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Rugrats

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Rugrats was an animated series, produced by Klasky-Csupo, Inc. for Nickelodeon. The series ran from 1991 to 1994, and again from 1997 to 2004. The show is about how babies and young children view life and perceive the events happening around them.

Rugrats
Rugrats
Rugrats
Created byArlene Klasky
Gabor Csupo
StarringE.G. Daily
Nancy Cartwright
Cheryl Chase
Kath Soucie
Tara Strong
Dionne Quan
Cree Summer
Joe Alaskey
Bruce Willis
Melanie Chartoff
Jack Riley
Tress MacNeille
Michael Bell
Julia Kato
Philip Proctor
Ron Glass
Hattie Winston
Debbie Reynolds
Amanda Bynes
Andrea Martin
Miriam Margolyes
Stacy Keach
Country of originUSA & UK
No. of episodes172
Production
Running timeapprox. 0:22 (per episode)
Original release
NetworkNickelodeon
ReleaseAugust 11, 1991 –
August 1,2004(Though reruns continue to air)

Characters

The children

  • Tommy Pickles (voiced by E.G. Daily,Tami Holbrook In Unseen Pilot): The most adventurous baby, always getting the group into trouble. Generally considered the babies' leader. Tommy is named after the first son of Paul Germain, one of the show's creators.
  • Dil Pickles (voiced by Tara Strong): Tommy's younger brother, a true baby (i.e. not a toddler like the other children). Introduced in the first Rugrats movie.
  • Angelica Pickles (voiced by Cheryl Chase): Tommy and Dil's cousin who always bosses the "babies" around, being the oldest (about 3 or 4 years old). Enjoys lying to the toddlers, distorting their perception of reality. Acts perfect towards the adults but is generally mean to the babies.
  • Chuckie Finster (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh up to 2002, Nancy Cartwright since): Tommy's loyal sidekick. Afraid of everything, especially clowns.
  • Phil & Lil DeVille (voiced by Kath Soucie): Fraternal twins (boy and girl) that have everything in common. Both enjoy playing in mud and like to eat worms and insects.
  • Kimi Finster (voiced by Dionne Quan): Chuckie's younger step-sister, introduced in the second Rugrats movie, Rugrats in Paris. Kimi is a very happy girl who is always smiling.
  • Susie Carmichael (voiced by Cree Summer): A neighborhood friend who is about Angelica's age. When around, Susie often stands up to Angelica when she taunts the young toddlers. She also has two older brothers, Erwin and Buster and older sister Alisha.

The adults

  • Stu Pickles (voiced by Jack Riley of The Bob Newhart Show fame): Tommy and Dil's father and brother of Drew. Absent-minded toy inventor. Married to Didi.
  • Didi Pickles (nee Kerpackter) (voiced by Melanie Chartoff): Tommy and Dil's mother. A part-time schoolteacher and married to Stu.
  • Lou Pickles (voiced by David Doyle from 1991, until his death in 1997, and Joe Alaskey; 1997-2004) Tommy, Dil and Angelica's grandfather and Stu and Drew's father. Lived with Stu's family for the first few seasons and often babysat the children.
  • Lulu Pickles (voiced by Debbie Reynolds): Lou's second wife; he met her in the hospital where she works as a nurse. Also Tommy, Dil, and Angelica's step grandmother and Stu and Drew's stepmother.
  • Drew Pickles (voiced by Michael Bell): Angelica's father and Stu's brother. An investment banker married to Charlotte.
  • Charlotte Pickles (voiced by Tress MacNeille): Angelica's workaholic mother. CEO of her own company and married to Drew. She tries to be a good mother, but is usually sidetracked by business interests. Is often shown talking on her Mobile phone to "Jonathan", who was shown several times during early episodes of the series.
  • Betty DeVille (voiced by Kath Soucie): Phil and Lil's mother. Quite the jock and women's-libber. Married to Howard.
  • Howard DeVille (voiced by Philip Proctor, formerly of The Firesign Theatre): Phil and Lil's father. Often overpowered by and cringing towards his wife, Betty.
  • Chaz Finster (voiced by Michael Bell): Widower; Chuckie's father, from whom he inherited his adenoidal whine. Married Kira in the second Rugrats movie. Kimi's step-father. Runs the Java Lava Coffee House.
  • Kira Finster (voiced by Julia Kato): Kimi's mother and Chuckie's step-mother. Married Chaz in the second Rugrats movie. Operates the Java Lava Coffee House with her husband.
  • Lucy Carmichael (voiced by: Cheryl Carter (1992, 1997-), Lisa Dinkins (1993), Hattie Winston (The Rugrats Movie): Susie's mother and Randy's wife. She is a Harvard-educated "wonder mom" and does a lot of cool things. She is also a Doctor. She delivered Dil.
  • Randy Carmichael (voiced by: Ron Glass): Married to Lucy Carmichael & is Susie's father. Randy is a writer for the famous Dummi Bears Show.
  • Boris and Minka Kerpackter (voiced by Michael Bell and Melanie Chartoff), Didi and her brother Ben's Jewish parents. Eastern European immigrants who are always complaining that it wasn't this way in the "Old Country".
  • Aunt Miriam (voiced by Andra Martin), Lou's sister and Angelica,Tommy, and Dil's great aunt removed
  • Shirley and Marvin Finster (voiced by Miriam Margolyes and Stacy Keach), Chaz's parents

The pets

  • Spike (not voiced in the TV show, but voiced by Bruce Willis only in Rugrats Go Wild!): The Pickles' brown hound dog. Tommy deeply admires him. (Spike was once voiced in a very old Rugrats episode in which Chuckie had a dream that he and the other babies went into Spike's doghouse. In the doghouse, Spike was drinking tea and spoke with a British accent.)
  • Fifi (Voiced by Grey DeLisle): Purple poodle, who was orignally a Parisian stray which Spike fell in love with in the second Rugrats movie. Now, lives with the Finsters.
  • Puppy and Peppy (not voiced): Purple and brown (respectively) puppies adopted by the Drew Pickles and Chaz Finster households. Probably the offspring of a union between Spike and Fifi.
  • Fluffy (not voiced): Angelica's cat who Angelica loves dearly, but who always causes trouble for the others, particularly Spike.

Fictional TV Characters

  • Reptar (not voiced): A big green dinosaur reminiscent of Godzilla. Tommy and the other Rugrats love him; Reptar products such as cars, clothes and candy are frequently seen on the show. Reptar was a main character in Rugrats in Paris and had his own theme park called Euro Reptarland. There was a giant Reptar robot there too, which the babies piloted and fought against Jean Claude.
  • Robosnail (not voiced): Reptar's arch enemy. Robosnail is an mechanical snail with snapping pincers. He made a special guest appearance in Rugrats in Paris, controlled by Jean Claude. Robosnail and Reptar fought throughout Paris and he wound up falling into a river.
  • Dactar: a big Pterodactyl who fights Reptar on TV. He Resembles Rodan from Godzilla.

Setting

The series has a very vague setting. It has been shown that the Rugrats, as it is probably assumed, live in the United States, and although the name of a specific city or state is never mentioned, an early episode shows the flag of [California] flying at a post office, so it may be assumed that the show takes place there. The best guess as to which region of the country in which the series takes place is somewhere in the southwest, since the family has taken trips to the Metlife Building, Manhattan, Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, and Stu once mentioned "driving through the desert" while returning home from a one-day trip. There have also been several scenes of desert or arid land around the area where the Rugrats live, but there was an episode which featured a snow-storm.

It is also unclear what type of community the characters live in; it could be a small city or a suburb of a larger city. This ambiguity in the setting was probably done intentionally to help give the impression of seeing the world through the naive eyes of toddlers.

One episode does however show they live somewhere in California due to the license plate shown on Grandpa's station wagon. Also in the episode Special Delivery, a post office has the state's bear flag in front of it.

Their whereabouts in California are probably in the locus of Oakland. In one episode, painters remark that black and silver, Raiders colors are awesome. Of course, the Los Angeles area is also possible, as the Raiders played there until 1994. In another episode Stu, Lou, Drew, and Howard want to watch a football game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Oilers. Stu and Howard wear Cowboys t-shirts, while Lou and Drew wear Oilers attire. This implies a possible Texas setting

In another episode in the first season, Didi is shown teaching at a high school in Yucaipa, an actual town about 70 miles east of Los Angeles. It does seem to snow in the wintertime, as in the episode where the babies play in the snow and pretend to go to the north pole.

However, in The Rugrats Movie, it is implied that the family lives close to Interstate 99, so the setting could also be somewhere in central Pennsylvania. This could be a script or drawing goof, as California has a state California State Route 99 serving the east side of the San Joaquin Valley.

Brief history

Rugrats was created by the then husband and wife duo of Gabor Csupo (pronounced Chew-poh) and Arlene Klasky in 1989 along with Paul Germain. They were inspired by the antics of their then infant children, which they found humourus, it was one of three pitches to popular Children's Cable Channel Nickelodeon, which was planning on commisioning their own animated series, which would later be called "Nicktoons". They produced a pilot, "Tommy Pickles And The Great White Thing", which was directed by Peter Chung, later of Aeon Flux fame. The production finished in early 1990, and was shown to an audience of children, of which the majority gave their approval. The pilot was only 6 1/2 minutes in length, and was not aired for that reason, according to Steve Mindykowski's Rugrats Online. However,this film is available on the DVD Rugrats:Decade In Diapers, and Volume 1 of the VHS, as a special feature. The series debuted on August 11, 1991, along with Doug and Ren and Stimpy. It went out of production in 1994, but after increased ratings when shown in primetime, it was revived in 1997, subsequently leading to 3 movies: The Rugrats Movie (1998), which became the first non-Disney animated movie to earn $100 million in the US, Rugrats in Paris (2000), and Rugrats Go Wild! (2003), a crossover with The Wild Thornberrys.

In 2001, the show celebrated its 10th anniversary by making a special one-hour episode about what the Rugrats would be like 10 years older. After the special had aired, Klasky-Csupo said that they had no plans to make a series about it. The special became one of the highest rated episodes in Nick's history. Nick eventually commissioned a full series, All Grown Up!, which started its regular run in November 2003 (a sneak peek full episode named Coup DeVille had aired earlier in April). Many fans feel that AGU has taken a step in the right direction, while others feel that it takes away from the show's original premise, and reduces it to something that, at best, vaguely resembles the show that many people grew to love in the 1990s, and pales in comparison to the writing, acting, artwork, and even music of the original show. Still, it is considered the best cartoon Klasky-Csupo has made since 1998. Meanwhile, production on the Rugrats series (along with that of most of the other Klasky-Csupo shows) was eventually shut down, and the last new episode ("Hurricane Alice") aired on August 1, 2004.

In 2005, Klasky-Csupo announced that they were reviving the original Rugrats as a series of DVDs based on classic fairy tales. The first were based on Snow White and Jack and the Beanstalk.

Popularity

The first three or four seasons of Rugrats were (and remain) exceedingly popular. Despite the crude animation style, the early episodes boasted effective but subtle references to popular culture and occasionally but rarely then-current events (for example, in "Tommy And The Secret Club" Angelica worries about Saddam Hussein breaking into her club; there were also references to Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill and George H.W. Bush, these references were used to keep parents interested in the show while their children watched, at different points in the series). Despite the occasional "gross-out"/potty humor, the early episodes were more reliant on amusing dialogue and imagery than juvenile jokes.

Criticism

After the show's revival in 1997 (and especially after the first movie), the show, though still making occasional culture references, began relying on more bizarre and outlandish plots, and more reliant on gross-out/toilet humor, especially with the addition of Dil to the cast. The show also seemed to have changed its animation to a much brighter style. Two things which many of the show's older fans also found annoying in particular were the show's increased use of baby talk (such as "diapey" for "diaper", for the most obvious example) and repetitive plots (the babies hear an adult's conversation and misinterperet their words). The fans also noticed that the show had lost its creative innovation and seemed to be a lot lighter in tone. This is clearly due to the departure of all of the show's writers and producers and the incoming of brand new ones. The death of Grandpa's voice, David Doyle, and his replacement by Joe Alaskey, also created a negative reaction from many fans, as did the replacement of Christine Cavanaugh as Chuckie with Nancy Cartwright in 2002. The characters of Kimi and her family were met with a mixed reaction at best, while the character Taffy (voiced by Amanda Bynes) was universally disliked among fans. Due to this, many fans believe that this was the moment when Rugrats jumped the shark.

Many Nickelodeon viewers remain fans of the original seasons of the show (1991-1994), but many feel the newer episodes (1997-2004) should have never been made as they feel like two completely different shows. This shift in tone and creativity can be looked at in contrast to another popular Nickelodeon show, Doug, which was cancelled in 1994 as well, went on hiatus and was brought back to ABC in 1996 (thanks to getting bought by Disney) with a much different (and often criticized) style.

Despite these criticisms, the show has waned in popularity among adults and older children through the years, though it still remains relatively popular with younger children.

Other spinoff plans

Besides All Grown Up! there were plans for two other spinoffs that never made it to air:

  • The Carmichaels was planned to see Susie move away from California to Atlanta, where she apparently has relatives. There were plans to make The Carmichaels into a series as early as the 1999-2000 TV season, but plans involving the toddler Rugrats had put the new series' plans on ice. Subsequently, when plans for All Grown Up! and Angelica and Susie's School Daze (below) came up, concerns for continuity led to this idea being shelved for good. The "Kwanzaa" episode (2001) serves as the show's pilot.
  • Angelica and Susie's Pre-School Daze was planned to be about the titular characters going to pre-school. 13 eps had originally been ordered, and slated to premiere late 2002, and was also intended to feature new looks for the two characters. The most recent official word on this series was in this press release for All Grown Up!, when it was announced that it was reduced to just 4 episodes. There were also complications involving the planned new animation designs for the characters. The Pre-School Daze ep (made for 2002, aired 2004) serves as the show's pilot, and used the regular Rugrats look (as did the other episodes involving the preschoolers that actually aired before that ep in the US). Klasky-Csupo finally completed the 4 episodes of the series [1].

However, the Rugrats as babies live on in the direct-to-DVD feature animation series Rugrats: Tales From The Crib.

Trivia

  • The Pickles are a mixed Jewish-Christian family. Many fans say the Pickles are somewhat based on Klasky's real family (for example, as in the show, she is from southern California and in real life she is a Jew and married to a Christian). There are two episodes that reflect the Pickles' Jewish heritage, one episode deals with the Passover holiday and the other with Hanukkah (in addition to episodes about Christmas, Easter, etc.). These episodes have been praised by Jewish groups and are re-run every year on Nick at the appropriate holiday times and can also be purchased on VHS or DVD.

See also

 
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