Carnival Knowledge is the first segment of the ninth episode in the first season of Rocko's Modern Life.
Summary
Heffer and Rocko attend a carnival full of hazardous rides and dodgy carnival games.
Plot
An animal riding on a roller coaster prolongs the scream right before the next scene shows a kid crying over his spilled ice cream. Rocko and Heffer arrive and come across a carnival. The owner of the carnival, Slippy the Slug, offers them food, rides, and games for thirty dollars. They think of which ride they should get on and choose the Mug-O-Whirl, only to find that it has already started. Heffer suggests that the two should try the Elevator to Hell. But later changes his mind when he finds that it costs another thirty dollars. The two ride on the merry-go-round, where the operator (Slippy the Slug) of the ride alters it at high speed, sending Rocko and Heffer flying off instantly. Rocko gets up, barely conscious, and Heffer offers him a hot dog, causing the wallaby to puke after taking a whiff of it. Next, Rocko tries Slippy's Games-O-Chance, a crane game machine in which the crane claw takes Rocko's watch, as well as Heffer's underpants. The two then get on the Ferris wheel, where they are stopped at the top. Subsequently, the ride operator (Slippy the Slug again) brings them down and stops them halfway, leaving them dangling, which causes their money to fall out of their pockets. Later, Rocko tries another game in knocking the stack of bottles with a ball. He fails at every try (which also prompts him to spend more money) and at his sixth try, he is seething in anger and heaves the ball to the bottles, blowing up the whole shack. Unfortunately, he has not hit a single bottle, much to his disappointment. He and Heffer then ride the Saw Mill, a water ride, in which they come across sharks and a running saw blade, which narrowly misses them and, instead, slices the log they ride on in half. After the ride, Rocko plays the Frog Flip, in which the player has to use a mallet to slam onto the plank with the frog on the other end and make sure it lands onto their lily pad in the pool behind. During Rocko's turn, a frog taunts him and the wallaby slams on the end of the plank (with a wrecking ball), sending the frog flying high in the sky. The two then get on the Bumper Cars, where Rocko unwillingly gets on a gimp bumper car and is crashed by the other bumper car riders. Rocko has finally had it and decides that he and Heffer should leave. But not before Heffer convinces him to stay so that they could ride the Nose Bleed, a precarious roller coaster. Unfortunately, for Rocko, he isn't tall enough, but Heffer augments his height and the two ride on the roller coaster, which sends them to outer space, and they later crash down the ground. Rocko decides to leave, but not before the crane machine takes his money. Suddenly, the frog that taunted Rocko earlier in the Frog Flip game lands perfectly on the lily pad in the pool, winning Rocko a Chinese finger puzzle. As they leave, Heffer says that he thought the rides were rigid and Rocko adds that not everyone is around to rip you off. After the episode ends (with Rocko breaking his Chinese finger puzzle off-screen), the frog attempts to open up the iris end, which closes on his head.
Characters Present
Trivia
- This is the only episode in which Hell is explicitly mentioned, in a carnival ride called Elevator to Hell. In later episodes, it is referred to as Heck due to standards and practices in the 1990's. Satan also appears in this episode (though not referred to by name) instead of Peaches being there.
- This was the first episode of the series to be produced, despite No Pain, No Gain being the first one to air.
- Innuendo: The episode's title is a pun on the phrase "carnal knowledge," an antiquated term for sexual intercourse.
- Innuendo: When Rocko and Heffer ride the merry-go-round, Slippy the Slug reads Playslug, which is a reference to the adult magazine, Playboy.