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Rugrats

Today is a huge day in animation history. It’s the 25th anniversary of the first Nicktoons ever created — Rugrats, Doug, and Ren and Stimpy. It’s hard to overstate the significance of these three programs in the history of Nickelodeon, ‘90s pop culture, and children’s programming as a whole. All three shows proved, in their own way, that children’s programming could be smarter, more complicated, and more fun than ever before, and they paved the way for today’s incredible kid’s shows. I understand all of this cultural significance, but Rugrats still sucked.

I say this as a lover of animation, children’s programming, Nicktoons, television, and storytelling in general — I hate Rugrats. This is not an opinion I’ve stumbled upon in my 20’s. I’ve always hated Rugrats, even when I was in the show’s target demographic, and I’ve never understood the show’s obsessive appeal. Hear me out. When I was growing up, my main problem with the show was its use of baby talk. It often felt like Rugrats would go out of its way to mispronounce as many words as possible, and to me, the end result didn’t feel fun or cutesy. It was annoying. For a long time, I thought this small detail was the one thing preventing me from enjoying a universally praised cartoon, but now that I’m older, I realize that Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and even Angelica’s babytalk was just a symptom of a larger problem I had with the show. Rugrats feels pandering.

At its core, Rugrats stands as an ode to childhood. However, examining that ode now, that ode always feels driven by adults. Take for example two other beloved Nicktoons, Rugrats’ premiere brother Doug or Hey Arnold! Both of those shows explore the lives of children, but they’re grounded in a way Rugrats never was. Sure, the characters on both of these shows were more emotionally developed, which contributed to their authenticity, but both Doug and Hey Arnold! lived in worlds with understandable actions and reactions. If you daydream on the playground and wear underwear over your shorts, you’ll probably be mocked. If you refuse to leave your stoop, you can’t jump off of your stoop to defend your stoop (I really love Stoop Kid). Emotions and stakes were grounded in these universes in a way they weren’t on Rugrats. The Rugrats could crawl around, destroying people’s lives, and all that would happen was sometimes a parent would take away a toy. Not to parent blame, but you would think after you’ve lost your baby for the 700th time, you’d invest in a better crib.

A large part of this lack of stakes on Rugrats probably has to do with the age gap. You can remember what it was like to be in elementary school, but none of us can adequately remember the awe and wonderment of babyhood. To me, Rugrats was so obsessed with capturing the adventure and excitement of this developmental time that it completely ignored one of the greatest and most painful parts of growing up — our ability to learn from mistakes.

Here’s the plot of every episode: Tommy decides to go on some huge adventure based on some flimsy premise (they HAVE to get Tommy’s ball back, you guys. They just HAVE to.) and drags his unwilling friends along for the ride. Inevitably, the adventure will spiral out of control, putting Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil’s lives in danger. Chuckie will panic. Phil and Lil will eat bugs and push each other. Sometimes a side baby will make an appearance, but eventually everyone is saved at the last minute. Also, Angelica will yell at some point. Then the entire dynamic will reset itself, and the babies will almost die again. The only character sane enough to question this never-ending trend is Chuckie, who is so a-scared of everything that his legitimate worries are always written off. Episodes that featured Susie or Kimi were better about breaking these patterns and inserting some much needed logic into the show, but I never found the babies’ adventures cute or whimsical. They were pointless, and I wish they wouldn’t so much.

The only character I can really get behind is Stew Pickles, a man so burnt out by his struggling career, high strung family, and constantly disappearing children that he’s portrayed as a mere husk of a human right from the introduction. I mean, look at the internet’s favorite picture of Stew, from the episode “Angelica Breaks a Leg.” This is not a mentally well-adjusted man. This is a man who is slowly lose the capacity to feel feelings because his goddamn kids can’t stay in their goddamn cribs.

Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I’m the sad, lonely husk of a human who’s unable to appreciate sweet things in life. Maybe my own deep-seated cynicism is the reason why I don’t like Rugrats. Though I won’t argue about the sad husk descriptor, I don’t think my cynicism is why I never liked the show. I’m a fan of children’s programming, and while I do think having a learning aspect is A plus, I’m not one of those critics who think cartoons have to always have a lesson. It’s totally OK in my book for kids to have fun watching something fun. I was a huge fan of Nicktoons growing up. Doug, The Wild Thornberrys, Hey Arnold!, Rocket Power, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Invader Zim (which I’ll still go to bat for) helped to define my childhood. My love for these old shows has allowed me to better appreciate the genre-warping greatness of today’s masterful kids’ shows, like Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Gravity Falls. But for me, Rugrats was always the uninvited, whiney kid at my Nicktoons party.

Rugrats did have some shining moments that even I can’t deny. “A Rugrats Passover” and “Rugrats Chanukah” both made big strides in portraying Jewish culture on a mainstream animated show. It was a pretty diverse show that never felt heavy-handed on that front, which is huge. Rugrats was also one of the biggest mainstream shows to hop on the trend of producing thematic episodes that broke away from the show’s typical storytelling, a trend that many animated shows still use today. The oddly captivating “Slumber Party” is a good example of this, and this willingness to break away from the norm likely influenced other shows to later follow suit, like BoJack’s “Fish Out of Water” episode or Adventure Time’s “Food Chain” episode. Also, Rugrats had some pretty stellar hidden jokes, including Grandpa renting a porno and possibly a Dalek from Doctor Who. All that being said, I’m still siding with Angelica on this one. Those babies are dumb, and I can’t stand them.