Rugrats: Bigger and Better Than Ever

When the series came back in 1997 after a Chanukah episode in December 1996, it came back without Paul Germain and his writing staff.  A few years earlier, in between the seasons, Rugrats was shown on constant reruns on Nickelodeon during the break, which helped make the show more popular and resulted in its comeback on the air. The series got praise from Steven Spielberg, who in a 1995 interview referred to the show as “one of several shows that were the best children’s programming at the time,” and described Rugrats as “sort of a TV Peanuts of our time.” This was when the show became the monumental force and gained the popularity it had. In 1996 alone, Rugrats aired 655 times on Nickelodeon, becoming the most-watched cable show that year. The show picked up pretty much where it was when it ended in 1994, and began to explode in popularity around this time.

Cultural Impact

During its run on Nickelodeon, it had merchandise including comics and video games, and live performances, in addition to subsequent films and spinoffs. Rugrats merchandise, by March 1999, had generated 1.4 billion dollars in sales. They had their own cereal by Post called Reptar Crunch Cereal. In addition, they also made fast food appearances, mostly at Burger King. Hardee’s offered a collection of Nicktoons toys as premiums with the kid’s meals in 1994, with the four shows being Doug, Rugrats, Ren and Stimpy, and Rocko’s Modern Life. They were also on fruit snacks, macaroni and cheese, bubble gum, and Campbell’s soup, among other food-related things (See this video for a Rugrats advert collection). Between 1997 and 2001, Rugrats also had a balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The franchise appeared to be invincible, as in 2001 it got a star on the Hollywood walk of fame, becoming the first, and so far the only, Nickelodeon show to have one.

As just about everybody who watched Rugrats knows, Tommy Pickles is half Jewish, so it was only natural that there would be Jewish themed episodes of Rugrats, and that Judaism would play a major role in the series. The episodes of Passover and Chanukah are two of the most popular episodes in the show’s run. The show’s Passover episode was the sixth most watched cable broadcast that week. The series received accolades for the Jewish themes it used, including 3 for its Passover episode that year alone. However, at the same time, the Anti-Defamation League criticized the look of Grandpa Boris and charged it as antisemitic. The controversy began in 1998 during publication of a Rugrats comic strip, because the design resembled a Nazi-era depiction of Jews. Nickelodeon president, Herb Scannell, that year promised that the strip nor the character would be published again. In 2001 Nickelodeon celebrated ten years on the air for Rugrats. To celebrate the anniversary, Nickelodeon released Decade in Diapers on VHS, DVD, and a part of a marathon on the network. This was the first time the original pilot was seen by the public, and it was included as a bonus feature on the DVD and VHS. Rugrats gained over twenty awards during its run, and was Nickelodeon’s longest running show, until SpongeBob SquarePants surpassed it in 2012.

The Movies

On November 20^th 1998, The Rugrats Movie opened at number one at the box office, and became the first non-Disney animated movie to gross 100 million dollars. It was a box office success of 140 million dollars, considering its modest 24-million-dollar budget. However, the film earned many mixed reviews, and it currently has a 59% on Rotten Tomatoes. It remained the highest grossing animated film based on a TV show, until 2007 when it was surpassed by The Simpsons Movie. This film is notable for the introduction of Tommy’s baby brother, Dil. Production on the movie started back in 1995, and there were video games, books, and a soundtrack based on the film. Tara Strong started voicing Dil, which she would do for the rest of the show’s run, including subsequent movies and spinoffs. The film was so successful that two years later, in 2000, Rugrats in Paris was released. This film is significant because it introduced us to several brand-new characters, who would become mainstays on the show for the rest of its run. These include Kimi and her mother Kira, and Fifi, the family dog the Finsters decide to adopt when they are in Paris. In the episode “Mother’s Day,” we get the first signs that Chuckie wants a mom and feels lonely because he is just with his dad, and everybody else, except Angelica, has siblings by the time of Rugrats in Paris. That becomes reality in Rugrats in Paris. We also see more of Grandpa Lou’s new wife, Lulu, who made her first overall appearance at the end of the previous season. The movie made 103.3 million dollars worldwide. It holds a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is the best reviewed film from both fans and critics. Julia Kato became the voice of Kira. Dionne Quan, who was blind and was given scripts in braille, started voicing Kimi. Debbie Reynolds, who was towards the end of her career, began voicing Lulu. In 2003, Rugrats Go Wild was released, which was a crossover between Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys. It became the least successful movie for the series, just gaining $55.4 million dollars and receiving mixed to negative reviews. This is the only Rugrats film that was rated PG for mild crude humor, while the other two were both rated G.

The Rugrats Are All Grown Up

In addition to the films, various spinoffs were being discussed, one of these being “Rugrats Preschool Daze,” which revolved around Susie and Angelica in preschool. Another possible spinoff centered on Susie and her family moving to Atlanta to help their grandmother run the family restaurant. While Rugrats Preschool Daze did get made, it was cancelled after four episodes out of the planned 13. To commemorate the 10^th anniversary of Rugrats in 2001, Nickelodeon aired the special “All Growed Up,” which depicted the babies 10 years older. In what was supposed to be the series finale, the episode had 11,900,000 viewers, which made it the highest rated premiere for the show as well as the highest rating for Nickelodeon in general. With such high ratings from the special, it came as no surprise that it was a very successful backdoor pilot from Nickelodeon. This episode was so popular and successful that a spinoff series, All Grown Up, started in 2003 and lasted for 5 seasons, ending in 2008.

All Grown Up was the most successful spinoff there was throughout the run of the show. The spinoff was created in an effort to keep the Rugrats franchise going after it was beat up in the ratings by newer shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Jimmy Neutron. Production began in September 2002, and the show premiered in April 2003 as a preview, before starting its regular run in late November. When it did start its regular run, more than 3.2 million viewers tuned in, which made it the highest premiere in Nickelodeon’s history at the time. Originally, potential titles were “All Growed Up,” which was the name of the pilot, as well as “Rugrats: All Growed Up.” The series documents the lives of Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica, Phil, Lil, Dill, Kimi, and Susie as they navigate being pre-teens and teenagers. It allowed characters such as Phil, Lil, Kimi, Dill, and even Susie to have a more prominent role, as well as introduced new characters. Unlike the original series, where most of the episodes revolved around Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica, and sometimes Susie, All Grown Up gives room for the other characters to have major storylines throughout the series. The existing voice cast from Rugrats continued voicing the characters, sounding more like pre-teens to teenagers.

All Grown Up attracted 30 million viewers a month, including a large number of 12- to 14-year-olds. This was in sharp contrast to Klasky Csupo and Nickelodeon’s show As Told by Ginger, which was more serious and teen-focused in terms of the themes the series explored. By the time season four came around, episodes started airing sporadically between 2005 to 2008, which they didn’t do for the first three seasons. Unlike the original series, the episodes were one 22-minute story, as opposed to the traditional Rugrats format of two stories that were 11 minutes per episode, which fits the tone of the show. This show is notable because it is the last time the original voice cast for the adults was used, even though Kath Soucie came back in the reboot to voice Phil and Lil, but not their mother, Betty. Even though the series felt different from the original because they were preteens, the characters’ overall personalities were in line with who they were in the original. This show is also the last time certain characters have been mentioned and/or seen, including Howard DeVille, Dill, Kimi, Kira, Boris, Minka, and Lulu. The last episode aired on August 17^th, 2008, 17 years after the first episode of Rugrats first aired. It appeared that the Rugrats franchise was finished after Preschool Daze ended, and there weren’t going to be any movies after the two made-for-DVD specials, but it’s legacy and place in popular culture wasn’t quite complete.         

Coming to An End

              After being on the air for 9 seasons, around 170 episodes, 3 movies, a successful spinoff, as well as numerous merchandise products, Rugrats eventually became the victim of its own success. By the late 90s through the mid-2000s, the series began losing popularity, and it was no longer the same series for a variety of reasons. Its popularity had started to wane from the heights it enjoyed during its golden age. Klasky Csupo did everything they could to help regain interest in the series within reason. In addition to the movies, All Grown Up, and the additions of new characters, Rugrats tried things such as having popular Nickelodeon stars voice characters, especially Amanda Bynes as Lulu’s grand-niece Taffy, who is hired as a regular babysitter after Didi decides to go back to school. They also tried having three stories instead of the regular two for season seven, changing the opening credits, and doing a critically acclaimed Kwanzaa special that was a pilot for a series that never materialized. Even an appearance in Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast at Universal Studios Florida, and appearing in various video games did nothing, reinforcing the idea that the franchise was running out of steam and was approaching the end of its popularity. Around this time, the other remaining Klasky Csupo shows were starting to end as well. They had also produced Aaahh!! Real Monsters, The Wild Thornberrys, Rocket Power, and As Told by Ginger during the run of Rugrats and All Grown Up on Nickelodeon. As the show’s voice cast moved on to other things, the Rugrats world they had been a part of moved on without them, even though some of them became quite successful after Rugrats ended. Despite being one of the first successful and popular shows on the network, it was becoming obsolete, especially with newer shows on such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents. With its legacy firmly in place, Rugrats began to fade away after nearly 20 years.

Reboot

In mid-July 2018, Nickelodeon gave a series order to a 26-episode revival of Rugrats, which would be produced by Klasky Csupo and Germain. It’s important to note that the last time Klasky and Germain worked together on Rugrats back in the 90s, they had very different philosophies towards the series. Originally, Paramount also announced in July 2018 that there would be a live-action film with CGI characters as part of the revival, but in November 2019, they decided to cancel the film. Major storylines, characters, and plot details from the rest of Rugrats that Germain wasn’t a part of, as well as from the movies and All Grown Up, had to change because they were going to be starting over again. Targeted for a 2020 release, the series was delayed production until 2021, where it would be on the newly rebranded Paramount Plus, and on May 27^th 2021, the series premiered on the streaming platform. One of the most notable changes from the original series to this reboot is the CGI animation, as opposed to the original 2D style. Among the other significant changes from the original series, Susie is a more prominent character than in the original series, and she is also closer to Chuckie’s age than Angelica’s. In addition, the writers made Betty a lesbian, and wrote out Howard, which I don’t really mind that much. Even though the babies have the same personalities, they are on similar adventures that we have seen them on before, whether they are exactly alike or not.

So far, this show hasn’t found it’s new voice to separate it from the original series. The new voice cast for the adults includes Tommy Dewey as Stu Pickles, Ashley Rae Spillers as Didi, Anna Chlumsky as Charlotte, Timothy Simons as Drew, Natalie Morales as Betty, Tony Hale as Chas, Michael McKean as Grandpa Lou, Nicole Byer as Lucy Carmichael, and Omar Benson Miller as Randy Carmichael. The fact that these are people that are very high-profile celebrity voices for the most part shouldn’t be a negative automatically if they don’t rely so much on their appeal to get people to watch the revival. Take the Rugrats movies for example, particularly Rugrats in Paris, when they cast Oscar winning actress Susan Sarandon and Emmy winning actor John Lithgow, as well as in Rugrats Go Wild when they cast Bruce Willis as the voice of Spike. They weren’t just being used because of their celebrity, but they were also making characters that could exist in the Rugrats universe and be as effective as somebody who wasn’t well known before it began. They weren’t profiting solely off of their celebrity. In my opinion, I hope this series finds its voice someway or somehow so that it will continue on, but if it doesn’t work out, we’ll always have the original series and the memories attached to it that a new audience can discover again.            

Image Credits:

Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon: https://the-new-macys-parade.fandom.com/wiki/Rugrats_(IAmaBoomer_Version)

Walk of Fame: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rugrats_on_the_Hollywood_Walk_of_Fame.jpg

All Grown Up: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/all-grown-up/umc.cmc.74n1rnhtbr2zzzqqr122p2u0e

Reboot Photo: https://www.ign.com/articles/rugrats-reboot-premiere-review-paramount-plus