Rocko (Rocko's Modern Life)

Rocko
Rocko's Modern Life character
Rocko in the Rocko's Modern Life comic book series
Created by	Joe Murray
Voiced by	Carlos Alazraqui
Information
Species	Wallaby (described as "Brush Wallaby" in concept sketch)
Gender	Male
Occupation	Cashier at Kind of a Lot o' Comics Various others

Rocko is the eponymous fictional character of the cartoon Rocko's Modern Life and the comic book series of the same name. Rocko was born in Australia and emigrated to America in High School. He was pitched to Nickelodeon executives as having the personality of a young wallaby Woody Allen. Carlos Alazraqui provided the voice of Rocko in the television series.

Rocko first appeared in a never-released comic, where he has the name "Travis".Joe Murray, creator of Rocko's Modern Life, believed that the personality of a wallaby suited Rocko after observing a zoo wallaby "minding his own business" while elephants and monkeys "screamed for attention". After the event, Murray said that "[i]t kind of clicked. Rocko would be at the center of the hurricane of everything swirling around him. He'd be like the everyman who's affected by the dramatic personalities around him."

Murray wanted to get his comic into syndication. Afterwards Murray made substantial changes to Rocko. Murray added that the personality of a wallaby mirrored Rocko's humbleness and his tendency to keep his frustrations to himself instead of publicly complaining about them.

In the original pilot for Rocko's Modern Life, the animators colored Rocko yellow. One month before the first episode was submitted to the animation studio in South Korea, Murray changed the color when a toy company wishing to make Rocko plushes refused to license the character after citing that Rocko looked too similar to a yellow character used in one of the company's existing products. Murray fought the changes with the Nickelodeon executives; in the end the executives insisted on changing the color, so Murray changed the color to beige and disliked the choice. On his website Murray said, "He was always yellow to me." Murray said that the company later backed out of the commitment and did not create the plush series.

Murray auditioned Alazraqui in San Francisco, and chose him as the voice actor for Rocko. Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, a storyboard writer, describes Alazraqui's voice for Rocko as "not really an accurate Australian accent" [sic]; according to Marsh the team used the voice as Alazraqui used the voice for the pilot.