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1[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
2* The babies know Angelica is a big liar and enjoys tricking them, yet they continue believing her most of the time. This is because, in a case of CryingWolf, the very few times they ''don't'' take her seriously she's actually telling the truth, so they decide to play it safe and continue believing what Angelica tells them. Plus, as she starts her CharacterDevelopment, Angelica actually enjoys teaching them stuff for real, with no lying or any malicious motives for doing so - so despite everything, they see her as their mentor.
3* Season 1 episode entitled "Beauty Pageant." Why does Angelica think "Tanya" (Tommy in drag) is the cutest "girl" in the show besides Angelica herself? Because it's Tommy, and they look alike since they're related.
4** In the same episode, Phil and Lil demonstrate how they can switch identities simply depending on who wears Lil's pink bow, and part of this is the fact that Phil can perfectly imitate Lil's voice. Of course he can; they have the same voice actress!
5*** Out-of-universe. InUniverse it could be explained that they are related and the same age. It's difficult to tell a baby's gender most of the time so them switching outfits and looking just like the other is understandable.
6* In “Showdown At Teeter Totter Gulch,” Chuckie says he first met Tommy when he was eight days old. Tommy is Jewish, so Chuckie was more than likely attending Tommy’s Bris.
7* In the episode "Reptar's Revenge," the adults take the babies to a carnival. Before they go in, Didi sees a man in a Reptar costume and says, "Stu, look at that terrible lizard!" The word "Dinosaur" literally means "terrible lizard" (even though dinosaurs aren't really lizards, but that's a different story).
8* In "New Kid in Town," the babies meet Josh, who offers to let them play on "his" side of the park, seemingly liberating them from Angelica's tyrannical rule. However, Josh ends up being just as bad, if not worse. Throughout the episode, if you pay close attention, you can see that Josh differs from Angelica in his methods of intimidation. Angelica physically bullies the babies, while Josh tends to use more psychological manipulation (lying, making verbal threats, convincing the babies that he's being "fair," etc).
9** At the end of the episode, Angelica confronts Josh by launching a water balloon at him. Instead of retaliating physically, he tries to convince Angelica to take two babies while Josh keeps the other two (again, psychological vs physical). Angelica responds by throwing ANOTHER water balloon, and Josh still refuses to resort to any type of physical response. Eventually, Angelica and Josh get into a shouting match, which culminates with Angelica pushing Josh to the ground. Instead of pushing back, he cries and runs off to tell his mother, since he clearly does not like physical conflict.
10** Maybe he behaves that way because he was told that doing certain things was "fair" and therefore right, but being a toddler, he doesn't really have a sense of morality yet, so he uses things that his parents label as fair to get away with being mean.
11* In the episode "Tricycle Thief," Susie accuses Angelica of stealing her tricycle. Tommy tries to give Angelica the benefit of the doubt, and then says to look at Angelica's hands, since they'd have paint on them if she opened Susie's (recently painted) shed to steal the trike. Angelica's hands do indeed have red paint on them, just like Susie's shed. This becomes the "final nail in the coffee," and even Tommy no longer believes Angelica is possibly innocent... because she was '''literally caught red-handed'''. [[spoiler: Turns out she actually didn't do it, though.]]
12** Also, during that same episode, Susie tries to console Chuckie by saying "Angelica let go of the balloon" (which was tied to Cynthia's leg, as Susie's way of punishing Angelica for stealing her tricycle). She says "Angelica let go of the balloon the minute she opened my daddy's shed and stole my trike." As she says this, she gestures to the shed, and then to "her" tricycle (the one Angelica claimed was her own). [[spoiler: The camera pans from the shed to Angelica's tricycle, and between the two, you can actually see that Susie's tricycle is underneath her porch.]] None of the characters notice right away.
13** Further brilliance: Susie claims "Angelica let go of the balloon"--read, she sealed the consequences of her behavior once she did it [[spoiler: even though she didn't actually steal the trike.]] It isn't likely Susie, being three, would've come up with this by herself. More likely, this is a moral framework she's being raised with ("When you choose the behavior, you choose the consequences"/"don't blame others when ultimately, you did wrong." Sort of like the FridgeBrilliance related to Josh's concept of "fair," but Lucy and Randy being the GoodParents they are, better executed.
14* In "Chuckie's Wonderful Life", Chuckie is told by his guardian angel that he's such a good friend that he gives Tommy the bravery to stand up to Angelica and other bullies. Go back a season to "Rebel Without a Teddy Bear", where Angelica is loudly coercing Tommy into throwing his mother's necklace into a garbage can. Chuckie actually stands up to ''Angelica'' in order to keep Tommy from doing it.
15** There are also a few instances of Chuckie not being around, and Tommy gives in to Angelica's bullying, whereas when Chuckie is around, Tommy usually stands up to her. The logic behind this appears to be that, despite there being four of them, the main characters (at least before Dil and Kimi came along) are essentially two groups of two babies -- best friends Tommy and Chuckie, and siblings Phil and Lil. Phil and Lil could possibly be considered [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Chaotic Neutral]] characters, in the fact that they're less susceptible to Angelica's negative influence than Tommy and Chuckie, but generally have good intentions otherwise.
16** When only Tommy, Phil, and Lil are around, Tommy tends not to challenge Angelica's bullying, perhaps on the grounds that he feels like he doesn't owe it to Phil and Lil, since they have each other. When Chuckie ''is'' around, however, Tommy acts as his protector in a way. He keeps Angelica from bullying Chuckie because Angelica feeds on Chuckie's fear of her, and he's more or less helpless. This may be what the guardian angel meant when he said that Tommy ''needs'' Chuckie around to stand up to Angelica-- if Chuckie's not around, Tommy doesn't have any motivation to do so.
17** Tommy actually implies this in "Toys in Attic" with the line "Where's Chuckie when I need him?" as Angelica strong arms him into Boris and Minka's attic.
18* Adding onto "Chuckie's Wonderful Life", the scenario where Chuckie wasn't born is one part logical and one part outlandish. Both are rather appropriate.
19** The logical part? Chuckie's dad being a puppet-obsessed slob. The angel is spot on that Chas is the way he is because, as a single father, he has to set an example for Chuckie and keep house. And as for his loneliness, bear in mind [[TearJerker he's a widower at this point]], so of course he'd be desperately lonely, even if it is slightly outlandish that he has ''a puppet'' to make up for the solitude. Not having a son to fill the void would also have made Melinda's death even more devastating, which could have made Chas spiral into chronic depression (the messiness) and mental instability (the puppet).
20** The outlandish part? All the children wrecking the neighborhood and Angelica being queen of everything. Parallel to how [[ChronicHeroSyndrome George Bailey couldn't stand to see his friends suffer in Pottersville]], the angel was appealing to Chuckie's worrywart tendencies to protect his friends from a worst-case scenario.
21* Angelica's parents spoil her and while Drew has a backbone at times, he still gives in. He finally punishes her in "Runaway Angelica" and Angelica is seen being punished more often after this. It serves as a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome and CharacterDevelopment for Drew.
22* In the episode "The Dog Broomer" a subtle hint she was a fraud was her mentioning she was from various cities. At first, she says she's from Helsinki, then she says she was from Stockholm.
23** Was she a fraud? She seemed to be a legitimate dog groomer, even though she hated it and was kind of a [[{{Jerkass}} jerk]] to Spike. She also said she was from Helsinki and went to SCHOOL in Stockholm.
24** It's revealed at the end her accent is fake. Her surname Umlaut means those two dots over letters in Northern European languages, such as German. The fridge brilliance meaning that she could've been lying unless she legitimately traveled around.
25*** The other possibility is that she was trying to get potential customers by playing into the stereotype of the masterful, experienced Scandinavian stylist--notice that both cities given above, Helsinki (Finland) and Stockholm (Sweden), are in the broad Scandinavian region--and was deliberately putting on the facade of being from there for business purposes, which would explain why she flubs the city as well as the revelation of her accent being faked. No fraud required, for once.
26* The size of the characters' houses and yards change in some episodes. This is because it's seen from a baby's point of view, and they see things differently on their adventures.
27** In addition, the intro, which seems to be set in Tommy's living room, appears HUGE compared to how it's portrayed during the actual episodes. This is because the intro is from the babies' perspective, and everything is bigger to them than it is to us.
28* There's a subtle arc with Stu in the first season. In the second episode he meets the owner of Mucklehunny toys who likes his inventions and wants Stu to make toys for him. He also is working on a Patty Pants doll which he finally perfects for Mucklehunny in "Stumaker's Elves."
29* Chuckie calling a Jack in the Box a Jerk in the Box is not just the babies mispronouncing words, it's a FreudianSlip for Chuckie's fear and hatred of clowns.
30* Aunt Miriam and Angelica get along during the first episode to feature "Mim," because Angelica reminds Miriam of herself. Grandpa Lou tells Stu about how, when they were kids, Miriam threw Lou's ball over the fence into the next yard-- which is exactly what Angelica did to Tommy in the second episode. Miriam also admits that her bullying of Lou was because she envied his popularity, which can sometimes be inferred about Angelica, towards Tommy (such as at the end of "Tommy and the Secret Club").
31* In TheMovie and ''WesternAnimation/RugratsInParis'' Aunt Miriam has brown hair while she has grey hair in the show. In "A Visit From Aunt Miriam" it's established her hair is a wig, so it's a different colored wig in the same hairstyle.
32* Angelica being jealous of Susie in "Doctor Susie" if you remember that she had previously thought of herself as a doctor in "Rhinoceritis", but the babies weren't impressed, but they were impressed with Susie.
33* When Grandpa is dreaming in the camping episode he says "Dust Bowl, Shmust Bowl, I'm not moving to California." It's been established they live in California and that the Pickles aren't originally from there, so Grandpa was remembering other than going on a tangent.
34* In "A Visit From Lipschitz" after meeting the Pickles family he decides to change his style of children's psychology. He also quotes Sigmund Freud, who in real life is a case of DatedHistory due to new evidence, and it seems Lipschitz himself realized that after personal interaction with the babies.
35* In "Reptar's Revenge" we see Didi freak out when a clown approaches her. This happens right in front of Chuckie, whose legendary fear of clowns develops a few episodes down the line. Studies have suggested that phobias are caused by seeing someone else react with fear to the same thing. Without meaning to, Didi gave Chuckie his fear of clowns.
36** Maybe. Later episodes feature flashbacks of Chuckie being scared by clown-related things (a Jack in the Box and a clown head on an ice cream truck) when he was around Tommy's age or slightly younger.
37* FridgeLogic about the FridgeHorror. Plenty of episodes have a stinger that show that our hero's latest fear was real after all. Could it be that Rugrats and WesternAnimation/AaahhRealMonsters take place in the same continuity? And if so, then was Angelica able to describe the monster trio in her story because she's been scared by them before? Or since in WesternAnimation/AaahhRealMonsters it's shown that monsters exist specifically because people are scared of them, could it be that it was this very story that ''created'' them?
38** Umm why is this scary again? Oblina has made it clear that MONSTERS DO NOT EAT CHILDREN! She says "They don't know where they've been" but monsters eating other monsters is a different story...
39** Maybe WesternAnimation/AaahhRealMonsters exists as a cartoon in universe and the Rugrats didn't realize/understand that they're harmless?
40* More Aunt Miriam Brilliance: In "Aunt Miriam" Grandpa wants to go to the [[BlandNameProduct Motel Styx]] during her visit. [[StealthPun It's a play on words]] for the Hotel Six and the River Styx from the Underworld in Greek Mythology. Grandpa's saying he'd rather go to Hell than deal with her!
41* Why does Didi complain about the circus and is happy to leave in "Circus Angelicus?" She has a fear of clowns as noted in "Reptar's Revenge."
42* The "All Growed Up" special showed Didi's dismay over Spike having gained a lot of weight and other health issues over the years, and she doesn't know why. She's making a breakfast of bacon and eggs for Tommy, and Tommy secretly passes the bacon on to Spike. Why? Because bacon isn't kosher, so Tommy doesn't want to eat it.
43** Even more Brilliance -- although ''Didi'' is the Jewish parent, she clearly isn't that heavy into her faith. We only ever see the family engage in Jewish customs when Boris and Minka are around -- which suggests Didi only does Jewish things to please her parents. Which explains why she's even cooking bacon in the first place.
44** Shellfish isn’t kosher, either. Yet in an older Rugrats episode, she was serving clam chowder at a barbecue. Granted nobody actually ate it because it spilled, but it does imply that Didi is a more casual Jew than her parents.
45* A RunningGag is that Chuckie is scared of the guy on the Quaker Oats box. Quakers wear funny clothes so Chuckie must think he's a clown, which is one of his biggest fears.
46** He might be scared of the clowns ''because'' of the clothes, because he does call him "The Guy On The Oatmeal Box ''With the Scary Hat''".
47* The episode "Angelica for a Day" opens with a spoiled girl yelling at her dad to get her ice cream, and Drew says, "I wouldn't want to be in his shoes." The joke here is that Drew ''does'' have a spoiled daughter, but Angelica rarely screams at her dad like that, she acts sweeter around him to get her own way. She's more of a SpoiledBrat around the babies.
48* In the movies, we see that Angelica likes songs from the 1970s and early 80s like "Morning After" from ''Film/ThePoseidonAdventure'', "One Way or Another" by Blondie, and Donna Summers' "Bad Girls." We saw in the Valentines Day episode during the decade dance, Charlotte was dressed in 80s attire. We also know that Angelica is impressionable and copied a scene from ''Film/TheGodfather'' in ''WesternAnimation/RugratsInParis''. Due to ComicBookTime by the time the movies and that episode aired, we can say that Charlotte grew up around that era and Angelica was copying her and introduced to this music by her.
49* ''All Growed Up'' and ''All Grown Up'' show a stark contrast in personalities and fashion. Everyone resembles their infant selves more (except for Susie whose afro was replaced with braids, similar to her younger version), Tommy was adventurous and had no passion for directing, Lil was still into gross stuff, etc. This is because ''All Growed Up'' - reflecting to its childish, misspoken name - is framed as an ImagineSpot the babies are having. The babies, having little real-world experience, can’t imagine being any different, so their “growed-up” tween selves are the same as they are, just physically older. ''All Grown Up'', on the other hand, doesn’t have this framing device, meaning it’s an objective look at how they ''actually'' turned out a decade after the original series ended. Besides, how many people keep the same personality and wants from infancy to their teenage years?
50* The Passover episode seems to {{Bowdlerise}} the last plague (changing it from "death of everyone's first born child" to [[NeverSayDie "firstborn child is 'taken away'"]]). But then you remember that in-universe Boris is telling the story to the babies, Angelica, [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Chaz]]. Of ''course'' he's censoring it - there are little kids (and a sensitive adult) listening to the story!
51* While it would seem rather strange that a girl Susie's age would know where human babies come from, take into consideration that her mom, Lucy, is a doctor, and one of the fields of medicine she practices is obstetrics--it can be assumed that she probably felt Susie should know the truth and not just silly lies.
52* Chuckie has a shirt with a planet on it, and one episode revealed that his favorite show is a SpinoffBabies version of a parody of Star Trek. The planet on his shirt may be a planet that appeared on that show.
53* The fact that Tommy and Dil Pickles' mother is Jewish makes them [[StealthPun Kosher Pickles.]]
54* In the episode "Angelica Nose Best," Angelica attempts to shrink her nose back to normal by telling truths, such as that the sky is blue, playgrounds are fun, and Grandpa Lou is old. The reason why this doesn't work (besides the obvious) is that those truths are all subjective or only half-truths (i.e. the sky is not always blue, not everyone finds playgrounds enjoyable, and not everyone would consider Lou elderly), as opposed to the objective, whole truth she tells when she admits to her wrong-doings.
55* In the Mega Diaper Babies episode, Lil imagines herself as 'Dotted Line Girl'. The real superhero's power is invisibility, which on the ShowWithinAShow is represented with a dotted line around the character. Of course Lil being one year old would see it literally, thinking the dotted line made her invisible.
56* Rewatching the Melville episode, the reason behind Melville's passing suddenly became very clear. Chuckle accidentally smothered Melville when he put that little blanket over him.
57* According to the Mother's Day special, Tommy was born a premature kid, and previously, in the show, Angelica mentioned that, when Tommy was born, the whole family went crazy for him and couldn't think about anything else. Tommy and Didi obviously required special attention for some time, and this probably kickstarted Angelica's animosity against him, seeing Tommy and other babies in general as kids that steal her spotlight and her family's attention without even trying.
58* In the "Mirrorland" episode, Chuckie tells the younger babies that mirrors are portals to another world where everything is the same but backwards. It's understandable that a 2-year-old would sincerely believe this, but where would he get the idea? Well, what's his favorite show? ''Space Trek Babies'' -- they must have had a MirrorUniverse episode just like [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original]].
59* In "Babysitting Fluffy," Angelica tells the babies that Fluffy needs to be brushed "at least a zillion times a day". This may sound like she's just pampering, but Fluffy is a Persian. As a breed of cat that sheds a ''lot'', Persians really ''do'' need to be brushed daily.
60* It's established on several occasions that Drew and Charlotte want to be firm with Angelica and not spoil her so much, but just don't have the spines to stand up to her inevitable tantrums. This is why Angelica only gets a dime from the "tooth fairy" for her first lost tooth--they know it's a rare opportunity for them to be frugal with Angelica and get away with it, since she doesn't know that they're the ones responsible for the disappointing reward.
61* In the episode "Garage Sale," Stu shows Didi his old disco suit, which she points out he hasn't worn since 1977. A later episode, "Sour Pickles," reveals that Stu was born in 1958, the Rugrats wiki even stating that he was born in October of 1958. How much do you wanna bet that Stu wore that disco suit to his senior prom?
62* In "Chuckie vs. the Potty", Stu reveals that he wasn't potty trained when he was two. However, Stu, eccentric as he is, doesn't seem to be having any developmental delays when we see him in the past, and usually kids potty train at four at the latest. Maybe Stu was potty trained at age three or four, but still wet the bed for a while afterward?
63** Related to “Chuckie vs. the Potty”. In “Potty Training Spike”, it’s revealed that Chuckie has a ShyBladder and can’t go if other people are watching. Now, remember in “Chuckie vs. the Potty”, the first time he had to go, Stu and Didi watched him nearly the whole time, and he didn’t go until his body finally gave up on him, which is also when they were asleep. When he had to go after having his nightmare, he was alone and didn’t seem to have any trouble going. To summarise, he might have even had a ShyBladder back then.
64* In one of the promotional Christmas songs, parodying "The 12 Days of Christmas" and about what the babies saw on TV, Lil's line is "Some guy-- what a Scrooge!". While the joke is likely that she was watching ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' and that she doesn’t know who Scrooge is despite knowing the ''expression'' “Scrooge”, she could have also been watching [[YetAnotherChristmasCarol a parody of the original story]]. If that were the case, Lil could know who Scrooge was, and the guy being put in his role would still be just "some guy" to Lil.
65* Stu calls Tommy "Champ" throughout the series because Tommy survived being born premature, as revealed in the Mother's Day Special.
66* Chas is allergic to cats, while Chuckie is allergic to dandelions, and they both speak with NerdyNasalness. The tendency to have allergies can be genetic, so Chuckie probably inherited it from his father.
67* [[TheCameo Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm]] were about to eat the kids in "Ghost Story", [[AdaptationalVillainy as opposed to how in their own show, monsters find eating humans to be disgusting.]] The reason being they're in an ImagineSpot from the view of a human (Angelica probably added them in), and it's their job is to scare humans. Assuming they ''do'' exist in the Rugrats world and scared Angelica, she probably jumped to the conclusion that they'd eat her or other humans.
68* I found it weird how Reptar is portrayed as a hero, [[DestructiveSaviour yet he constantly wrecks buildings for no reason other than they were in his way.]] Then it hit me, he's aimed at babies and toddlers. Kids that young aren't going to question that nearly as much as adults would.
69** Not to mention a character that has the size and power to smash down anything at whim is obviously gonna be a hero from the perspective of a destructive toddler.
70* Why would Susie's Reptar Cereal Bars taste so disgusting? Well, if you'd listened to Stu reading their ingredients in "Reptar on Ice", you'd understand why.
71* The TV shows the babies act out in "Kid TV" very likely reflect the shows their parents watch.
72** Tommy acts out a game show, not unlike the one his mother was previously on.
73** Phil and Lil act out a soap opera, something both [[InTouchWithHisFeminineSide Howard]] and [[LargeHam Betty]] are likely fans of.
74** Chuckie acts out the evening news, something Chas, a well-known worrywart, likely prefers to keep up to date with.
75** Angelica acts out a lot of things, including an infomercial, a spy show, and a parody of "COPS"—as the oldest of the bunch, Angelica’s the only one who’s allowed to watch TV unsupervised, so her viewing experience is likely more varied than that of the babies.
76* Near the end of “The Trial”, Tommy suddenly realizes something’s up with Angelica's alibi, asking her “Didn’t you already take a nap this morning before you came over?” His question ''seems'' to come out of nowhere (there’s no mention or foreshadowing of Angelica having already taken a nap in the episode), but when you stop and think about it, it ''does'' make sense: he either knows that she takes her naps early, or overheard her parents quickly warning Didi that she’d already taken a nap and not to let her take another when they dropped her off at the house (since no sane parent would want their kid potentially staying up all night). Either way, this means Tommy asking Angelica if she’d already taken a nap isn’t an AssPull - ''he's SpottingTheThread!''
77* In "The Shot", Chuckie gives Tommy a horror story from his trauma about getting the aforementioned booster shot. At first, it seems like Chuckie's among the kids who "can't take it." However, on rewatch, the shot itself is the most fleeting part of his story (Chuckie even seems to briefly stop screaming when it's given), {{Foreshadowing}} that Chuckie was scared more of the overall atmosphere of the hospital rather than the actual injection.
78* In "The Odd Couple", Chuckie is insistent that his blocks be lined up in order of size, to the point where Tommy even does CopycatMockery over his "big to small" line. However, considering Chuckie's age and personality, this quirk makes sense. Toddlers often go through a phase where they enjoy organising and sorting things, and it's said to be to give them a sense of control. Not only is Chuckie at just the right age, his NervousWreck personality means that it would make perfect sense for him to want a sense of control.
79* In "Mother's Day," it might seem like FridgeLogic that Tommy, Phil and Lil [[NoInfantileAmnesia remember being newborns]] but Chuckie doesn't. But in hindsight, it makes sense: Chuckie is a year older than the other three, so his infantile amnesia is starting to set in while theirs hasn't yet. This might also explain why Chuckie sometimes mentions his mom in earlier episodes. Back then he still remembered her, but over time those memories faded.
80
81[[AC:FridgeHorror]]
82* A lot of the problems the babies face (or think they face) don't make anyone over the age of around 14 bat an eyelash, since we know that most of the things they think are simply wrong and not factual. But imagine things from their perspective, thinking that everything they fear had happened/will happen ''could actually happen''. Imagine thinking you really ''did'' [[spoiler: turn your cousin to stone, and then the motionless statue of her ''shattered'' into dozens of pieces, undoubtedly killing her.]] Imagine truly believing that swallowing a watermelon seed really will cause a full-sized watermelon to grow inside you and fatally rupture your stomach or that there was an actual, realistic possibility that you could be sucked down your bathtub drain. The Rugrats must have been scared shitless during half of the series. When you think about this, it's pretty remarkable how brave Tommy is despite how scary his life is. Or maybe he just doesn't know he ''should'' be scared.
83* If the NostalgiaFilter hasn't fully fogged up your vision of past cable cartoons, try watching ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' now in a time where people are ''much'' more careful when it comes to the safety of children. [[SocialServicesDoesNotExist Shudder at the many instances of neglect. Gasp at the fact that the only thing saving the babies from being crushed, burned, exposed to the elements, abducted, starved, eaten, cut to ribbons, drowned, or permanently traumatized was dumb luck or their dim-bulb parents eventually realizing they were missing.]] What would've happened if the parents were too late to realize where the babies were whenever they went off somewhere? One must also consider the many instances in which Angelica plays on the babies' naiveté and paranoia in order to torment/scare them, for fun or for profit. And considering this all happens to them while they're still quite young, what negative effects will this have on their mental health when they get older?
84** The entire movie is especially horrifying. Most parents would be slow to give an infant Hot Wheels for fear that he might eat it. Stu gives them what is essentially a ''go-kart.'' This ended in the worst case possible. And what's worse is that Stu's original design had the Reptar Wagon ''breathing fire!'' Imagine buying what you think is a fun toy for your toddler, only for it to give them third-degree burns!
85** The episode "Together At Last" is especially notable. Both sets of babies manage to easily sneak out of the house. Tommy, Lil, and Chuckie sneak out through the kitchen door while Didi is too busy cooking, and Phil easily gets out of the playpen while Betty is in the other room. Phil climbs ''on top of a fence'' and falls off. If it weren't a cartoon, he could have been seriously injured. He's also left alone with Spike and actually forces the dog's mouth open. Yeah if this weren't a cartoon...that probably wouldn't go down too well. And by the end, neither Betty nor Didi noticed that the babies had left.
86** There actually ''was'' an episode where Tommy was kidnapped. The kidnappers returned him by the end of the episode, though.
87* The episode "Chuckie's Wonderful Life" shows that without Chuckie, [[BrokenBird Chas is a mess,]] living alone in his house surrounded by empty pizza boxes and talking to a sock puppet. It gets worse when you realize that his wife (Chuckie's mother) died of an unmentioned disease (according to the Mother's Day special episode). And since Chas doesn't have a kid, he wouldn't be as close to the other parents and therefore would have no friends to help him through his wife's illness and his own mental breakdown.
88** The episode implies that Chuckie was the only thing standing between Chas and [[SanitySlippage sanity slippage]]. What better motivator to keep it together than the completely helpless human being you brought into the world with [[TheLostLenore the love you just lost?]]
89** While it's comically blown into fantastic levels, some of the depictions, abiding by the show's CharacterDevelopment, aren't grossly inaccurate. Chas is a NervousWreck who frequently displays emotional dependency on Chuckie, Tommy, as the guardian angel emphasizes, uses Chuckie as a LivingEmotionalCrutch. In contrast, Phil and Lil are often rambunctious and selfish when the others aren't around to keep them in line. Angelica is already a SpoiledBrat, but her moments of humility from the babies formed most of her CharacterDevelopment into having any real redeeming aspects. Chuckie genuinely ''is'' pivotal to the lives of several people.
90** If in the BadFuture, Angelica felt the need to take over Tommy's house and make his parents her constant guardians and slaves, it brings into question, just what did this Angelica do to Drew and Charlotte?
91*** All Grown Up (thankfully) fixed this, but imagine somebody as borderline sociopathic as [[EnfanteTerrible Angelica]] as a teenager or even an adult.
92*** Calling Angelica sociopathic, even borderline, goes a bit too far, as she is only three. But yes, it would be terrifying to imagine how a child like Angelica, who receives little to no discipline whatsoever, would be as a teen or adult.
93*** Hell this episode exemplifies Angelica at her very worst, acting as a BadSamaritan and convincing Chuckie the world is worse off from his existing, seemingly just for a cruel laugh. This is a ''three year old'' posing as a sadistic and horrifically competent psychological bully that has broken one of her victims' will to live. An older, cleverer, and even nastier Angelica would potentially be responsible for multiple suicides.
94*** There is an [[Series/MySuperSweetSixteen entire reality show]] that's basically dedicated to that.
95*** Had Angelica not mellowed out of messing with the babies' heads by the time of ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'', it's very possible she would've become a [[DistaffCounterpart female version]] of [[Literature/{{Durarara}} Izaya]] [[{{Troll}} Orihara]].
96* In the episode "Toy Palace" there is a ''real, working time machine,'' set up as a ChekhovsGun for the episode. In the Rugrats universe, not only is time travel possible, ''it's meant as a toy for children.'' Even worse, it's seen sending a toy robot to the Revolutionary War, meaning that A.) Tommy and Chuckie (who are only one and two years old) were nearly sent into the middle of a bloody battle with possibly no way back, and B.) The toy robot might have caused an alien paranoia. That same toy store also sells a toy with a nuclear reactor in it.
97** FridgeBrilliance leading off of this: the existence of time travel explains all the gross negligence on the parent's part, as well as explaining away the ComicbookTime nature of the show.
98* From the "New Kid in Town" episode, Josh's game "Pillow" involves him attempting to jump on the babies from the swings. If Angelica hadn't stepped in when she did, the little bastard could've [[AccidentalMurder killed them]].
99* In the movie and (possibly) the episode "Barbecue Story" one or all of the babies are in danger of getting mauled to death by animals and are only saved due to Spike. In Barbecue Story a neighbor's dog (who might just be intimidatingly friendly) and in the movie, definitely would be eaten by a wolf.
100* One episode had Angelica trying to rip Chuckie's teeth out to get money from the {{tooth fairy}}. Just imagine Angelica succeeding, and the parents finding Chuckie toothless and covered in blood...
101* It has already been established that Phil and Lil eat bugs. With their parents' neglect in each episode, how would anyone know if they were to eat a poisonous insect? This is especially apparent in the crossover with WesternAnimation/TheWildThornberrys, where there are numerous unfamiliar insects that could very well be poisonous. If Lil hadn't insisted on the two of them being vegetarians during that movie, it might have meant death for the twins.
102** On the note of the babies eating bugs, that is rather normal as babies do put things in their mouth to see what it is and, if they like the taste or commonly the feel, they'll be more inclined to eat it, nothing to worry about. On the note of the poisonous insects, well, that would be normal, too, if you take into account no one really expects babies to eat the bugs, be they poisonous or not.
103*** It is something to worry about when it's dangerous. A lot of babies swallow and taste things they shouldn't, such as poisons or small objects.
104* In "Special Delivery" [[FreezeFrameBonus pausing at the right moment]] right before Tommy almost takes a tumble into the Dead Letter Office [[http://rugratsrecaps.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/special-delivery-34.jpg reveals the skeletonized remains of someone in uniform.]] Either A: This guy fell in accidentally and starved to death or B: The poor bastard was murdered and someone tossed his body in the Dead Letter Office to hide it.
105** What makes this even scarier to think about is that, if it weren't for his dumb luck, Tommy would've suffered the same fate. And even worse than that? Stu and Didi didn't know he was even at the post office. They never would have found out what happened to him.
106** To be fair, though, the horror may be mitigated by the fact that that skeleton [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking may just be a discarded Halloween decoration]].
107* The end of "Garage Sale" shows that pretty much everything in the Pickles house was sold, including the furniture. We can only hope that Didi and Stu made enough money from the sale to be able to replace everything...
108** Considering StatusQuoIsGod, everything is back to normal in the next episode. Either they made enough or managed to explain it to people who came to the sale.
109* In "I Remember Melville", Chuckie, distraught over Melville dying, deludes himself into believing that the bug is still alive. Eventually, he even uses Melville's clearly dead body to do "circus tricks" and such.
110** [[MummiesAtTheDinnerTable ...Imagine if Chuckie was an adult and Melville was a person]].
111** Chuckie is only two. He ''will'' forget Melville in time, probably relatively quickly.
112** FridgeBrilliance: Chuckie is two, and two-year-olds often ''genuinely think'' that if they wish hard enough for something, it will make it true (for instance, throwing a tantrum and demanding an orange despite Mommy insisting she doesn't have any oranges). Developmentally speaking, it was perfectly normal for Chuckie to think that if he wished Melville were alive, he would be.
113* An InUniverse example in "The Odd Couple". Tommy asks Chuckie how green Jell-O is made to be green. Chuckie brushes it off and tells Tommy to go to sleep. Seconds later, his eyes widen, and he asks himself "How ''do'' they make it green?"
114* Rugrats was one of the most popular kids' shows in America back when it was still running, mostly in the late '90's. Angelica, a young bully, was not only a major character, but also one of the most popular characters in the series. Bullying became a ''huge'' problem amongst children in the late 90's going onward. You do the math.
115** In all fairness, she's three, and, through some means or another, she doesn't know any better. That aside, however, the ones she's picking on are babies, who, thankfully, won't remember.
116* An InUniverse example in "Sleep Trouble". Chuckie stays over at Tommy's house, and Stu tells them both a story about the Sand Man. Chuckie wakes Tommy up on the realization that if the Sand Man puts too much sand in their eyes, they'd be buried. Even Tommy is scared of the idea of a potential intruder slipping through cracks and burying them in sleep sand.
117* In some episodes, like "Babies in Toyland", Angelica's {{Imagine Spot}}s involve a figure that she's pretending is there giving her a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech; essentially, she's telling ''herself'' that she's a selfish brat. This, coupled with her confession in ''Rugrats in Paris'' seems to suggest that on some level she ''knows'' how awful she can be and [[BeingEvilSucks absolutely hates it]]. [[TheWoobie Poor girl]].
118* "The Last Babysitter". A subtler one happens early on: Buster goes into the basement, then runs out, saying that something was down there. We briefly get a POV from something coming after him, just before the door is closed. While it's later revealed that the so-called monster was actually Buster's friend, it's pointed out that a monster couldn't get out of the basement without being noticed. If that's so, then what was in the basement chasing Buster in the first place?
119** Maybe a raccoon or possum, if not a stray dog or cat that got into the basement through some entrance into the basement (as does occasionally happen). Alternatively, it was really nothing and he was either imagining things or was just playing along with a prank his friend was playing.
120* In "Angelica Breaks a Leg", one scene shows Angelica watching television while resting her "broken" leg. We never actually see what she's watching, but we do hear it: it's the sound of gunshots, and for some reason, it makes Angelica burst out in laughter...
121** Maybe she thinks it was a cartoon?
122* The ThanksgivingEpisode begins with an ImagineSpot inspired by the first Thanksgiving, starring the babies as the Native Americans. The IntendedAudienceReaction likely involved finding this adorable, but it becomes less so if the viewers instead imagine the babies falling victim to infanticide.
123** Or to smallpox, even. Really, the Native Americans gave as good as they got.
124* In some early {{Imagine Spot}}s from Chuckie's perspective, he tends to see himself a CosmicPlaything and his so-called friends being unsympathetic or outright worsening things for him. "Chuckie vs The Potty" is possibly the darkest, where he sees Angelica as his executioner, Phil and Lil as ChaoticNeutral guards dragging him to face his punishment, and Tommy as a pious priest apathetically telling him [[CharacterCatchphrase not to be such a baby]]. This actually doesn't seem too far off how he is treated in real-life episodes such as "The Alien" (where Phil and Lil are very easily swayed into helping Angelica terrorize him) or "Farewell My Friend" (which was the last straw for him, leading him to call out Tommy on his selfish treatment). Noticeably Tommy genuinely mellowed out afterwards and other perspective moments from Chuckie tend to view him more favourably, if not extremely idealistically (eg. TheMovie).
125* Tying into this, Stu and Drew are ''constantly'' at each other's throats, with Stu constantly treating Drew as a BigBrotherBully. The one time we see the two as kids however is "Sour Pickles", Stu is a GenerationXerox of Tommy, while Drew is one of Chuckie, only ''slightly'' more assertive, as in calls Stu out on his BS, makes him do his own dirty work or take turns playing the games ''he'' wants, which Stu acts ''aggressively'' forced upon towards. Stu resents Drew because he won't give him youngest child privileges. This is mirrored in several instances where Chuckie finally draws the line for Tommy or makes him act more considerate (eg. "The Unfair Pair", "Farewell My Friend"), with Tommy shortly losing his temper or reevaluating his friendship with Chuckie. Is Chuckie usually being an ExtremeDoormat the only thing placating Tommy from acting like a SpoiledBrat and viewing Chuckie as his enemy rather than his best friend?
126* The end of "Rhinoceritis!"'s B plot reveals that Stu is ''over 32 thousand dollars in debt''. No wonder he's so desperate to put Pickles Toys on the map throughout the series!
127* In "Chuckie vs. the Potty", Lou says that Stu was potty trained so late that he almost wasn't allowed into the Boy Scouts. Bear in mind, the real life Boy Scouts of America has a minimum age of ''ten''. It may be possible that Lou was exaggerating (or just plain lying, or referring to bed wetting), though.
128* In the same episode, Chuckie says that potty training is the worst experience he's had since his mom put him on the bottle. Since his mom died when he was still a very young baby, she may have weaned him from breastfeeding early because her illness made her unable to breastfeed, and/or because she knew she was going to die soon.
129* At one point in "Angelica Nose Best", Angelica eats a bunch of chocolate and blames it on her cat Fluffy, and the adults believe her and put Fluffy in time-out. Keeping in mind that chocolate is toxic to cats (especially in large amounts), there's surprisingly little reaction from the adults to the fact that Fluffy may have severely or even fatally poisoned herself; one would at least expect them to call a vet or a poison control number, if not take Fluffy to an emergency clinic. Thankfully, Fluffy didn't actually eat any chocolate, but if she had, the adults may have ended up dooming her.
130* In "Vacation", if Didi had been one second too late saving Tommy from opening the white tigers' cage, he would have been either mauled to death or eaten.
131* In "Grandpa's Bad Bug" the babies, thinking Lou has a "bad bug" inside him, tried to lure it out with rotten food from a picnic that was in Phil's diaper. Lou is lucky he didn't get food poisoning from this, or worse, he could have died. The babies could have killed Tommy's grandfather thinking they were saving him!
132* In "Mother's Day", Tommy reveals the first time he saw his mom... was when he was in an incubator. While it is heartwarming at the ending, if you stop to think about it, a premature baby of Tommy's size might have had his life hanging by a thread. You read that correctly: Stu and Didi came ''very close'' to OutlivingOnesOffspring!
133* Stu getting amnesia and thinking he's a baby in "Regarding Stuie" is already kind of scary, but it becomes even scarier at the realisation that Didi was never aware of her husband's amnesia. Imagine how horrified she would have been if she had seen him before he was cured: her husband unable to speak (since babies can't talk to grownups) and toddling around, playing with Tommy's toys and babbling like a one-year-old.
134* The climax of "Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing", where [[ItMakesSenseInContext Tommy is in the bathroom]] and he keeps ''almost'' falling... It isn't scary as a kid, but to an adult, that whole scene is terrifying; what with the fear of walking into the bathroom to find your baby dead on the floor, with [[BodyHorror his skull cracked open]]. Oh- also, babies' skulls are very soft.[[note]]The soft spot at the back of their head goes away at two months, but a one-year-old's skull is still softer than an adult's.[[/note]]
135* Angelica leaving the window open in "Slumber Party" becomes scarier if you realise that one-year-olds die of hypothermia more easily than older people, so Angelica could have accidentally killed Tommy.
136* In "Down the Drain", there's Tommy and Chuckie trying to plug up the bathtub drain with Play-Doh, Tommy climbing in and out of the tub and almost falling over! Two babies left unattended in a bathroom is always a terrifying thought.
137* The horror in "The Inside Story" of Angelica trying to make the watermelon seed grow in Chuckie's stomach ("I wanna see Chuckie's tummy go kaboom!") is mitigated by the fact that it's [[AllJustADream all just Chuckie's dream.]] But the fridge horror is that this is how Chuckie views Angelica. Her bullying makes him so afraid of her that in his dream, he imagines her trying to kill him just for fun!
138* The subplot of "Cooking with Susie" has Stu trying to get his Doorstopper 3000 invention to work, and Didi lying about what she really thinks about it. This prompts him to continue working on it, with increasingly disastrous results. The horror sets in when his third attempt sends a door ''flying through the roof and onto the sidewalk''. Imagine if someone had been walking past the Pickles' house at that exact moment. Didi's "little white lie" could have very well ended up ''killing someone''.
139
140[[AC: Fridge Sadness]]
141* In "Let Them Eat Cake," throughout the wedding, Chas is shown crying his eyes out. At first glance, this just seems to show how sensitive he is. But in hindsight, it seems likely that he was remembering his own wedding and missing his late wife.

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