Les Razmoket

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.

Rugrats is most likely a favorite show for children during the 90's. And who can blame them? This was one of the first "Nicktoons" made and one of the most creative and well-written ones too.

Debuting in 1991, this show had a bit of a slow start, featuring low quality animation, quiet voice acting, simple plots, and so on. Yet this show had quite a charm to get people an idea on how babies that talk to each other live in their lives. The characters were well made, with the cast featuring Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil, and Angelica as "the kids." Then we have their parents, which are also well made and humorous for both kids and adults. Some of the episodes have 2 story lines, one lead by the babies and one led by the adults, and they are created in such a great twist.

Due to the shows increasing audience, Rugrats was picked up for a few more seasons, featuring better animation and better jokes. Many of the episodes were so enjoyable with the mishaps and humorous references that appeared. But then Rugrats got canceled in 1994 by Nickelodeon. It was probably canceled in favor of AHH! Real Monsters that was released by the same production company that gave us Rugrats. However, re-runs stayed on the channel and gave the network high ratings. So the show was brought back to life in 1997.

But when it was brought back, disasters would follow...

The first disaster was when the show was brought back, some of the writers from the first series never returned for the revival. This made a huge difference on how the writing of the future episodes turned out. Now the episodes made featured more gross-out humor and lamer dialog then before.

The second disaster was when David Doyle, the voice of Grandpa Lou, died in 1997. So they hired a replacement, Joe Alaskey. While his voice is okay, it just was not the same, in terms of vocal tone and delivery, as what David brought to Grandpa.

The third disaster was what gave the Rugrats franchise a fatal wound. They released a movie in 1998, introducing one of the most annoying and stupid characters on the show, Dil, Tommy's new brother. While creating a new character is not a terrible idea, Dil ruined the future episodes of Rugrats. All he did is cry, wail, ABUSE the babies, and drool. What's worse is that the babies always take him on their mishaps and adventures, with Dil ruining them by ether getting lost or causing havoc for others. He also took the already gross humor the show was getting to a whole new level.

Then, with Nickelodeon not getting the message, they released another movie for 2000, introducing another character, Kimi, the daughter of Chuckie's new stepmother. The addition of this character is not bad, but not really good ether. She's basically a generic, one dimensional baby that doesn't add much personality for the babies' adventures, but at least she's not as horrible as Dil. Oh, and Spike, the dog that belongs to the Pickles, gets a random girlfriend dog too, Fifi, who also doesn't add much to the show.

After all this, the show basically got more lamer and more uncreative. The last disaster occurred in 2001, the 10 year anniversary of the show. We get a one-hour episode featuring the babies 10 years older, which would later spawn into a side-series in 2003 called "All Grown Up". It's not a terrible concept in of itself, but this episode changed everything about the Rugrats we didn't know before. All the babies now act like wanna-be teenagers. After this, the voice actress of Chuckie, Christine Cavanaugh, retires. I'll respect her for the retirement, but the replacement voice for Chuckie is inexcusable and not how he used to be. Then we saw more movies being made that didn't do much good ether.

Rugrats FINALLY ceased production in 2003, but a couple remaining episodes would air in a year or 2. Finally, no more of this nightmare of a show. But Nickelodeon was SUPPOSED to have left it alone after it was canceled the first time back in 1994. Bringing The Rugrats back has done anything positive for the show's legacy. Towards the end, many people considered it one of the worst shows airing on any children's network channel.

If you are looking for a great, entertaining children's show that adults could also enjoy with their kids, watch the first three seasons of Rugrats (made between 1991-1994). They were the best. If possible, avoid the seasons featuring Dil and Kimi. Nickelodeon cared about quality back in the early 90's when they started making their own shows. But today, they don't.

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, intellegent, with jokes and plotlines 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 intellegent.

Also, the characters were well-developed and likeable. At this point, the dialogue was great. Not only the kids, but the adults. The adults were intellegent, had emotions, and were very realisitc. 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 ended abruptly in 1994, when Paul Germaine left the show.

(Continued in Part Two.)

Rugrats is about a group of babies named Tommy Pickles who is the fearless leader of the group, Chucky Finster, the scaredy cat of the bunch, and a group of bickering twins named Phil and Lil. No show is complete without a nemesis, in this case it's Tommy's older cousin, Angelica who is also a spoiled brat.

I used to enjoy watching this show all the time. It's very entertaining and the stories for the cartoons were creative.

I would like to emphasize on "was my #2 show on Nickelodeon". I say that because the show, for a time was very good and entertaining and then Nick started putting out the newer episodes. Then there was the addition of Tommy's new baby brother, Dil who is now the most annoying character on the show. A lot of the humor is gone now, too. I mean most of the humor now is just stupid toilet humor or worn-out humor from the old shows. The show has since then, lost a lot of it's impact. Now the new shows are just retarded. The stories and plots now have the babies making a lot stupid decisions and getting into some pretty idiotic situations.

I give Rugrats a 10/10 for the old episodes and 1/10 for the new episodes.

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.