Yarnbenders is episode 4b of Season 4 of Rocko's Modern Life. When Filburt gets sick, Rocko & Heffer heal him with a mash up of stories about Hansel & Debbie.
Plot[]
During a sunny day, Filburt arrives at Rocko's house to invite Rocko and Heffer to play baseball. Rocko goes back inside to get his glove and while Filburt practices on his swing, he gets stuck on his back. Soon, rain begins to pour and Filburt winds up catching a cold. Rocko takes him back inside the house and Filburt tells his friends that his mother used to read to him when he was sick. So Rocko reads The Really Really Big Book of Fairy Tales and begins with "Goldilocks and Three Bears". But he then picks another story when Filburt tells him that porridge makes him nauseous and comes across the story "Hansel and Gretel" (or, as Heffer prefers, Debbie).
In the story, Hansel (Heffer) and Debbie (Rocko) skip through the woods after attending the circus when they come across a sign that tells the two a shortcut to their house. So they skip through the forest, oblivious to the wicked witch (Filburt) behind them. Meanwhile, Hansel and Debbie discover that they are lost and the trail of breath mints have been swallowed by the birds. They come across a house made of healthy snacks, e.g. celery, a carrot, strawberries, kiwi slices, and Triscuit crackers. But Heffer interrupts the story and says that the house should be made of pizza instead.
As Rocko and Heffer argue over whether healthy snacks or pizza should be what the house is made of, Filburt decides to have the house be made of fish sticks.
Back to the story, Hansel and Debbie attempt to enter the fish stick house and encounter the witch, who invites them inside. The two children are locked inside a cage and the witch feeds them as they are about to be cooked into the pot. Debbie notices a can of Magic Beans on the shelf and Hansel grabs them and attempts to devour them. But Debbie snatches them from Hansel's hand and shows him that they are magic by throwing them on the floor. A beanstalk then sprouts and the two children, still in their cage, are carried away by the stock. As they end up in the sky, the giant grandma (also portrayed by Filburt) carries them with her and sharpens her teeth to get ready to eat the two children. Debbie pulls out a key in her hair and the two children free themselves out of the cage. The giant grandma chases them into the kitchen and corners them. When Hansel shouts out "porridge," the giant grandma becomes nauseous and the children tie her shoelaces together. When they make a run for it, the giant grandma trips over at an attempt to chase after them. Hansel and Debbie jump out of the house in the sky and scream as they fall down.
The next scene then shows Heffer prolonging his scream, which is cut short after an annoyed Rocko shouts out "SHUT UP!"
Back to the story, the two children end up on the ground and come across the witch once again. They run away and take the elevator to wherever they end up at, only for the witch to arbitrarily appear in their presence. When they take the elevator, Rocko presses the “Cinderella“ button and the evaluator takes Rocko, and Heffer to Cinderella's story, they encounter a fairy (also portrayed by Filburt), who turns Rocko into a prince and Heffer into a princess, calling himself CinderHeffer. The fairy also offers the two a coach and they ride away, only to end up back in the woods, where they once again encounter the witch. The witch offers them a blue apple, which CinderHeffer instantly bites off of, a bubbly beverage, which CinderHeffer drinks the whole glass of. When the witch offers a glowing breath mint, CinderHeffer places it on his tongue and turns into a wooden puppet. Rocko and the other animals sadly circle around the puppet, and the witch sneaks back to the broom, attempting to escape, only to get subsequently crushed by numerous of ponderous objects. When Rocko notices the witch's glass slippers sticking out, he takes them and puts it on the feet of CinderHeffer, bring him back to life. The prince and CinderHeffer get married and lived happily ever after.
As Rocko finishes the story, Filburt is now feeling much better and runs out of Rocko’s house. Rocko and Heffer then sneeze and realize that they had caught Filburt's cold. They’re then seen lying in bed sick.
Characters Featured[]
- Rocko/Debbie/Prince Charming
- Heffer/Hansel/CinderHeffer/Pinno-cow-o
- Filburt/The Witch/Granny Giant/Fairy Godmother
Trivia[]
- This episode (along with other episodes for different Nickelodeon shows) was not shown in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Nickelodeon temporarily banning any cartoon that featured characters getting sick (though season one's "Flu-In-U-Enza" wasn't barred from airing). As of February 2021, this episode (and the previous short, "Wimp on the Barby", which was banned because it was attached to "Yarnbenders") is back on the NickRewind block.
- The birds who ate the breath mints do a takeoff on Stan Freberg's soap opera parody, "John...Marsha..."
- Filburt: "Wait!!! I was gonna make Espresso!" This is a most obvious reference to Gene Hackman as Harold the Blind Hermit in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974). Hackman ad-libbed that line, incidentally.
- When Filburt is seen in the role of the witch, he is wearing his normal shoes colored black. But after his fishstick house, a shoe house, and a giant fall on Filburt, he suddenly has glass high-heel shoes and striped socks on, referencing both The Wizard of Oz and Cinderella.
- In the end of "Speaking Terms", Rocko and Heffer agreed to each other to neverfight again, yet in this episode, at one point, they fight over of what the house should be made of, even though this argument was stopped by Filburt. It's possible though that they have either forgot or this episode takes place before that episode.
- When Heffer is transformed into a princess, he says, "I feel pretty", a reference to the song from West Side Story.
- The following fairy tales/fantasy stories are parodied, in order:
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- Hansel and
GretelDebbie - Jack and the Beanstalk (Heffer as Hansel eats beans which are found to be magic, leading to a giant beanstalk growing.)
- Little Red Riding Hood (at one point, Heffer, as Hansel, comments on the size of Filburt's, as the Granny Giant's teeth)
- Cinderella (Filburt, as the fairy godmother makes a potato and a rat grow so Rocko as Prince Charming and Heffer as Cinderella can ride to get to the royal ball, Heffer as Cinderella wears the witch's glass slippers and they make him come back to life.)
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Filburt as the witch gives Cinderheffer a blue apple, a poisonous beverage, and a magic mint.)
- Pinocchio (Filburt, as the witch, turns Heffer, as CinderHeffer, into a wooden puppet, and when he's brought back to life, he says he's "a real boy")
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Filburt, as the witch, gets crushed by a falling house, and Rocko, as Prince Charming, uses the witch's shoes to revive Heffer)
Quotes[]
- Heffer: (absentmindedly flipping through channels) Uh-huh. Right.
- Filburt: My retinas are melting.
- Rocko: "Once upon a time..."
- Heffer: Yawn.
- Rocko: "...there were three bears who..."
- Filburt: Wait! Is this the one with the porridge thing?
- Rocko: Well, yes.
- Filburt: Oh, I was afraid of that. Porridge makes me nauseous. I'm nauseous. I'm nauseous. I'm nauseous.
- Rocko (as Debbie): Oh, look! A cottage made entirely of healthy snacks.
- Heffer (as Hansel): Healthy snacks? What fun is that? The house is made of pizza!
- Rocko (as Debbie): No, it's not! It's made of healthy snacks!
- Heffer (as Hansel): Pizza!
- Rocko (as Debbie): Healthy snacks!
- Heffer (as Hansel): Pizza!
- Rocko (as Debbie): Healthy snacks!
- Heffer: Pizza!
- Rocko: Healthy snacks!
- Heffer: Pizza!
- Filburt: Hey! You're both wrong! The house is made of fishsticks!
- (The house transforms into a fishsticks house accompanied by a foghorn sound.)
- Heffer (as Hansel): Imagine that. A fishstick house.
- Filburt (as the Witch): Welcome, you lost children. Come in and eat my house. I got plenty of tartar sauce.
- Filburt (as the Witch): (to the audience) Now, remember, I'm the witch!
- Filburt (as the Witch): Wait! I was gonna make an espresso!
- Filburt (as Granny Giant): Fe fi fo fum! Somethin' stinks!
- Heffer (as Hansel): Hey, Grandma, those are some mighty big teeth you have.
- Filburt (as Granny Giant's teeth): All the better to chew up my nutritional daily requirement of children like you.
- Heffer (as Hansel): How come everyone wants to eat us?
- Filburt (as Granny Giant): I'll grind your bones to make my—
- Heffer (as Hansel): Porridge!
- Filburt (as Granny Giant): Porridge? I'm nauseous... I'm nauseous... I'm nauseous... I'm nauseous... etc.
- Heffer: (flapping his arms and screaming)
- Rocko: SHUT UP!!