Rocko’s Modern Life Creator Explains How the Netflix Special Came to Feature a Prominent Trans Storyline

Rocko’s Modern Life is set to return this Friday after more than 20 years, and the upcoming Netflix special called Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling largely deals with changes in popular culture since that time: change in what we do, how we do it, and everything in between from phones to drones and more. While there’s a number of these changes that the special pokes fun at, one major change is accepted and treated as a positive: the introduction of Rachel, the daughter of Rocko’s neighbors the Bigheads, in a prominent trans storyline.

While we won’t spoil anything here, it’s been revealed that the upcoming special will feature Rachel, who was assigned male at birth as a character previously introduced in the ’90s series as Ralph, as part of Rocko’s quest to return his favorite television show, which Rachel created, to air.

ComicBook.com recently had to the chance to catch up with Rocko’s Modern Life creator Joe Murray via email, and asked about the process of the special coming together as well as the featuring of a trans storyline.

ComicBook.com: The special is largely about the ways in which the world has changed since Rocko and his pals left — mirroring, of course, the show also leaving. What made you and the team decide to go in this direction? Was there ever a point where y’all said, “Well, it needs an update if it’s supposed to be modern”?

Joe Murray: When I was deciding whether to do the special or not, my wife Aleide said “There must be a lot of new things you could make fun of”. Then I spoke with Doug Lawrence and Martin Olson who came on later as writers and we riffed about a few ideas. I decided to do a story mirroring what was actually going on. A network bringing back a show after 20 years due to fan demand. In this case, the Fatheads. And the story snowballed after that. The trio coming back to O’town after 20 years and Rocko finding out that his favorites [sic] cartoon was gone. That’s the show I pitched. Doug and Martin helped me flesh it out, and then later Cosmo Segurson, Tom Smith and Dan Becker did some additional writing during the storyboard stage. It all worked together very well.

One particularly huge change in this special is the introduction of Rachel, the daughter of the Bigheads. What sort of process led to you folks featuring a gender transition as one of the most pivotal aspects of the special — especially with a character you voice — and was there any pushback on the idea?

Doug, Martin and I were discussing Rachel’s character and how it felt natural that this change would occur during the time away from the show. We also wanted to include the more positive representation this community has in this modern era as an aspect of change. The story was pitched to the then president of Nickelodeon and she signed off on it if we worked closely with GLAAD to do it right, which I was happy to do. Chris Viscardi was the executive for Nick that we working with and he gave his full support to this addition to the story.

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Here’s how Netflix describes the special:

“After being in space for around 20 years, Rocko and his friends attempt to conform to an even more modern life in O-Town, where coffee shops are on every corner, food trucks offer multi-layered tacos, touch-screen O-Phones are being upgraded on a near-constant basis, an instant-print kiosk has replaced Rocko’s old job at Kind-of-a-Lot-O-Comics, and radioactive energy drinks turn their consumers into mutants.”

Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling is set to release on Netflix this Friday, August 9th. The special features the voices of returning cast members Carlos Alazraqui as Rocko, Tom Kenny as Heffer, Mr. Lawrence as Filburt, Charlie Adler as Mr. Bighead, and more. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the special right here.