i was always a cut-up. a class clown. in short, a performer. but despite my mom’s practice of forcefeeding me oscar & hammerstein classics (i flipped out when she unearthed oklahoma — it was two tapes!!), i never got into musical theatre. that is, until the fateful day that I saw “zanzibar,” the most glorious combination of colored images and zippy tunes that humans have seen to this very day.

“zanzibar” is a brain-shattering episode of rocko’s modern life that is told exclusively through song-and-dance numbers so catchy that brian wilson and jerry herman’s lovechild couldn’t even dream up anything close. it’s also an episode that champions ecological causes in a non-boring, non-captain planet way. and it worked on me!

every time i recycle a can, i hear the townsfolk of o-town singing “R-E-C-Y-C-L-E recycle! C-O-N-S-E-R-V-E conserve!” this has also helped my spelling of those two tricky words. every time i see someone litter, i have to button my yap so i don’t blurt out the rest of the stanza, “don’t you P-O-L-L-U-T-E pollute the river, sky, or sea or else you’re gonna get what you deserve!” every time i refuse to pay my verizon wireless bill, i’m reminded of our brave wallaby hero sticking it to the man. “rocko fought city hall, rocko fought corporate america!”

since that fateful day of cartoon spring cleaning, i’ve been a musical theatre guy all the way. the thing is… everything else sucks in comparison to “zanzibar!” rent? pssht, okay, whatever. where’s the talking compost heap? the producers? yeah right! where are the harmonizing fluorocarbons? and god help broadway if they try reviving west side story again without mr. conglom-o himself, ed fucking bighead, ‘cos i won’t stand for it. how much awesomer would a chorus line be with a superfluous amount of wah-wah, boink, and fart sfx whenever someone gets cut from the audition? a million times awesomer, to be exact.