How the Pilot was produced

The Rocko pilot "Trash-O-Madness" was produced at my studio in Saratoga California,
in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains. I animated half of it myself, with the rest animated by some amazing Bay Area animators like Robert Scull and Tim Bjorklund, who later went on to direct on the series. No animation or cel paint was shipped overseas. It was all done in the states.

After falling behind schedule with a camera company we had hired to shoot it, Nick Jennings,
George Maestri and I jerry rigged an old 35mm camera stand in one of the offices of the the studio, and started shooting around the clock. We would shoot all night, then in the morning drive the film to San Francisco (about 45 minutes away) for processing. We would watch the footage we had shot the day before, drive back trying to stay awake, and then do it all again. I ended up renting a motel room nearby so we could take shifts sleeping and to shower if needed.

The small town of Saratoga didn't know what hit them. Deranged animators with blaring music at 3 in the morning was not common for this sleepy town. We had a couple of visits from the local police.

The pilot was finished on time, and went on to earn a pick up for the series. We expanded it later to 11 minutes to use it in the series. If you watch it, you can see the variations in the Rocko models, and the animation had a lot more stretch than usual.