The first episode of the fifth season of Rugrats (1991). It's also the last episode to feature David Doyle as the voice of Grandpa Lou before his death. Appropriately, both segments are A Day in the Limelight for Grandpa.
Grandpa's Bad Bug
Grandpa Lou lies about being sick (having a "bad bug", to be specific), but when the babies try to help him get better, their actions make him think karma has it out for him.
Lady Luck
Grandpa Lou takes the kids to a (rather dull) senior center for bingo night, and in the search for "Lady Luck", who the babies think is an actual person, they end up making things much more fun for the seniors.
"Grandpa's Bad Bug" provides examples of:
- An Aesop: Mentioned in the rhyme Stu remembers Lou saying to him when he was a kid:If a promise you don't keep
It will haunt you in your sleep.
And as you lie beneath your quilt,
You'll have a conscience full of guilt. - Beyond the Impossible: Grandpa Lou claims that he used to stay up for fifteen days in a row and liked it. However, one hard-to-beat record for the most time without sleep is 264 hours, or eleven days, which was an extreme. After about a week, a person would hallucinate due to the lack of REM sleep. After less than two weeks, a person would experience brain damage, possibly permanent. It's pretty impossible for him to do this, much less enjoy it. It is possible that he is exaggerating with the number 15.
- Hypocrite: Grandpa Lou told Stu about the dangers of breaking promises, but in this episode, he breaks a promise.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Upon seeing the bugs on his bed (the babies having placed them there as "good bugs" to get rid of his "bad bug"), Grandpa Lou fears that karma's out to get him, so he runs downstairs and confesses to Stu and Didi that he broke his promise to them.
- Noodle Incident: The last time he visited the lodge, Grandpa Lou was so tired he couldn't get out of bed for a week.
- Playing Sick: Grandpa Lou pretends to have a bug in his stomach as an excuse for staying in bed after staying up late. The babies, overhearing this, think that he ate a bad bug, and so try to remove it.
- Rhymes on a Dime: See An Aesop above.
- Tastes Like Feet: When the babies try to lure the "bad bug" out of Grandpa Lou's stomach by placing old picnic food on his face, the old food falls into his mouth, causing him to choke. When Stu comes up, Lou complains that the food tastes like a sweaty sock.
"Lady Luck" provides examples of:
- Bleak Abyss Retirement Home: The episode revolves around a senior center where its denizens are kept from having any fun, its manager believing that senior citizens are only happy when they are quiet and relaxed. Thanks to the babies, however, things turn into a riot, and the seniors are soon letting out their inner youths.
- Doting Grandparent: Grandpa Lou decides to take his grandson and the other babies to the senior center, having promised to look after them while Stu and Didi were out for the night.
- Games of the Elderly: Lou takes the babies to the senior center for bingo night. At first, none of his numbers are called, but as soon as the babies find the female manager, whom they believe to be "Lady Luck," Lou's numbers begin to be called, and when she arrives, he gets a bingo.
- Literal-Minded: Upon hearing Grandpa Lou say he's "got a date with Lady Luck tonight," Tommy assumes that Lady Luck is a woman whom Lou is in love with and so decides to find her.
- Rule of Symbolism: In the boring senior center, none of Lou's numbers are called. But as soon as the babies find the female manager, Lou's numbers begin to be called, and when she arrives, he gets a bingo!
- Trail of Bread Crumbs: The babies leave a trail of bingo chips from the bingo room onward as they look for "Lady Luck."
