Wallaby Wednesday: Is cheese really funnier than bananas?

The Rocko’s Modern Life creator and network higher-ups disagreed as to whether cheese or bananas are funnier. Ultimately, one product got more scenes in the series while the other got the last big scene. But did quality eclipse quantity?

One year after Rocko’s Modern Life ended, Joe Murray publicly proved himself anything but a control freak.

In a September 1997 chat with Lisa Kiczuk Trainor, the series creator fielded the closing question from a first-season episode.

“Which is funnier: Bananas or cheese?”

When Heffer poses this query in “The Good, the Bad and the Wallaby,” Rocko does not hesistate. “Cheese, Hef. Definitely cheese,” he replies, and leaves it at that.

As it happens, Rocko’s brain parent, who in other interviews has said he “was Rocko,” respectfully disagrees. As Murray told Trainor, “I think cheese smells funny, but I feel bananas ‘are’ funny.”

He went on to explain that network higher-ups felt otherwise, thus explaining Rocko’s verdict. As Trainor noted, Rocko writer and director Jeff “Swampy” Marsh had corroborated that anecdote.

Given the closing dialogue to “The Good, the Bad and the Wallaby,” the showrunners acquiesced. But in subtle ways, they kept the debate open for the remaining three-plus seasons. Bananas and cheese alike make fleeting and prominent appearances in other storylines, letting viewers decide for themselves.

Incidentally, cheese comes up more frequently, not even counting its presence on pizza and elsewhere. As a standalone product, it gains an advantage from a higher volume of publicity. Nonetheless, the underdog fruit gets a few chances to demonstrate its own amusing appeal (pun intended).

There is a sequence in one episode where bananas or cheese would make equal sense (i.e. comically little). But the latter gets in while the former sits out, and the delivery of one line justifies the choice.

Indeed, the monosyllabic word is easier to say in a funny manner. When Rocko, Heffer and Filburt try using cheese as fish bait, a giant squid interrupts them. The cephalopod’s booming, elongated, but fairly polite delivery of his request for the fromage lands smoothly.

 

Afterward, as a third resort, the troika tries fishing with hot dogs. There are no bananas on board the boat. Although, if it is any consolation, they could have worked just as well as the wienies in the post-cheese scene.

Regardless, had the squid asked for “some banana-ahs” rather than “some chee-eese,” the gag would have squandered a few points. The preceding “Hut Sut Raw” episode demonstrates as much.

In that segment, the three friends’ attempt at camping demonstrates the lower humor ceiling for asking for a banana. When Filburt spots a wild gorilla carrying the fruit in question, he pushes for a share in the wealth.

But in this case, the humor comes from his exponential hanger and his request’s rapid rise to a confrontation. The visual aftermath punctuates Filburt’s ill-advised decision, which relates less to food than to a brute-strength mismatch.

And one could argue it would have been even funnier if he had suffered similar injuries from mice over cheese. That scenario could have been similar to the episode’s actual later instance of shrews biting the turtle over steaks.

Back in the confines of civilization, Filburt has a less painful setback that strengthens the case for cheese. While co-creating the title program in “Wacky Delly,” he proposes a character who is anything but wacky. He renders a realistic drawing of a block of cheese and christens it with the dignified-sounding moniker Lester Roquefort.

That over-the-top, out-of-place attempt at classiness is funny in its own right. But for the new cartoon’s sake, Heffer seizes Filburt’s concept and makes it look less dimensional. Moreover, he lends the character goofy-looking facial features and insists on naming him Mr. Cheese.

From the glimpses of the show within the show, Mr. Cheese teeters between sympathetic and pathetic. He is a dairy product on a show that is supposed to be about deli meats. He is destroyed in an unexplained explosion and later chewed to pieces by Heffer’s Sal Ami.

But he also thinks highly enough of himself to claim, “I am the best character on the show. I am better than both the salami and the bologna combined.”

 

That repeated statement in Wacky Delly’s slipshod pilot precedes the aforementioned explosion and two-way journey through Sal Ami’s mouth. Beyond that, Rocko’s Modern Life does not present much in the way of anthropomorphic cheese.

The only other instance of that comes briefly in Season 4’s “Driving Mrs. Wolfe.” For one apparent throwaway gag, a cheese crossing gives a troupe of Lester Roquefort lookalikes the right of way.

Later in that final season, however, Filburt centers and recounts a storyline featuring humanized bananas. In the flashback portion of “Future Schlock,” he takes one off the sidewalk and places it in Rocko’s refrigerator.

Because Rocko, Heffer and Spunky have accidentally gone to space, the banana goes unnoticed for 17 years. None other than two of Filburt’s children discover it in the renamed refrigerizer of Rocko’s abandoned dwelling.

As with the gorilla incident, the flashback does not draw much humor, if any, from the banana itself. But when Filburt’s friends abruptly return, we learn that the cold, shriveled banana is a democratic leader amongst her species. By all accounts, she and her subjects practice selective sentience not unlike the characters in Toy Story.

Adding to the absurdity, the monkey Rocko, Heffer and Spunky had freed from Mr. Bighead’s captivity and followed into space is a banana ally. That explains why he did not want to eat the one (i.e. the queen) Heffer had offered.

Regardless, he and his fruit friends get the last word and give the aged Ed his overdue comeuppance. By doing so with a no-nonsense delivery, they theoretically cannot gain much ground on cheese in this amusement derby.

On the other hand, they generate a ludicrous visual with that very seriousness. They gain the comically overloaded dignity that Filburt’s Lester Roquefort and even the cheese-crossing cheese miss.

The bananas also get the last word in this debate, as “Future Schlock” is Rocko’s de facto series finale. But is it enough to put them over the top and clinch the bragging rights?

Did bananas even get a fair shake in this informal competition?

You decide.