Wallaby Wednesday: Quinn Kitmitto passed good judgment on Mr. Lawrence

Quinn Kitmitto catches up with former fellow Rocko's Modern Life staples. From left to right: Writer Martin Olson, actors Charlie Adler, Carlos Alazraqui, Tom Kenny and Kitmitto.

The pineapples might as well represent the memories and the friendships that fostered them. So far in Quinn Kitmitto’s post-Nickelodeon phase, they have lasted a lifetime.

They have stuck to her web wall for all of the world to see, and therefore associate with her career. One of them is among the last things she sees before retiring for the night. In turn, it is among the first sights to greet her in the morning.

The pineapple’s presence in her 21st century life rivals that in Rocko’s Modern Life. It is not a foremost or flashy theme, but it is memorable and catchy.

In the show’s first season, for which Kitmitto was a production assistant, the mere metaphor of a spiky tropical fruit gave blue floor tiles an eye-starring appeal to a driving instructor at the O-Town DMV. With that association, they contrasted favorably with the avoid-at-all-cost “hot lava” on the white tiles.

By Season 3, Kitmitto’s second and final credited as a production coordinator, slices of pineapple were lending live-action meatloaf “a festive touch” in “Wacky Delly.”

In between, a barrage of full fruits closed the final Fatheads scene within “I Have No Son!” That two-part segment kicked off the second season, one where Kitmitto pulled momentous double duty on Rocko.

Roughly a quarter-century later, the front page of Kitmitto’s website lists dozens of the advertisers, entertainment giants and individual programs she has bequeathed her voice talent to. Of all the name drops, she saves her breakthrough role on the “Nickelodeon 90’s classic ‘Rocko’s Modern Life’” for last.

Scroll down a tad, and Rocko clips constitute the first of her three demo uploads. Scroll down further, and you will find the pet psychologist from Season 1’s “Clean Lovin’” and his monokini-clad fans in the center of an image gallery.

Behind all of that sits white wallpaper peppered with pineapples that appear to be raining.

“Ugh, the website,” Kitmitto told Pucks and Recreation in a recent email exchange. “I paid a college kid $1,000 to do that. And when I found out WIX websites are free…I felt like ‘a big dummy head!’ to quote Filburt.”

Made a moderate motif by Rocko, then made famous as an undersea house by succeeding Nicktoon Spongebob Squarepants, the fruit has never fallen far from Kitmitto’s conscience. Beyond her online display, she has a golden pineapple-shaped lamp at home.

The voice behind Mary Jane/Iron Jane in 2016’s star-studded Marvel Avengers Academy video game and Jessi on Clay Kids admits she was not purposely thinking of her career launch pad while decorating. But she can never have enough happy reminders of it, no matter how subtle.

Mark O’Hare, Doug Lawrence, Derek Drymon, Quinn Kitmitto, Tom Yasumi, Jill Talley and Robert Porter

“The pineapple wallpaper was just so cute!” she said, now coming across as her breakout character. Of the connection to Rocko, she continued, “I guess so. Never even realized that, but now that you ask, probably! Subconsciously?

“I’ve always loved the whimsical design of the show.”

Kitmitto found sounds there to love as much as the sights, and in the process heavily influenced a key character. And all within two years of finishing college.

In the spring of 1991, the Los Angeles-area native was wrapping up her degree in history at UCLA, and admittedly had “no idea what I was going to do next.” To gain class credits, she turned to DIC Animation City, where she worked on a pair of one-year wonders. Wish Kid — starring Macaulay Culkin between his two Home Alone films — and Hammerman — hosted by and named after MC Hammer — graced NBC and ABC, respectively, in 1991-92.

A subsequent stint at Limelight — where she assisted the company’s founder, the prolific music-video director Steve Barron — parlayed Kitmitto to Nickelodeon. Through Mary Harrington, one of Rocko’s executive producers, she was enlisted opposite Jim Leber, now a longtime engineer at at the network, to furnish the studio.

“Jim and I ordered all the furniture, desks, tables, phones, office and art supplies,” she said. “He and I alone basically created the entire layout of the office space, before the artists were even hired.”

As her story goes, Kitmitto encouraged one of the program’s eventual voice artists to ease out of his shell. At an L.A. reunion panel in 2012, Doug Lawrence remembered hesitating to audition for Filburt. Despite standing in during preliminary reads, he feared risking his established writing, animating and directing roles.

Kitmitto described Mr. Lawrence’s Filburt as a “hilarious impersonation” of The Jerky Boys, a prank-phone-call comedy team discovered by Howard Stern. She approached series creator Joe Murray, who had heard several anonymous audition tapes before learning the turtle’s identity.

Lawrence, Murray told Lisa Trainor in 1997, “personally brought so much to that character. He is tremendously talented. We lucked out having him on the show.”

Filburt made a modest six appearances in Season 1, beginning with “Canned” on Sept. 19, 1993. Over that year, he gradually evolved from an anonymous stock character to a staple in the Rocko chronicles.

By Season 2, Lawrence’s versatile presence and inclination to return a favor boosted Kitmitto’s own multifaceted career. While being promoted in the production department, she effectively had her voice-touting gesture written into the series.

 

Before she started drawing regular Internet Movie Database acting credits (not all of which, she says, are accurate) circa 2013, Kitmitto broke that ice via “Kiss Me, I’m Foreign.” The second segment of the season’s seventh episode premiered Dec. 4, 1994.

Lawrence wrote the plot of Rocko facing deportation before Heffer claims he is engaged to Filburt. The turtle promptly plays along, getting in touch with his feminine side as “Ophelia.”

Presiding over the hasty courthouse wedding is a perky young judge who adores Ophelia’s voice. So much so that she phones the couple’s residence multiple times afterward for the sole purpose of hearing it again. That is until an already irritable Filburt admonishes her to “Quit calling here!” and gets a retaliatory receiver between the eyes.

Though not named during the episode itself, the judge is known as Quinn. Lawrence had created the character with Kitmitto in mind, and successfully reversed the roles in pitching her to Murray.

“Quinn the Judge was based on me,” Kitmitto said. “It was just my regular voice, and the inside joke was the inspiration that brought on the sassy ‘You’re mean!’”

Lawrence’s voiceover magnum opus at the time also uncharacteristically killed off a lesser known Kitmitto character. “Kiss Me I’m Foreign” opens and closes with a subplot on parasitic squirrels, two of whom claim Filburt as their host.

Filburt, along with several other turtles plus the judge and the immigration officer, resorts to a hygienic squirrel grenade. Kitmitto plays the female whose husband calls the pet name “Fuzzy Lips” before their episode-ending afterlife smooth.

Apart from another cameo as Earl’s fairy dogmother in “Frog’s Best Friend,” Kitmitto stuck with production for the balance of her Rocko tenure. Her working partnership with Lawrence, who later famously added Plankton on Spongebob to his repertoire, continued through a slew of short films. She was also prepared to play Tabitha — the protagonist’s love interest on the Lawrence-created, puppet-centered Lost on Earth — before the pilot was left to rot.

Late in Rocko’s production stretch, Kitmitto moved to New Jersey to start a family with her then-husband. Raising three children would ultimately keep her out of regular work for a decade and a half. Among other drawbacks, that meant missing out on Spongebob, which would have reunited her with Lawrence, titular performer Tom Kenny (aka Heffer) and the show’s late creator Steve Hillenberg.

“I think kids who grew up watching (Rocko) are going to go nuts over (Static Cling). I believe it’s going to be a huge hit!” - Quinn Kitmitto

Despite the lack of career encouragement from her ex-husband, Kitmitto has kept her foundational showbiz relationships strong. When Hillenberg died from ALS this past November, she joined a who’s who of Rocko alumni at memorials in December and March. Since returning to L.A. and reviving her IMDB portfolio, she has taken voice classes with Charlie Adler (the Bigheads) and frequented Kenny’s standup shows.

“All of those guys are my mentors,” she said in reference to Adler, Carlos Alazraqui (Rocko), Kenny and Lawrence. “I adore them all!”

As Kitmitto continues her career, the resonance of her breakout program transcends competing entertainment giants. She teased an upcoming Disney production in which she employs a “Bart Simpson/Filburt mashup voice.”

Meanwhile, the past is finally coming back from space this summer. Netflix has picked up the long-homeless Rocko reboot movie Static Cling, for which a Melrose Avenue restaurant held a recent premiere.

Joining writer Martin Olson for the grand transmission, Kitmitto caught up with every key cog from the film. As 10 TV screens ran their product, it quickly became apparent which viewers were with the franchise from the beginning and which came later. Some may have been too young to remember the movie’s basis in its original run.

Of herself and her colleagues from that time, Kitmitto said, “We were cracking up.” Conversely, “The young peeps who worked on it didn’t seem to be laughing at certain parts.

“But what we concluded was that we were privy to the inside joke that preceded certain parts of the film. Overall it was well received. I think kids who grew up watching it are going to go nuts over this. I believe it’s going to be a huge hit!”

If nothing else, it is already doing its part to address an insatiable itch for what one may call the Orange Age. Just like their millennial consumers, the makers of ’90s Nicktoons never seem to tire of the primordial purity the shows tie in with that time in their lives.

“Most of us were in our early 20s or 30s,” Kitmitto said. “All of us young and starting off, so no egos.

“I think everyone you could ask who started off there would say the same. It was a unique, collaborative, creative, supportive experience that we all benefited from being a part of. So much love, such a wonderful time of my life.”