Childhood series are probably some of the main sources of nostalgia as we get older, second only to music. It seems that their music, characters, scenes, jokes, etc., become ingrained in our memory much more easily at a young age.

In my particular case, two particular cartoon series became not only my favorite, but also greatly helped to develop a special sense of humor that accompanies me till this day. Rocko’s Modern Life, and Ren & Stimpy were both wacky and surreal in the way they the episodes were structured. Both the ending of each episode, and the adventures the characters were always full of surprises, unexpected events, and filled with pop culture references.

Rocko’s Modern Life, was a show that followed the misfortunes and daily adventures of an Australian wallaby called Rocko, his dog Spunky, living in the American suburbs. Some of the other main characters were Rocko’s friends: his roommate Heffer Wolfe, a not very clever steer, and Filburt, a neurotic turtle.

In one of the episodes, Rocko is traumatized as he sees the shadow of his neighbor being killed by his wife with a knife and buried in a hole shaped as his body. At the end he discovers he was actually out of the house getting a wart removed from his butt, the hole was dug with a shovel in the shape of the husband (an anniversary gift), and the shadow seen by Rock was actually of the neighbor’s  wife sculpting a statue of the husband out of ground meat.

Ren & Stimpy on the other hand, was a show in which every episode was a mix of sketches, parodies and many other bizarre segments. The main characters, often playing different roles each episode, were Ren, a hyperactive Chihuahua, and his friend Stimpy, a very big cat with the brain the size of a pea.

To have a taste of the series style, in one particular episode there was a commercial in a 50’s style of a powdered toast product, promoted by “Powdered Toast Man”, a superhero that flies backwards, extracts toast by scraping his own face, and farts on people’s breakfast to improve on the taste of their food.

In retrospective, these were shows aired as children cartoons, but filled to the brim with adult references and jokes, which ultimately led to their cancellation. Today they have a strong cult following and are often enjoyed by adults that can now appreciate new layers of humor that they didn’t pick up as children growing up with the shows.