The seventh episode of the second season of Rugrats (1991).
Let There Be Light
When the power goes out all around the neighborhood, the babies try to find where the light went.
The Bank Trick
Tommy and Chuckie search for candy at a bank, and unwittingly foil the plan of two crooks masquerading as bank examiners.
"Let There Be Light" provides examples of:
- Big Blackout: Stu's Anti-gravity Playpen uses so much power, that it causes a blackout all around the neighborhood.
- Captain Obvious: Didi, after Stu causes a neighborhood-wide blackout.Didi: Stu, honey! All the lights in the house are off!
Stu: I'm aware of that, Deed! - Continuity Nod: One of the things that formed a scary shadow was Tommy's Grizzlies baseball uniform.
- Contrived Coincidence: When the power goes out, Tommy believes the light to be hiding in the refrigerator, remembering a midnight feeding from when he was only a few months old. He and his friends go down to the kitchen, and Stu fixes the power just as the babies open the refrigerator.
- Didn't Think This Through: When Phil and Lil come to Tommy's house, they find Tommy and Chuckie hiding under Tommy's blanket because it's dark outside. Phil and Lil remind the pair that it's also dark under the blanket.
- Fine, You Can Just Wait Here Alone: After Tommy, Phil and Lil decide to go to the refrigerator in hopes to find the light, Chuckie refuses to go out of fear of the dark.Chuckie: (from under his blanket) I'm not going! Not this time! This isn't just your regular plain-old scary, Tommy, this is the dark! No light at all, not even a night light! No, Tommy, I'm staying right here!Tommy: Okay, Chuckie. Whatever you say.(The other three go off, leaving Chuckie alone in Tommy's dark bedroom)Chukie: (panicking and running after them under his blanket) Wait, wait! You're not gonna leave me! Wait! I'm coming too!
- Flashback: We get one for Tommy, seeing for the first time as a baby baby, when he explains why he believes Light lives in the refrigerator.
- Power Outage Plot: When Stu's anti-gravity playpen causes a blackout, the babies decide to go to the fridge, since they think that's where light comes from.
- Safe Under Blankets: Chuckie is afraid of the dark and hides under his blanket... but then, he realises that it's dark under there, too.
- Scary Shadow Fakeout: Chuckie believes that there are closet monsters everywhere when he sees scary-looking shadows. Tommy turns on his flashlight, revealing the shadows to be made by his Grizzlies baseball uniform, his toys, and a tree branch.
- Tempting Fate: After Tommy reveals the shadows not to belong to scary monsters, Chuckie suddenly stops being scared. Unfortunately, just afterwards, the batteries in Tommy's flashlight run out.
- Title Drop: Stu does this near the end of the episode, just before he turns the power back on.Stu: And Stu said, "Let There Be Light!"
"The Bank Trick" provides examples of:
- Accidental Hero: Chuckie accidentally triggers the bank's alarm which gets the fake bank examiners arrested.
- Accidental Misnaming: The Bank Manager accidentally refers to Didi as "Didi Pridklers", and this leads to Didi accidentally writing it on her new application form.
- Adults Are Useless: When the ATM eats Didi's card, the Bank Manager makes Didi fill out a form for a new one. Didi is so busy trying to fill out her form, that she doesn't notice that Tommy and Chuckie are not with her, and are wandering around the bank. Not only that, none of the bank's staff are aware of Tommy and Chuckie wandering around the bank.
- An Aesop:
- Bring something like a toy or a coloring book to keep your kids occupied so they don't misbehave.
- Just because someone acts like they are an authority figure, doesn't always mean they are.
- Chekhov's Gag: Early in the episode, Mr. Lowe informs the Bank Examiners about the red buttons connected to the Police Station, automatically alerting the Police if a robbery is in progress if one is pressed. Chuckie accidentally steps on one of the buttons near the end of the episode, and the Police arrest the Bank Examiners, who are really crooks they had been after for years.
- Contrived Coincidence: While wandering the bank for M&M's, Chuckie unintentionally sets off a burglary alarm, and when the police show up, it turns out that the "bank examiners" are actually crooks the police had been after for years.
- Faint in Shock: When Mrs. Trencherman sees that her jewels are missing from her deposit box,note she shrieks and passes out.Tommy: Hmm. Must be her naptime.
- Innocently Insensitive: Didi tries to console Lou after the babies ruin his by-mail chess game, believing he can put it back together and saying: "After all, how many combinations can those little pieces make?". Lou just sobs inconsolably, and Didi decides to leave him alone after that on "time out".
- Malaproper: Tommy mistakes "ATM Machine" for "M&M Machine", which leads him and Chuckie to search the bank for M&Ms.
- Manly Tears: Lou breaks down sobbing after Tommy and Chuckie accidentally ruin his by-mail chess game and Didi's attempts to console him make him feel worse.
- Never My Fault: When two security guards see the mess Tommy and Chuckie made in the vault, one of them walks through the laser beams without shutting them off. He then accuses his partner Bruno of being the one who did it. When the vault shuts him in, Bruno walks off and leaves him in there.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: The female robber is disguised as a male "bank examiner" and is referred to by using male pronouns, even though the audience can tell she's not really a man.
- That Came Out Wrong: Mrs. Trencherman becomes enraged when Mr. Lowe tells the "bank examiners" that she was one of the bank's oldest customers. He actually meant "old" in the sense that she had been with the bank longer than other customers rather than her age. Unfortunately, she slams the door in his face before he could explain the misunderstanding.
- Why We Can't Have Nice Things: In the opening of the episode, Tommy and Chuckie are seen playing with chess figures. Unfortunately, they were for a chess game Lou had been playing by mail for fifteen months.Lou: They went and destroyed it in 15 seconds!
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: Tommy and Chuckie mistake "ATM machine" for "M&M machine," and explore the bank that Didi took them to, looking for candy. Eventually, they find their way into the banks "secure" storage vault, and look through large bags of money, discarding all of the cash as "green wrapping paper."
- "You!" Exclamation: Mr. Lowe says "You" in a flabbergasted tone to the phony bank examiners after he learns the truth from the police and takes back the money they intended to steal.
