The nineteenth episode of the sixth season of Rugrats (1991).
The families go to a drive-in theater so the babies can watch the new Reptar movie. When the babies see Reptar being evil in the movie, they imagine themselves going into the movie to find out why.
"Runaway Reptar" provides examples of:
- Action Pet: Spunky Girl Reporter Pam's dog, Fritzy, who is the one flying the news chopper.
- Alliterative Title: Runaway Reptar.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Played With. The Professor casually leans over a river of molten lava, mentioning that it's 10,000 degrees and listing off everything that level of heat is capable of burning. It turns out to actually be room temperature baby food, but still sets Zack on fire when he tries to walk through it in a heatproof suit...somehow.
- Drive-In Theater: This special is partly set in one, as Lou takes the babies here to see the titular film.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Fritzy cottons on to the fact that the Reptar attacking the city is a robot a lot sooner than her owner, who admonishes her for suggesting it.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: The end of the movie has the entire human cast, even the villain, laughing at Fritzy burping.
- Face–Heel Turn: Reptar's role in the movie initially appears to be this... But it soon turns out to be an evil impostor plot.
- Foreshadowing: When Tommy falls into the diaper bag at the start of the special, a couple jars of yam baby food spill out. Later, the lava flowing out of the villain's volcano lair turns out to be yams, letting the babies eat their way through to a secret entrance.
- Heel–Face Turn: At the end of the movie Dactar ends his reign of destruction and teams up with Reptar to stop Robo-Reptar.
- Hong Kong Dub: An in-universe example with the titular film. The film's on-screen characters say things that don't synch up with their lips. At one point, an actor is obviously speaking a lengthy sentence while the voice just says "Yeah."
- Mad Scientist: The villain of the movie is one who built Robo-Reptar with his sole motivation being the standard Take Over the World. Angelica takes on the role as well, but her motivation is just to get toys.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Robo-Reptar comes after Angelica after Dil breaks its remote control.
- Special Effects Failure: In-Universe. Before the babies enter the movie, Dactar is obviously a puppet being held up with wires, and Reptar is an obvious costume with seams around the wrists, shoulders and head, with each part being a different shade of green.
- Vanity License Plate: Grandpa's car has one, which simply states "IM OLD".
- Widely-Spaced Jail Bars: A variation. The crossed bars of the playpen cage Angelica traps the babies is have gaps big enough for Tommy lean out of, but none of the babies think to just crawl through them.
