Rugrats (1991 TV series)

Rugrats (1991 TV series)
Genre	Children's television series
Created by	Arlene Klasky Gabor Csupo Paul Germain
Country of origin	United States
Number of seasons	9
Number of episodes	172 (218 segments)
Production
Running time	22 minutes (7/11 minutes per segment)
External links
IMDb page
TV.com page

"Rugrats" Theme Song (HQ) Episode Opening Credits Nick Animation

The original theme song, used in the first six seasons.

Rugrats Theme Song (Season 8) Nick Animation

The second theme song, used from season 7 onward.

The original main characters, clockwise from left to right: Chuckie, Lil, Phil, Angelica and Tommy.

The main characters, consisting of the original five plus later additions Dil, Kimi, and Susie.

Rugrats is an animated series on Nickelodeon. It aired from August 11, 1991 to June 8, 2004. Produced at Klasky Csupo, Inc. in Los Angeles, the show centers on a group of talking babies and how they perceive the events happening around them. The first feature film based on the show, The Rugrats Movie, was released by Paramount Pictures on November 20, 1998.

The show was a huge hit and was the longest running Nicktoon until SpongeBob SquarePants took its title.

Characters

Main article: List of Rugrats characters

Episodes

Main article: Rugrats episode list

Setting

The series has a very vague setting. It has been shown that the little babies, as it is probably assumed, live in the United States, but the name of a specific city or state is never mentioned. 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 both the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas (Nevada), 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 little babies live.

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 the little babies.

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 flag in front of it.

In another episode in the first season, "Little Dude", Didi is shown teaching at a high school in Yucaipa (California), an actual town about 70 miles east of Los Angeles (California). 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.

In the final issue of Rugrats Comic Adventures, it is implied that the Rugrats' city is not far from Ocean Shores, the main setting of Rocket Power, as the issue in question contains a story in which Reggie, Otto, and Twister travel to Tommy's house to babysit him and Angelica. Didi also mentions that she knows the Stimpletons.

History

The show originally revolved around a group of the little babies. The little babies are able to communicate with each other through baby speak, although viewers can understand them, because it is 'translated'. Often, they mispronounce words or use poor grammar and their speaking is full of errors. An example of this is using the word "poopetrator" instead of "perpetrator." The group is often reluctantly joined by Tommy's cousin, Angelica, the older woman she's three, Angelica is able to communicate and understand language from the little babies, which she often uses as an advantage when she wants to manipulate either party. She is usually very mean to the little babies. Susie, who lives across the street from the Pickles, is also able to communicate on the same level as Angelica, though she isn't manipulative. As a result, Angelica and Susie often clash.

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 (Georgia), 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 Pre-School Daze (below) came up, concerns for continuity prompted this idea to be shelved for good. The Season 7 episode "Kwanzaa" serves as the show's pilot.

Trivia

• The Rugrats received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in a ceremony on June 28, 2001. It was placed at 6600 W. Hollywood Bl., near Cherokee Ave, outside a toy and costume shop. To date, it is still the only Nicktoon to have received this.
• The Pickles are a mixed Jewish-Christian family. Many fans say the Pickles are somewhat based on Arlene Klasky's real family. There are two episodes that reflect the Pickles' Jewish heritage, one episode deals with the Passover holiday and the other with Chanukah, in addition to episodes about the Christian holidays such as Christmas, Easter, etc. These episodes have been praised by Jewish groups and were annually re-run on Nickelodeon and later on TeenNick's NickSplat programming block at the appropriate holiday times.
• It is the longest-running Nickelodeon show to have ended, running at nine seasons spread across 14 years.
• In 2018, Rugrats was back on reruns on the main Nickelodeon channel up until Valentine's Day; select episodes were broadcast. Bumpers and promos featuring the characters from the show were created exclusively for and aired on Nickelodeon during each episode, using the current design format used from the 2017 channel rebranding.

Home video releases

Main article: Rugrats videography

See also

• All Grown Up!
• Pre-School Daze
• 2020 revival

External links

• Klasky-Csupo's Rugrats area on cooltoons.com (Studio site)
• Rugrats daily comic strip at Creators Syndicate
• Rugrats at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Unofficial Rugrats homepage by Steve
• Rugrats at the Internet Movie Database

This show has a wiki of its own: Rugrats Wiki.