3, 1961) is an American animator , cartoonist , illustrator, writer, producer, and director. He is best known as the creator of Nickelodeon 's Rocko's Modern Life , Cartoon Network 's Camp Lazlo , and PBS Kids ' Let's Go Luna! . Murray is the winner of two Primetime Emmy Awards for Camp Lazlo and

1617-473: The everyman who's affected by the dramatic personalities around him." Murray wanted to get his comic into syndication. Afterwards Murray made substantial changes to Rocko. Murray added that the personality of a wallaby mirrored Rocko's humbleness and his tendency to keep his frustrations to himself instead of publicly complaining about them. In the original pilot for Rocko's Modern Life , the animators colored Rocko yellow instead of light beige. One month before

1666-540: The film. According to Murray, when he finished the film, several distributors refused to air it. He appeared at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco with a copy of the film and persuaded the staff to air the film with the scheduled films. According to Murray, My Dog Zero received "good response". To fund the film, Murray initially tried to pre-sell the television show rights to My Dog Zero but instead created

1715-518: The first episode was submitted to the animation studio in South Korea , Murray changed the color when a toy company wishing to make Rocko plushes refused to license the character after citing that Rocko looked too similar to a yellow character used in one of the company's existing products. Murray fought the changes with the Nickelodeon executives; in the end the executives insisted on changing

1764-546: The interesting aspects of character creation is the evolution of the personalities over time. In a one-time movie, the characters will have a static personality, but for a television series, the characters will change from season to season, developing new relationships, and even changing from mere background characters into a main character. Heffer Wolfe Heffer Steer-Wolfe is a fictional character in Nickelodeon 's animated television series Rocko's Modern Life ,

1813-433: The network to continue production. Nickelodeon decided to cancel the series. Murray described all 52 episodes as "top notch" and that, in his view, the quality of a television show may decline as production continues "when you are dealing with volume". After completing 52 episodes of Rocko's Modern Life , Murray took a break from the animation business and produced two children's books and illustrated two others: Who Asked

1862-669: The networks, Murray described Rocko as "a young anthropomorphic Woody Allen , who has just moved away from his home into a surrealistic adult world." Raised in Australia, Rocko later emigrated to the fictional city of O-Town after he graduated high school . Murray suggests that Rocko's interest in the United States began with a vacation with his family as a youth; during the trip he met his friend Filburt . Murray allowed for directors to create inconsistencies, reflecting how friends possess different and varied, nostalgic memories of

1911-399: The overseas animators. Murray said that as he and the directors continued to "quickdraw" the character changes to the design "naturally" lessened the "victim, paranoid" aspect and gave the character a "happy personality." According to George Maestri , Rocko has no family name because the writers were never able to come up with a family name that they liked. In a concept sketch, Murray named

1960-466: The past. For instance, in the episode "Put to Pasture" the writers portray Rocko, Filburt and Heffer Wolfe as students at O-Town High School. Murray received many pieces of fan mail regarding the storyline inconsistencies. In "Trash-O-Madness", a family photograph depicts Rocko with a mother, father, and a younger sibling. "Wimp On the Barby" shows Rocko's family again, revealing that his younger sibling

2009-482: The positive qualities within them. Throughout the television series, Rocko enjoys collecting comics and works as a cashier at a local comic book shop called Kind of a Lot O' Comics, which is owned by Mr. Smitty and sells mostly Really Really Big Man comics until he is currently unemployed in Static Cling . Rocko worked at Mega Lot-o Comics owned by chairman of Conglom-O , Mr. Dupette , Ed Bighead's boss. In

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2058-444: The production of season 1 of Rocko's Modern Life , Murray's first wife, Diane, committed suicide. Murray had blamed the show being taken as the reason for his wife's suicide. Murray felt that he had emotional and physical "unresolved issues" when he moved to Los Angeles. He describes the experience as like participating in "marathon with my pants around my ankles". Murray initially believed that he would create one season, move back to

2107-464: The seat belts do not extend enough for him to wear them comfortably. Also he seems to be a hopeless romantic at times as mentioned in " Sugar Frosted Frights ", where he asks Filburt's shell while in an eight-ball mode if he will ever find true love. Heffer holds several jobs: tree farmer, greenskeeper at a golf course, mail carrier, security guard, waiter at a café, and cashier. Despite his size, he can be unexpectedly nimble at times, most notably when he

2156-492: The team used the voice as Alazraqui used the voice for the pilot . Rocko's design changed as his character evolved. Murray said that the version placed in the Rocko's Modern Life proposal was "much looser, and closer to my independent film style. As the series progressed, he adjusted Rocko's design from episode to episode to be more "volume friendly" and "animator friendly". According to Murray, when he created independent films and

2205-455: The television show, his other jobs include tattoo artist, plumber's assistant, phone operator, a product tester at Conglom-O, a tow truck driver, an underwear model and a cartoonist for the program Wacky Delly . In the official comic book, Rocko works as a comic book dealer in Issue #7's "Conned Again", working for "Humongo Con". Rocko's best friends are Heffer Wolfe , a steer who eats a lot and

2254-668: The time Murray expressed interest in developing new series for Nickelodeon Europe . In 2023, Murray completed work on his independent film, now entitled Fiego and the Magic Fish . A reimagining of the fairy tale " The Fisherman and His Wife ", the short was produced by his Garden Box Studio in Belgium and received a Cannes Film Festival award for Best Direction for an Animated Film in 2024. On his personal website, Murray describes his character creation process as "sometimes like playing Frankenstein ". Murray explains that one of

2303-409: The voice of a nephew of his. Kenny said that the voice was "[n]ot dead on, but some of his quirks I incorporated into the Heffer audition". Jeff "Swampy" Marsh , a storyboard writer, says that Heffer's right eye and left nostril are "notched at the bottom" due to Murray's design style. Marsh added that the animators found keeping the sides straight "a little tricky at first" and that they referred to

2352-462: Was adopted and raised by a family of wolves, and Filburt , a bespectacled turtle with neurotic Woody Allen -esque mannerisms, who often feels nauseated. Rocko's neighbors are Ed, with whom he has a semi-rivalry, and Bev Bighead . Bev considers Rocko a very sweet neighbor. He and his dog Spunky, who often eats the neighbors' salmon bushes, are a source of constant annoyance to Ed. In the episode Skid Marks , Rocko's drivers license reveals that Rocko and

2401-556: Was made in 1987, which was a two-minute animated short titled "The Chore," which focused on a harried husband who uses his cat as a novel solution while not wanting to do a chore for his wife. He drew the scenes on typing paper and shot the scenes with 16 mm film. For creating "The Chore" Murray earned the Merit Student Academy Award two years later in 1989. In the early 1990s, he did the storyboards and layouts on A Pup Named Scooby-Doo , Adventures of Sonic

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