Commuted Sentence is episode 18b of Rocko's Modern Life. In this episode Rocko's car gets impounded (thanks to Heffer) and he has to rely on public transportation to get to and from work.
Plot
Ferb McGib, an eagle journalist, is seen through the news flying a helicopter explaining the traffic on the freeway. After the news, Rocko is then seen in his car in the traffic still impatient and trying to get to work on time. When he asks the police beaver the cause of the traffic, the police beaver tells him that one of the street lines came off and the construction workers are trying to re-glue is back on the asphalt. Later on, Rocko is revealed to have finally made it through the traffic, but faces a new problem: the parking spaces are all occupied, making it more difficult for him to get to work on time. When he finally finds an empty parking spot, a driver parks there, and the driver is revealed to be Mr. Smitty, who lives next door to the Kind of a Lot-O-Comics. He compels Rocko to drive five blocks away in the high-crime area, which is in poor condition, much to Rocko's misfortune. Rocko quickly goes to the comic store and ends up a minute late. Mr. Smitty orders Rocko into his office and tells him that time is money.
The next day, Rocko is seen driving his car to work and comes across a "Don't even think about parking here" sign, where he unwillingly gets a ticket for it. He again shows up to work a minute late. The next day, Rocko finally finds a perfect parking spot and leaves to work. Heffer then shows up walking through the street and drops his ketchup onto the edge of the sidewalk. He ends up smearing the ketchup against the edge with his sandwich and walks away. A tow truck, thinking that Rocko's car is parked on the red line, tows the car away. Later, at Kind of a Lot-O-Comics, Rocko gets a call form his car, who is impounded, prompting to Rocko to go to the car lot to bail his car out. But he has to pay $4700 to bail him out and he doesn't have enough. Rocko is back at his house telling Heffer the bad news and states that in order to get to work, he has to relegate himself to public transportation.
The next day, Rocko takes a taxi cab, but only has two dollars. So he is sent back to his house and now has to take a bus, where he gets drooled on by a passenger sitting adjacent to him. He ends up late for work again. The next day, he takes a subway, which stops and goes a delay due to "police activity" (where the police do arts and crafts right in front of the train). Rocko ends up late for work yet again.
The next day, Rocko finally rides his bicycle, but ends up getting attacked by Earl and falls into the water. When he walks to work, Rocko tries to explain the situation to Mr. Smitty, but the boss ignores his excuse and tells him that the next time he is late, his job will be terminated. Rocko is later seen at his house telling Heffer about this and says that "Sometimes, I think it would be a lot safer to get shot out of a cannon," prompting Heffer to get the idea. The next day, he gets a cannon and shoot Rocko out of it. But the wallaby only ends up at Semper Pointus instead. When Rocko looks at his watch, he finds that it is only one minute until nine o'clock and that he still has time to make it to work. Unfortunately, by the time he does make it, Mr. Smitty fires him anyway.
Rocko is seen sitting against the curb of the sidewalk moping because he doesn't have a job and can't afford to bail his car out. But his disappointment soon dissipates when he is offered a job at the tow truck company and tows Mr. Smitty's car, which is parking in a "No Parking" zone. Rocko makes enough money to bail his car out of the impound lot and rides away with it. The eagle reporter is now back on the helicopter after his helicopter crash earlier in the episode reporting that there is nobody on the road due to their cars getting impounded, including Mr. Smitty's.
Characters
- Rocko
- Mr. Smitty
- Heffer
- Rita
- Taxi driver
- Earl
- The Newscaster
Trivia
- One of the equations on Mr. Smitty's projection is the square route of MC Hammer.
Errors
- During the beginning of the episode, the on-screen graphic for the news program moves along with the helicopter.
- When Rocko takes the subway, all of the other passengers are lizard-like characters. Inside the subway train, the other passengers are all various animals and the lizard-like passengers don't appear inside the train at all.
- The police beaver multiplies 5 to 42 and gets 4,7000. This is incorrect, as 5 times 42 is actually 210.