August 9th, 2019 
Jackson Murphy 
Nearly 23 years after its final episode, the gang from Rocko’s Modern Life is back in a brand new special, Static Cling, premiering this Friday, August 9th on Netflix. Show creator Joe Murray also returns to bring us an updated installment.
Static Cling sees wallaby Rocko, steer Heffer and turtle Filbert travel from outer space back down to Earth after two decades. They arrive in O-Town to a “modern” era of cell phone obsessions and Starbucks and food trucks on every corner. Rocko hopes to watch re-runs of his all-time favorite TV show, “The Fatheads”. But according to frog neighbor Mrs. Bighead, “The Fatheads” episodes have been off the air for years.
Meantime, Mr. Bighead has forced O-Town into a financial crisis. So Rocko thinks that the only way to save the town is by having “Fatheads” show creator Ralph revive the show. Murray and his team have a lot of fun with the “TV reboot about making a TV reboot” references throughout Static Cling – just don’t call it that.
“I don’t like the word reboot,” Murray told me. “I don’t look at this really as a reboot. I think it’s more of a continuation of the original – of what we did.”
At a recent Static Cling post-screening Q&A I attended, Murray told moderator Jerry Beck that returning to “Rocko” was “the farthest thing from my mind.” But he got a call from Nickelodeon a few years ago. “When I was first approached about it, it felt like, well – we had done it. It was well-received. I was proud of all the 65 episodes that we did. And I was like, ‘Why mess with that?'”
But Murray then thought about a concept. He reached out to Martin Olsen and Doug Lawrence to join him. They pitched the idea to Nick – and off they went. “I felt like we had more to say. We had a lot to say about the new millennium and fandom and the fact that networks are asking for 20-year-old properties to come back and make new episodes. And I felt like I wanted to say something about that. So I felt like it was something worth doing.”
Bringing back much of the original crew meant a memorable recording day, but according to Murray, it was a “weird” and “strange” one because of the large amount of media coverage. Still, it was a great experience for Murray to oversee these characters again. “All the animation is done in pencil,” he said. “We tried really hard to make it look like the old show.”
And while it does, the situations Rocko and pals are faced with aren’t straight out of 1995. There are some big, contemporary surprises in Static Cling that go with one of the special’s core themes: change. One of them involves the character of Ralph (who Murray voices), which won’t be spoiled in this piece.
“We had talked about change in general, and things that have changed,” Murray told me. “It was Doug and Martin and I sitting in a room when it came up, and we looked at each other and went, ‘That’s perfect.’ And immediately I said, ‘Now I have to take this to Nickelodeon and talk them into it.'”
“We were on pins and needles wondering ‘Is this gonna work? Is it not? Are they gonna let us do it, because it’s really important to me that we do this.'” Nick signed off on it, and so far the reception has been strong, including at that screening. “It was good watching it with an audience like that,” Murray said.
“Rocko” aired on Nickelodeon in the ’90s, but Static Cling is debuting on streaming giant Netflix, which Murray sees as a better home. “I’m really happy that Netflix is enthusiastic about it,” he said. “They’re still enthusiastic about it and their support has been great. The audience that’s watching broadcast Nickelodeon right now may not be totally there for this special. I think there was a question about whether we could really reach the people who would want to watch this, and that was the idea of bringing Netflix in and seeing if they would be willing to do this. I think it’s gonna hit a much bigger audience.”
As for whether Static Cling will usher-in more specials or even a new season of “Rocko”, Murray thinks it’s up to the viewership. And he isn’t exactly sure yet about the next chapter for these characters. “They’ll tell me where they wanna go. That’s really usually the way they work. I think there’s a lot of different directions we could go with these guys, and they would work really well. I think the new millennium is right for this. I’d be totally open.”
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