Rugrats artists reimagines characters as adults

It’s a time-honored Internet tradition to reimagine beloved animated characters as contemporary, real-world people, in bizarre and unexpected pop-culture mashups, or simply all growed up, as the Rugrats would say.

Eric Molinsky, a storyboard artist who worked on Rugrats, has seen one too many drawings on the Internet of the beloved Nickelodeon characters as glamorous and sophisticated adults.

“It really bugs me,” Molinsky writes in a piece on Studio 360. “We referred to them as lumpy babies for a reason. If we ever drew the Rugrats as being too cute, our executive producer would scold us.”

Molinsky drew his own interpretation of how the Rugrats would look as adults, and we’re guessing his executive producer would be just fine with it, because they are certainly not too cute.

“The Rugrats did not all grow up to be fashion models or self-confident hipsters,” Molinsky writes. “They probably grew up to be average, if not slightly lumpy-looking people — just like their parents.”

They all take after their parents, especially Angelica, who is, appropriately, illustrated here wearing a power suit and a bitter expression while barking into a cell phone. Chuckie appears utterly despondent, Tommy inherited his dad’s unfortunate purple hair, and Phil is overweight and has a duckie tattoo on his forearm.

Check out the rest of Molinsky’s drawings here.