Rorg: A Hero of a Past

"Rorg: A Hero of a Past"
	Season 2, Episode 29
Prod. Code:	215a
Premiered:	April 13, 2015
	Credits
	Written by:
	Jed Elinoff, Scott Thomas & Russ McGarry
	Storyboard by:
	Kim Arndt, Bob Suarez & Ruolin Li
	Directed by:
	Stephanie Arnett
	Episodes
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"Rorg: A Hero of a Past" is the twenty-ninth episode of the second season (and eighty-first episode overall) of Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja. It premiered on April 13, 2015.^[1]

Synopsis[]

Viceroy has been ripping off a cheesy ’80s cartoon for all of his bot designs.^[2]

Plot[]

The episode opens on the exterior of the Weinerman Household, and then inside Howard's room. Howard is trying to reach Randy on his phone, only for his best friend to rush into his bedroom at that moment. Due to his haste, he skipped a step and fell on the stairs, bouncing til the end of the steps. Howard rushes to him, but not to aid his fallen friend but instead to snatch the snacks that Randy had gone to buy. He reminds Howard to make it last, but it falls on deaf ears as he sees Howard consume the snacks in an instant, much to Randy's annoyance.

The boys then get ready to watch a rerun marathon of their favorite cartoon show, Rorg: Hero of a Past, nicknamed the Rorg-athon. Randy and Howard intend to devote all their time to watching the series and put aside anything else. The show appears to be a very dated 80s action-adventure cartoon, taking inspiration from similar shows as He-Man, and Thunder Cats. It introduces various characters from the cartoon, such as its titular protagonist Rorg, his sidekick Socko and their arch-enemy Commander Boneface. The scene then changes to Viceroy's office inside McFist Industries' pyramid. The mad scientist, Viceroy appears to be suffering from a bad case of the flu and is shown to also be watching the Rorg-athon. However, his broadcast is interrupted by McFist appearing on the TV, seemingly disinterested in Viceroy's condition and terming it as "milking it." Viceroy remarks that McFist is lucky that he even showed up to work. But his boss retorts that he is at work but isn't engaged in any work, and McFist then orders him to build a ninja-destroying robot or else he won't be allowed to go home, the transmission then ends and the cartoon resumes to Rorg battling kanga-saur, this then gives viceroy an idea on what robot to build. The scene shifts back to Howard's room as the boys continue watching their show, in it, Rorg uses his signature attack and defeats Kanga-saur by filling its pouch with rocks causing it to explode. The cartoon episode ends with the crowd celebrating the victory and the main characters then both hold a glass of milk as they break the fourth wall and encourage the audience to always drink their milk.

The marathon then gets interrupted by Heidi delivering live news of a robot destroying the city. Howard immediately knows what his friend is going to do, and orders Randy not to leave to fight the robot. But Randy states that he has no intention of leaving, at least, he says until the Rorg-athon is over. This pleases Howard, that is until his sister on live TV stating that she would continue broadcasting over the marathon, effectively called off. With this new information, Howard immediately changes his mind and demands that Randy go quickly and deal with the robot, and left with no other choice Randy obeys. At downtown, the Ninja smokes bombs and is ready to face the rampaging robot but is caught off guard upon recognizing the enemy's striking resemblance to Kanga-saur, from the cartoon he had just been watching. During the fight, the Ninja gets a call from Howard, asking what is taking so much time, but Randy only replies that he's fighting a Kanga-saur, which also surprises Howard. His friend then suggests that he should copy what Rorg did in the episode they had just watched and fill its pouch to defeat it. Randy, at first is reluctant, but then proceeds to imitate the fictional hero and throws a ninja expanding ball into its pouch with expands immediately, and destroys the robot completely, leaving Randy impressed and Howard ecstatic to hear that his idea worked.

Back at McFist Industries, Viceroy packs his things and is ready to head home, until McFist reappears on his television screen, demanding to know where he is going, Viceroy repeats their earlier conversation, stating that once Viceroy builds a ninja-destroying robot, he would be allowed to go home. But McFist then changes his previous words and makes a new statement that he won't be allowed to go home unless he destroys the Ninja, much to Viceroy's dismay. The scene then shifts back to the Rorg cartoon, with the main character now fighting a minotaur that is dressed and behaves like a typical French mime, named the "Mime-o-taur", he defeats it by waving a red cloth and slicing it half as it lunges towards him. Howard expresses his enjoyment of the episode, while also commenting that the sidekick, Socko is his favorite character. At that moment, Heidi interrupts the marathon by reporting the news of another robot attack at Charlie Clucker's Chicken Bucket, with the camera revealing that the robot is none other than the Mime-o-taur. Randy then realizes that strange coincidence of the robots bearing a strong resemblance to the villain characters of the Rorg cartoon, appearing immediately after Rorg battles them in the show. This leads Randy to the revelation that the Viceroy must also be watching the Rorg-athon and is designing robot rip-offs of the monsters. This makes Randy very excited and he hurriedly heads to fight the robot. But before he leaves, the NinjaNomicon calls for him, when he enters the book, he is given the lesson;

"To Defeat Your Enemy, You Must Know Which Enemy You Are Fighting."

However, Randy assures the Nomicon that he knows what he is doing. Upon exiting, he exclaims to Howard that he is ready to face the robot Rorg-style. This causes Howard to feel left out as he too wishes to join in on living out their favorite cartoon, as he scans his room he notices random items scattered about which gives him an idea. Shifting the scene to the Chicken Bucket, the Mime-o-taur is seen wreaking havoc inside, the Ninja smoke bombs inside and tries to fight it, at first imitating Rorg's heroic speech pattern, but gets distracted by the Mime-o-taur's miming, and is sent flying from a dirty sucker punch. Ninja then copies exactly what Rorg did and wants the monster to lunge at him with his red scarf and slice him in half while it is in mid-air. At that moment, Howard then enters the scene not only dressed as Socko but also delivering the same one-liner that he did in the episode. The Ninja initially doesn't want Howard to join him and goes back and forth on the decision until he eventually agrees to let his friend accompany him on the battlefield.

A montage then starts playing as the Ninja battling robot Rorg villains in the same manner as the cartoon, while Howard dances around them with Viceroy becoming more and more unhinged as a result of the work and his sickness, he even starts resembling and behaving like Rorg's arch enemy, Commander Boneface, as the matter becomes more personal to Viceroy as he genuinely now wants to defeat the Ninja and becomes obsessed with the endeavor, and ignores McFist permission to go home when his boss visits him personally and becomes unsettled by Viceroy's condition. Viceroy also realizes through intense monitoring that the Ninja is also a Rorg fan, given how he copies the fictional hero during fights. He then formulates a plan to not give the latest robot Rorg villain the weakness of its cartoon counterpart to catch the Ninja off guard after he had been made to think that the Viceroy will continue following the events of the cartoon, terming it as "flipping the script."

The scene then changes to the McFist-A-Plex, with the villain now being Tar-hand-tula, a spider with fingers for legs. Ninja is ready to defend the robot but is stopped by Howard, who reminds him that the robot is from a specific episode in which Socko is the one who defeats the monster instead of Rorg and achieves it by tickling its stomach causing its finger legs to fall off. Howard is ecstatic for his first solo fight and sneaks behind the robot spider as it is distracted and begins to tickle its stomach but the expected outcome doesn't occur, not even when Howard does it for a second time, or when the Ninja does it himself. The boys are further confused when the robot starts firing laser visions, while Viceroy is seen laughing at their bewilderment, boldly stating that it is now his game and he will cheat as he pleases. With Howard webbed to a wall and the Ninja uncertain of what's happening, the Nomicon doodles aid the Ninja by reminding him of its lesson. He then realizes that he's fighting his enemies, not Rorg's. Thus, he fights the robot as he would with any other.

As the fight goes on, the spider manages to pin the Ninja to the ground, but he turns things around by using his Airfist to bring down a large boot, mean as a movie promotion, straight down on the spider squashing it immediately, with the Ninja managing to evade it. Howard, while still stuck to a wall, exclaims that none of what occurred happened in the show, as the Ninja frees him and says that they are better off watching cartoons, and not living them, to which Howard solemnly agrees as the Ninja smokes bombs away, and Howard takes his personalized scooter and drives off. This causes a defeated Viceroy to cry out in frustration after he had witnessed the whole event on his monitor. McFist then pops in for a moment to tell him that he is heading home, pretending to be sick as a way to not be around Viceroy, leaving the saddened scientist as he cries in his office.

The episode then ends back in Howard's room with both him and Randy drinking from a carton of milk, as they break the fourth wall telling the audience to always drink their milk, similar to what happens at the end of a Rorg episode, all while the entire ending scene is animated in an old 80s cartoon style as the show's logo appears in the end.

Characters[]

Main characters[]

Randy Cunningham
Howard Weinerman
Viceroy
McFist
Kanga-saur robot
Mime-o-taur robot
Tar-hand-tula robot

Secondary characters[]

Heidi Weinerman

Background characters[]

Series continuity[]

A poster for "Grave Puncher: 6D", which was from "Grave Puncher: The Movie!", can be seen in Howard's room .
Howard's empty McFurbity cage reappears since "Weinerman Tested, Cunningham Approved".

Trivia[]

The series Rorg: Hero of a Past is a parody of various action cartoons of the 1980s, particularly targeting those made by the then popular but now much-derided Filmation Associates, such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and by Rankin/Bass Productions, such as ThunderCats. Filmation in particular was known for its extremely limited animation, its constant re-use of stock footage, for the random moral messages incongruously foisted into its stories, and for the characters, monsters and objects designed mostly to push sales of toys and accessories (to the point that these cartoons were described as "half-hour-long commercials").
- Rorg's sword strongly resembles that of He-Man, and his battle-cry, "By the power of my right arm, I'm holding my sword up!" echoes He-Man's cry, uttered during his frequently-repeated transformation scene (in which he similarly raised his sword), "By the Power of Grayskull!"
  
  Skeletor and Commander Boneface. Note the ram's-skull head of Skeletor's staff, which closely resembles Commander Boneface's bone face and horns.
- Rorg's skull-headed villain, Commander Boneface, with his horn-headed staff of power, references He-Man's antagonist Skeletor, who had those characteristics as well as the flat, high-pitched voice that Rorg's opponent does.
- Socko may be a parody of "ethnic" sidekicks in Eighties cartoons who were often introduced as object lessons in inter-racial harmony. Such characters were as likely to be animals, aliens, or supernatural creatures as humans of non-European ethnicity, but their vocal patterns often reflected their status as ethnic tokens. (It is indeed true, as Howard suggests, that such sidekicks sometimes outshone the rather boring heroes of their series, as for example Thun the Lion-Man in Filmation's 1979 series Flash Gordon.)
- Rorg and Socko's toasting each other with milk reflects the morals that were often crammed into Eighties cartoons, often in an epilogue tacked onto the end; these lessons many times had little or nothing to do with the stories. (It may also reflect an actual scene in Filmation's 1980 cartoon Blackstar in which the hero John Blackstar and his alien sidekick Klone toast each other in "cool, clear spring-water.")
  
  Lion-O and Rorg. Note the "five o'clock shadow" (or rather "five o'clock highlight") and the chin dimple/cleft.
- Rorg's character design seems strongly influenced by that of Lion-O in Rankin/Bass's ThunderCats, particularly in its coloring and in Rorg's flowing, mane-like hair.
Later in the episode when Randy goes into Ninja Rage, his eyes don't glow red as they've done in the past; this could be an error or a redesign.
About a year after this episode of Randy Cunningham, another DisneyXD series, Wander Over Yonder, covered very similar territory in the episode "The Cartoon," which also features a parody of Filmation's low-budget animation, especially He-Man (naturally enough, as this series, like He-Man, featured a skull-headed evil overlord as its main villain).