Rugrats: Tommy and The Pickles

Aside from a post about the holiday episodes, this is my final one on this show for a while.

Often times, the centerpiece of Rugrats is Tommy and the other Pickles in his family.
So that’s what I have left.

(In case anyone was curious, I’m not doing a DeVille post- just because Phil and Lil aren’t in the most memorable episodes from my perspective. Most of them have to do with their relationship as twins anyway)

Slumber Party

a.k.a. one of those episodes where people wondered if the show runners were on drugs when they made it.

Angelica is staying over with Tommy and Didi keeps hyping it up as Tommy’s first slumber party. Tommy has no idea what that means and Angelica’s response is always “if you have to ask, you’ll never know”... I don’t think she even knew what that meant cuz I sure don’t.

During the night, she cracks open a window and Tommy comes down with a bad cold as a result. Things accelerate so much that he hallucinates his family as objects from the mobile over his crib.
There are all kinds of suggestions in the handy Lipschitz tome and they try all of them. I think this is also one of those episodes where Grandpa does his running gag line “when I was your age, we walked 15 miles in the snow with no shoes” and he keeps pushing the applesauce cure. (Whatever it is, Stu and Drew aren't buying into it)

If you’d seen enough of the series, you’ll be aware of the fact Tommy spent time in the NiCu so everyone’s apprehensions aren’t completely out of the question.

What ultimately helps- Stu and Didi make up a lullaby... my memory isn’t perfect but I still remember a lot of it... and sometime during it, Tommy pukes all over Angelica. And Grandpa says “that’s my boy”
And that’s all there is to it.

I honestly found that a little more unsettling than the hallucinations- I had a weak constitution when I was a kid and don’t like seeing vomit on screen.
But everything else about this scene always stood out to me. And it chokes me up a bit to think about. The sentiment and the emotion the voice actors bring to it— anyone who says voice acting isn’t “real” acting needs to check themselves.

Spike Runs Away

The family dog Spike really is baby’s best friend.
Throughout the series, their unique bond has been a great highlight and all the things they’d go through to help each other. Even when it’s dangerous.

When Spike gets loose, the entire Pickles house feels the impact. The only way Stu can think to remedy the situation after putting up flyers doesn’t work- buy a new pet. None of them work out, though. A comedy of errors for sure.
Like Didi having to scrub up gerbil poop or Tommy and Chuckie finding out “the floor is moving” in the basement... yeah, they multiply FAST. One of my aunts can attest to this.

His most misguided attempt by far... a tarantula! I am not kidding! Who buys a baby a pet tarantula?! The fact it’s defanged doesn’t make this any better. But this comes to a quick end. It gets loose, Grandpa stumbles across it and...
“There was a huge spider in my bed. Got him, though... so, what’s for dinner?”

Gah!!! If I found a tarantula in the middle of the night, I’d probably burn the house down to kill it, haha
No thank you!

Thankfully, Spike does come home. A rich man found him, saying he was a rare “Siberian Tiger Hound” and he was going to keep him to stud. But he saw the flyer and was nice enough to bring him back. 
The reunion scene is really sweet. Didi insists it can wait until morning but Spike runs into the nursery and wakes him up.

Let Them Eat Cake

I remembered this episode toward the end of my brainstorm of compiling what to write about. Not sure why but I had to include it.
Maybe cuz I’m such a romantic.

Didi’s little brother Ben is getting married and Tommy and Chuckie come to the wedding. But his bride Elaine doesn’t show up, leading to a panicked search to find her. Tommy and Chuckie, meanwhile, are pursing the wedding cake and somehow find her during their search.
Their comments are so cute- “who is she?”/“I don’t know, but she looks sad.”
She talks through her mindset with them; clearly she’s just a little nervous.
“It’s not that I don’t love Ben. It’s just... getting married is so...final.”
He finds her and confesses he’s scared too, but then they express their love and embrace. Then he looks down and smiles, “Tommy, Chuckie, there you are. Did you guys find my bride for me?”

Eventually the two of them appear in a later episode where they babysit. Elaine confesses they want a baby of their own. Angelica then lies and tells the babies they want to take one of them home with them. And encourages them to misbehave so they won’t be interested. She also makes herself out to be a perfect angel. But at the end, the babies worry they’ll take Angelica (because they're about to go out for ice cream or something) and go berserk to “save” her.

The final two highlight Didi and Stu as individuals and show some great character moments.

Game Show Didi

The Pickles are watching TV one evening. The show in question: Super Stumpers. Which is a quiz show like Jeopardy and the host is voiced by Alex Trebek... 

I’d watched that show my whole life and I still miss him. (I’m also writing this a few days after Matt Amodio reached the end of his 38 show run... I’m glad the hosting situation has finally calmed down cuz I’m still in “post-champion depression mode,” kinda like what I went through after Ken Jennings lost after his 74 wins)

Anyway, Didi is really good playing the show at home and wants to audition. But she’s intimidated for a few reasons. The fact the current champion Edmund Haynes is a “self-proclaimed genius” (dear God, man...) doesn’t help things. Betty is among the people that help coach her and come to support her in the audience.
The night before, she confesses to Tommy that she’d never won anything in her life and is afraid she’ll never find her place in the sun.

Tommy takes it upon himself to go find it and Phil & Lil join him on his quest. Naturally they cause some technical difficulties for the TV stations in the process.
It’s so sweet how he talks about looking for it and wanting to find it “so she’ll be happy again”... I can’t stand it, haha

Looking back on this, it’s a really good episode (for any show) because of how it expands on the perspective of motherhood. For those of us who don’t have (or want) kids, society kinda frowns upon that cuz it’s what we’re “meant” to do. But it places a lot of expectations on moms as well. Working moms are criticized for not being involved enough with their kids. And stay-at -home moms like Didi sometimes struggle with the feeling that the fact they haven't accomplished much outside of motherhood somehow means they’re incomplete. And that’s absolutely not true.
...I almost want to go on about how men never struggle with this kind of anxiety as fathers but we’d be here all day.

It’s kinda funny how I’m having so many thoughts on the female perspective lately... I wanna say it’s cuz I’m a 35 year old single woman but I think these opinions had been rolling around in my head since I got into my 30's.

Back to the show... Didi looks like a huge underdog going in because she’s not quick enough with the buzzer. But she slowly finds her stride and winds up overtaking him and setting a new show record.
Her first answer “what is a torque wrench?”... I wonder if Alex smiled when he said the line about how she doesn’t need to phrase it in the form of a question.
It’s not quite Jeopardy... the entire question needs to be read out before anyone can answer and there certainly wasn’t a lightening round like what Didi runs through at the end.
This episode is also the first time I’d heard of various things and places (answers included Mount Arrarat, mint juliep, and Millard Fillmore) and it wasn’t until years later I learned what they were. Kids’ shows are funny that way.

The other adults find out the babies are missing, but it doesn’t take them long to find them.
Also in the area is another TV Star of this station- Wuggles the talking mule.
“That’s odd. These don’t taste like goats.”
“Cut! It’s oats, Wuggles, oats! Not goats!”
Haha- still hilarious. I was tempted to add “ah, cannibalism!” except Wuggles is a mule, not a goat.

For much of the story, the other adults were talking about the various prizes and what Didi should take home. I think there was a dinette set and bug zapper among lots of other things. But she chooses a gold plated Dalmatian statue.
Hey, I’m all for it. Why not take home a shiny trophy after all that?

Stu Gets a Job

As for Stu, he’s an inventor by trade. But not all of his inventions work. It gets to a point where he actually has to take a real job. I’m not sure exactly what it is but it involves lard.
(Another first for me- I didn’t know what lard was before this.... animal fat doesn’t sound pleasant to work with)
Tommy doesn’t like this change so he does everything he can think of to make him stay home- no matter how much Chuckie tries to talk him out of it.
The funny part is that Stu thinks that all of these mishaps are pranks his older brother Drew is playing on him. All of this because Drew knows Stu has a job and brings up an old debt he still owes him. And in retaliation, he makes phone calls where he orders 50 pizzas under his name and has his car towed.

Tommy’s pranks include swapping honey for shampoo and getting rid of all his clothes... except he misses one item- a disco suit. (Hmm... I wonder if this was a reference to Disco Stu, Marge’s ex boyfriend from The Simpsons). The same suit also shows up in the garage sale episode where Stu is completely opposed to selling it despite Didi’s objections.

In the end, the brothers come to blows about the “prank war” that’s been going on. Didi finds the check Stu originally wrote out to Drew- he'd been using it as a bookmark and forgot to mail it. 

During this, one of Tommy’s booby traps helps him solve the conundrum of his bubble machine invention. The net that fell on his head inspires him to make tons of smaller bubbles instead of one big one.
And he’s so thrilled that he decides to quit Consolidated Lard... and everything is back to normal.