Rugrats

Rugrats is one of my favourite cartoons. It has something for everyone. There are cute babies (Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Kimi & Dil), one terrible toddler (Angelica - She's the best!), one lovable & loyal hound (Spike), one kind hearted kid (Susie) and several entertaining adults. Stu & Drew's sibling rivalry is well depicted. The characters are diverse and have different backgrounds & life styles. I like spotting the film references and seeing the world as we know it turned on its head. The show contains plenty of wit and it has jokes for all age groups. (I'm 23.) It has a good theme tune and a quirky look that has developed over time. A classic. 8/10

I used to love "The Rugrats". Before they became unbearably popular. Before Dil came. Before David Doyle died. Before the movies. Before . .. you get the picture.

Why? Very simple. The initial Rugrats was a great show.

When the show premiered, in 1991, with "Tommy's First Birthday", nobody could've guess how far it would go. It had a simple premise: what life as a baby was like.

As the show began to climb, the jokes and the show itself began to become polished. The animation was horrid - but who cares? If the show's enjoyable, then I won't hate it for a single quality. Besides, the scribbles that made up the animation added to the whimisical feel of the show.

The show was, at first, intelligent, with jokes and plot lines that both kids and adults could relate to. Media references abounded. For example, in "Showdown at Teeter-Totter Gulch", a Stetson-wearing Tommy faces off against the "Junkfood Kid" (played by Nancy Cartwright), recalling "High Noon" and numerous Leone westerns. In "The Booster Shot", Chucky's doctor is named "Dr. Lecter", a reference to the flesh-eating psychiatrist from "The Silence of the Lambs". The episode with Dean (Angelica's love interest) spoofs James Dean in "Rebel Without A Cause". "The Dog Groomer" recalls "The Terminator", "The Mysterious Mr. Fiend" spoofs "Frankenstein", Dr. Lipschitz (Tony Jay) is a Sigmund Freud-esque child psychologist, and numerous others are similarly intelligent.

Also, the characters were well-developed and likable. At this point, the dialogue was great. Not only the kids, but the adults. The adults were intelligent, had emotions, and were very realistic. They made many of the jokes, and were interesting, rather than the no-dimensional shells they become.

The show's popularity began to grow in 1992, but it was put on hiatus in 1994, when Paul Germaine left the show.

When Rugrats hit the scene, I instantly loved it. I was 7 years old when the first episodes aired, and it was a great show. I couldn't get enough of Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil & Angelica. It was great and had lots of good episodes. Then something terrible happened. For no apparent reason whatsoever, the creators decided it would be a good idea to give Tommy a brother and make a movie. What a horrible decision. Dill added NOTHING to the plot of the show except being ridiculously annoying and ruining all of the flow of the main characters. Also around this time, the writers decided they needed to take the more adult-type themes out of the show entirely and make this show as if it should be shown on Nick Jr. instead of Nickelodeon. I will never understand why they changed the show so dramatically towards their extremely younger demographic group. Rugrats had plenty of older kids and even teenagers and some adults watching regularly. Why pander to your youngest viewers who would watch the TV no matter what show was on? They lost me when they added Dill. However, I did view the show after the 2nd movie because my mom had in-home daycare and they would be watching it. The character of Chuckie's step sister was even worse than Dill. That series of episodes was even more unwatchable than the ones with just Dill. I was just saddened watching that and seeing how downhill Rugrats had fallen. It's a shame that Nickelodeon and their creative writers, did this to basically every show that was good in the early 90's. Am I right? Look at what happened to their best shows, they were either canceled or changed so dramatically that they no longer resembled that great show you once loved. Doug was sold to Disney and turned into crap. Hey Dude was canceled in it's prime. Rocko's Modern Life was given the boot for no reason. Angry Beavers was given the axe because of a disagreement with the creators wanting to keep the show the funny. Nickelodeon from 1990-1995 was great, then it just fell apart and we got stuck with a bunch of garbage mostly after that that has never recovered into anything watchable. I DVR Rugrats every night at 5:00 and 5:30 AM. Sometimes they are the original episodes and I love watching them now. Other times they are the newer ones and those just suck and I immediately delete those.

Post-1994

. . .

In 1997, at fans' urgings, Klasky-Csupo, with a more complex soundtrack and somewhat better looking animation, brought back Rugrats after a three-year hiatus.

Though not as classic as the old show, it still managed to maintain some of the charm and energy of the original series. A few of the better episodes which somewhat harkened back to the older series, including "Radio Daze", a spoof of the old Dick Tracy radio shows, and such typically whimsical episodes as "Send in the Clouds" and "Dust Bunnies". All episodes were enjoyable; even "The Family Tree", the set-up for the first Rugrats movie, was decent. In 1998, however, two tragedies befell the rugrats, sending them into a void from which they would never emerge.

First, the brilliant voice of Grandpa Lou, David Doyle, died. For fans of the actor or of his character, his last episode on the show, "Lady Luck", while hardly classic, should be cherished as his magnum opus. This left a void in the show which could never be completely fufilled. The replacement, Joe Alasky, tries hard but sounds more like he's drunk and suffocating than the much older Doyle did. Even the relatively annoying Alasky nonetheless held the show together well enough. But even he couldn't save the show from the next catastrophie.

Personally, I felt Rugrats was FINE. Most fans found it FINE. Even kids did. The show's creators should've stopped while they had a modicum of respectablity and originality left, in 1998. But:

At the end of the two-part "Family Tree", Didi reveals to Stu that's she's pregnant. Oh boy. Well, this still isn't necessarily a bad thing; it can be saved. If they could make an at least interesting new character, than perhaps the show's existance could be prolonged for the better.

But, in the at-best mediocre "The Rugrats Movie", we're introduced to Dylan Prescot (Dill) Pickles. Hah hah, great joke. We get it, not funny, boo.

But what's even worse is that Dill is a screaming piece of crap. Literally. He's there simply to be cute (which he's not) and to make poop jokes (hah hah!). He abuses the other rugrats (especially brother Tommy), walks around in a surrealistic walker (the "Kangaroo", or something equally absurd), poops himself, and says stupid baby talk. Now the babies are forced to babysit Dill. Whoo, what fun!

But even worse is that the adult characters are dumbed down. In the 1991-1994 - and, to a lesser extent, from '97-98 - they were humans. They had real concerns. They acted realistically. Well, they were a bit negligent, but they weren't too contrived. They are instead reduced to spouting stupid one-liners and observations. Their previous portrayal provide the framework, but not the characters, of the adults. Their characterization in these later seasons simply plays upon the cliches established in the earlier episodes ('97-98 included).

In "Still Babies After All These Years", creator Gabor Csupo claimed that they invented Dill so that there would be someone even "less evolved than the other rugrats". Yeah, right. Those of us over the age of seven or who have IQs higher than -10 can see that you were just doing this for money. Make the show run on and on. Get dumber characters and plot lines. Milk that cow as much as you can.

By 1999, however, Klasky-Csupo had, shockingly, already gotten tired of Dill. So, they made "Rugrats In Paris".

Personally, I find nothing wrong with the film itself - it had a good plot, funny jokes (especially the "Godfather" references), and a great voice cast. Well, actually, yes, I do:

Grandpa Lou got married; Lulu (oh, match up similar names, whoohoo, funny!) is the wife's name. Now, Chaz gets married, too. Kira, the mother, and Kimi, the daughter, two typically PC Japanese characters, join the family. Oh, and there's a dumb dog. Spike, the dog, falls in love with Kira and Kimi's dumb dog and it's just stupid.

What little respectability the Rugrats had maintained following Dill's addition (not much at all, with "Submarine" being the only episode that was even tolerable - ruined, of course, by Dill) was gone. Now, the cash hogs at Nick are caving into to the stupid kids' demands. Why does the majority have to be stupid?

So, Rugrats just barrels on into oblivion. It is doomed to implode in on itself, like the dreams of Ms. Bitters. There may be more movies, and the series shows no signs of stopping. Rugrats was inducted onto the Hollywood Walk-Of-Fame - I don't know whether to be happy or sad.

And then, in July 2001, a last-ditch effort to save Rugrats occured. The grand redoubting of the tyrant Klasky-Csupo - which has destroyed such great shows as "Aah! Real Monsters!" (actually one of their own), "Rocko's Modern Life", and now, "Invader Zim"(!), brings us: teenage rugrats! Lame, lame, LAME! That's all I have to say. The only thing different is that the babies interact with the adults. Whoo-hoo.

So here Rugrats is: from great show to money-starved pig. Enough said.

This show started out good, fresh and funny - with a simple premise. What life looks like through the eyes of a baby.

It had good material and fine animation,, but completely lost the plot with it's 1997 return and the two feature films.

Once upon a time I liked Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil and Anjelica, but with the new voices, and characters, I couldn't care less.