History Headscratchers / RugRats

*** To go with this, the oldest (I believe) children we see communicating with the babies are Dean and Timmy [[=McNulty=]], who were both 5 the last time we saw them interact with the babies. (Dean is a year older than Timmy, at least, so it would have been nice to see him talk with them one more time after Timmy's fifth birthday to see if 6 is too old)

*** To go with this, the oldest (I believe) children we see communicating with the babies are Dean and Timmy McNulty, who were both 5 the last time we saw them interact with the babies. (Dean is a year older than Timmy, at least, so it would have been nice to see him talk with them one more time after Timmy's fifth birthday to see if 6 is too old)

*** Well, Angelica outright says as much in the episode she believed she was moving. That she actually really liked the babies and they were her best friends. Additionally, in Rugrats in Paris she reveals that she doesn't know why she does some of the things she does, even if she knows they're wrong. Roger is actually shown to be like this throughout the series of Doug, too, at least in that he was ''originally'' just a bully but over time he did see Doug as a friend, and even through him a One-Year Anniversary party. Yes, it was said in the episode that Roger was the one who planned it. He just also happens to be kind of a jerk. So it's not really ACI thinking that Angelica wants to be their friend because she actually says as much. For Roger, I wouldn't say ACI because he went through character development to get to that point.

* The entirety of their universe seems to function as "bigger on the inside." Which makes sense, given Tommy was based off of a [[DoctorWho certain Doctor.]] With the vans in particular, though, this Troper just recently watched an episode that had ''all five'' of the main babies buckled up in their ''car seats'' side by side in ''one row.'' Lately my sister and I have been trying to tell ourselves it's from the babies' point of view but that one is wild!

** Perhaps because what made Drew think Tommy had "separation anxiety" was that he looked like he was playing by himself. He left Tommy alone and Tommy seemingly went out to play with the others. In Chaz's mind, Tommy decided on his own to go and play with the others.

* I've been meaning to ask this for a while now. In the episode "Special Delivery", Tommy is declared overweight on a scale, then a crane picks him up and he slides down a chute with a loop-de-loop and knocks over some packages in the process. What kind of chute did he slide down, and how can it have a loop-de-loop of all things? More importantly, how did no one know that a 1 year old baby was being sent through the mail system?

** Susie's mother is a doctor, so would probably be more willing to tell Susie the truth as opposed to dumbing things down. Also, Susie has two older siblings (a teenager and a preteen) who seemed obnoxious enough to tell Susie the reason [[note]] Alisa (the teen) is not always obnoxious, but she has her moments. [[/folder]] (and her brother Edwin is pretty much a genius, even though he believes in the tooth fairy).

** He's on the same plane of communication as Phil, Lil, and Tommy (i.e., can talk to them but not the grown-ups), but throughout the series, he shows a higher level of intelligence than the other three babies. He tends to have good foresight going into potentially bad situations, he's extremely GenreSavvy, and he's the only baby to actually say his first word in the show. And in the episode "Home Movies," Chuckie's drawings are arguably even better than Angelica's, and Chuckie actually learned to draw much later in the series (and it's revealed that he's ''left-handed'', despite using his right hand in the Home Movies episode).

[[folder: They're Acting Too Old]]
* This is about ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'' but it doesn't have a Headscratchers page. Why are they all pre-teens? They act like high schoolers, they're treated like high schoolers, they have high school problems, etc.
** The episode of Rugrats that inspired the series was originally a celebration of Rugrat's tenth anniversary and was intended to show what the characters would be like if they'd aged ten years. What with the majority of the cast being between one and three they'd have to be preteens. The problem was that the writers apparently had no idea how 11-13 year olds acted in real life and decided to just make them act high school aged. It's a fairly common thing seen in various media featuring kids: Grade schoolers act like middle schoolers, middle schoolers like high schoolers and high schoolers like college students. Seriously, I was still pretending to be Pokemon when I was 11, not going to concerts!
*** Why not age them up?
*** Actually, this whole "kids act like teenagers in television because they have no clue how kids really are" actually became {{Truth In Television}}. Kids see television as a role model for life sometimes, and they see "Oh, so this is how I'm supposed to be." Seriously. Remember those novels, ''Literature/TheClique''? Before they all decided to go goth and read ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', they all acted like the girls in those novels. Even though we were barely out of elementary school. Besides that, kids always want to look and act more adult anyway. And are very mean to anyone who isn't as 'mature' as them. Tommy and the gang could be trying to be more adult, and their parents, being not-as-competent-as-they-think-they-are, would encourage this by humoring them.
*** It's pretty FridgeBrilliance there - Just hang around ''any'' elementary school and they'll start trying to act "older" so they fit in with the "Cool" crowd.
** I said this on the Headscratchers for ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'', but when has ''any'' high-school-and-below-themed work ''EVER'' accurately represented those years? Sides, if they acted like "actual" eleven year olds, you'd be here talking about how ''annoying'' they are and how nobody can identify with the protagonists. We wouldn't actually ''have'' an original series if the characters in the original series acted like ''real'' babies that were like, one to three - there's that appeal of having the kids act older than they really are in fiction.
** Well, they did act twice their age when they were babies. I mean seriously, Angelica acted like a six year old.
** "All Grown Up" takes place nine years into the future. That means that they would be aged 9-13 (counting Dil). I thought they were about 15 when I first saw the show, and was shocked when I found out that most of them were only like, 10. Seriously, 10 year olds shouldn't even be old enough for middle school. Just look at Timmy Turner. He's also 10, and acts nothing like the kids in "All Grown Up." It could be that the writers didn't know how to make story-line out of things 10 year olds really do, but if that was the case, they should've just made them teenagers in high school.
** Something else to consider is the audience. A portion of the kids who had grown up with the Rugrats were either at, approaching or a little past pre-teenhood when All Grown Up premiered, and so maybe they thought it would go over well with that demographic.
** I teach at a middle school that's attached to an elementary school. Assuming the kids are in anywhere from fifth to eighth grade, their actions aren't particularly unrealistic. Kids these days act way older than you'd expect, and today's middle schoolers are yesterday's high schoolers.
** Think about this: In the original Rugrats, the kids are about 1-3 years old, but were much smarter. Maybe they just kept the trend: age them 10 years and make them smarter than their age.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: What Happened in "All Growed Up"?]]
* What exactly happened in ''All Growed Up''? It's implied they went into the future (or at least from their baby PointOfView), but it's obviously not that. Also, I watched the special again, and it seems a bit heavy set on the lampshading of Rugrat things.
** I think it's just supposed to be a look into their future for us, and they didn't really experience it. Of course, I haven't seen the special in years so I could be wrong.
*** I have seen the special, and I agree, that was rather strange. I guess the time machine worked so that the babies went to the future, but aged into their All Grown Up ages and accepted that they had to act like teens. [[AllJustADream Or maybe Tommy dreamed the special]]. In my opinion, TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot that would've involved the babies meeting their teen selves and realizing how they've changed and how they are the same.
** Um, you do remember that previous episodes of this show included the babies entering a Reptar movie, acting out both the Passover and Chanukah stories, playing pretend through fairy tales, and imagining themselves as superheroes, right? The whole thing was probably just another ImagineSpot, and it would have stayed that way if the concept hadn't proven to be a successful pilot.
*** That would make sense but for the fact that the alleged ImagineSpot lasts but a few seconds in real time and leads to TheStinger, "Only ten more years until Angelica is nice to us." [[MST3KMantra Of course, there's no way what they did should have worked, either.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Susie Knows Too Much?]]
* Isn't Susie a little young to know where babies really come from?
** Susie's mother is a doctor, so would probably be more willing to tell Susie the truth as opposed to dumbing things down. Also, Susie has two older siblings (a teenager and a preteen) who seemed obnoxious enough to tell Susie the reason [[note]] Alisa (the teen) is not always obnoxious, but she has her moments. [[/folder]] (and her brother Edwin is pretty much a genius, even though he believes in the tooth fairy).
** Also, for all we know she whispered into Angelica's ear something along the lines of "it grows in a mommy's tummy for 9 months and then comes out."
** I don't really think she was too young. I'm pretty sure I knew that babies came from their mom's tummy when I was in preschool, but I didn't know all the details, or how the baby got in the mom's tummy.
** I knew EVERYTHING by the time I was 5, probably earlier, with only television and an 8 year-old sister to tell me. Her older siblings would have definitely told her everything as well.
[[/folder]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Why Was Chuckie Hiding.]]

** When I was a kid conflict used to give me anxiety so I would hide in order to rid myself of the situation. I always thought Chuckie was the same.

** Susie's mother is a doctor, so would probably be more willing to tell Susie the truth as opposed to dumbing things down. Also, Susie has two teenaged siblings who seemed obnoxious enough to tell Susie the reason (and her brother Edwin is pretty much a genius, even though he believes in the tooth fairy).

** I knew EVERYTHING by the time I was 5, probably earlier, with only television and an 8 year-old sister to tell me. Her older siblings would have definitely told her everything as well

* Can Tommy talk? Everyone acts like Chuckie was the first to speak, other then Angelica and Susie, however in the earlier season Tommy would say words. It's most likely not translated baby talk either, because it barely sounds like his translated voice (it's more babyish and like a toddler speaking), and it was in the episodes where baby talk wasn't translated (just a bunch of cooing and such; for example the baseball episode).

* This is about ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'' but it doesn't have a JustBugsMe page. Why are they all pre-teens? They act like high schoolers, they're treated like high schoolers, they have high school problems, etc.

** It's pretty common in real life for parents to not specify which word they don't want the kid to say and why they don't want them to say it (often because they're reluctant to say the word in front of the kid). At 3 kids have just grasped the concept of words, but are confused about the concept of how a word can be "bad."

*** That's how I learned most of his curse words and the finger.

** It wouldn't be right for Angelica's parents not to do anything, because the child will not know that there is anything wrong with the word if you don't.

*** A lot harder than you think, when you consider Little Kid Logic. The first thing she'd say back is, "Well, ''you'' just said it!" and the inevitable questions as to "''Why'' is it such a bad word?" Some battles can never be won.

** Yeah, it's kind of like how some kids have imaginary friends. Cynthia is a parody of Barbie, and I have seen little girls talking to their Barbie dolls before. And it makes even more sense for Angelica, since she was an only child. She might've gotten bored sometimes without any siblings, so she had Cynthia

* In the episode where Angelica convinces Tommy to "go bad," one really needs to look at all the damage he caused: he busted up nearly every single window in the house some of them really badly, destroyed thousands maybe millions of dollars worth of stuff in the house, but his parents never stop and throw him in his crib for a time-out at any time in all of this?! He's a one-year old baby, not a rapid coyote or something.

* Angelica and Susie can talk to both the babies and adults. How come they never bring this up with the adults?