Rugrats / Tropes A to D

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#-A

• The '90s: It was released early in the decade, and the first three seasons are replete with multiple references of the early '90s, especially cellphones (like the one Charlotte owned) that were long in size and only were made for direct calls. In fact, there were so many references of the early '90s in the first three seasons that it became painfully obvious what decade it was aired in.
• Abnormal Allergy: In the episode "The Big Sneeze", Chuckie thinks he's allergic to Kimi but he's really allergic to the dandelions she's carrying.
• Absent Animal Companion:
  • In the episode "I Remember Melville", Chuckie gets a pet pill bug named Melville, who suddenly dies when Chuckie asks Tommy, Phil, and Lil to look after him. Chuckie is upset over having lost Melville, and the babies throw a funeral for him near the end of the episode. Although "I Remember Melville" is Melville's only appearance, Chuckie does reference him in a later episode.
  • In the episode "The Smell of Success", Chuckie gets to keep a rat named Cheddar but he's not seen in future episodes.
  • In "Bestest of Show", Susie is shown to have a pet gerbil named Herbie, who can ride a tricycle. Herbie is never mentioned or seen after this episode.
• Absurd Altitude: In the episode "The Slide," Chuckie climbs to the top of a slide and looks down to see this, thus becoming afraid of all slides, the main thrust of the episode. The actual slide he was on wasn't really this high, it was just in his imagination. Also, the slide was indoors, so there were no stars or clouds as is usually the case for this trope.
• Accidental Hero: In The Bank Trick, Tommy and Chuckie inadvertently thwart a bank robbery.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • Tommy's last name, "Pickles," is sometimes mispronounced in various ways, such as "Peaches" (which becomes a plot point in "Angelica Breaks a Leg", mixing up Angelica's X-Ray with that of a football player named Antonio Peaches), and "Pridklers."
  • Aunt Miriam calls Didi a different name each time they speak to one another. Tommy's uncle Ben keeps calling Stu "Mr. Pickles" despite being brothers-in-law. In the episode featuring how the babies first meet, Chas kept calling Drew "Mr. Pickles", but is reminded that they've been friends since their high school days.^note Although this may be a Series Continuity Error since an earlier episode has Chas state that he and Drew were in fourth grade together, implying that they actually knew each other for much longer.
    Drew: Come on, Chas, call me Drew! I mean, we've known each other since high school!
    Chas: Sorry, Mr. Pickles. I mean Drew! Drew!
• Accidental Truth: In Acorn Nuts and Diapey Butts, Angelica tells the babies in fall lots of changes will happen to scare them. A lot of changes end up happening over the next 2 episodes, which either go back to normal by the end of the episode, or are eventually accepted by the babies.
• The Ace: Lucy Carmichael. On top of raising four kids and being a doctor, she earned her flight wings, studied at the Cordon Bleu, created a replica Tiffany lamp (that impressed even the Tiffany company), and in The Movie, she delivered Stu and Didi's second kid. And in All Grown Up! we discover she was also a moderately successful Blues singer at the age of eighteen. She's also really good at making artistic Jell-O molds. Unfortunately, she's rather aloof when Susie attempts to ask where her room is after they've moved in ("We've talked about this before; that's not the way to get what you want"), and she's no more responsible than are any of the other adults as far as baby-sitting is concerned.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "Chuckie is Rich", Chas starts acting like a rich snob when he hits the jackpot. Averted with Chuckie, though, who acts more or less like his usual self (albeit fancier dressed). Having "all the toys there are" (and what appears to be at least a 70-inch television) doesn't seem to make him any happier, and he keeps to himself at the fancy day-care center he attends (implying that he either isn't comfortable around or tried and failed to fit in with the other rich kids).
• Action Girl: Angelica has at least one moment in "New Kid in Town".
  Josh: This is none of your business! These are MY babies now.
  Angelica: This caterpult says different! [launches a water balloon]
  Josh: I'm not scared of you!
  Angelica: Oh, yeah? Well, you're making a big mistake, bucko! [launches another water balloon]
• Actor Allusion:
  • In "Stu Gets A Job" Stu mentions The Rockford Files is coming on. Jack Riley, Stu's voice actor, guest starred on an episode of The Rockford Files.
  • In "Cynthia Comes Alive", Sara Gilbert shows up to basically play Darlene Connor for eleven minutes.
  • Having Alex Trebek voice a thinly veiled version of himself in an episode was one thing, but Didi's competitor in that episode was voiced by Charles Nelson Reilly (who had worked with Trebek on the short-lived Battlestars, and would later voice The Dirty Bubble).
  • In "Sour Pickles" Grandpa Lou recalls the time he tried preventing Stu and Drew from watching The Blocky and Oxwinkle Show (a parody of Rocky and Bullwinkle). It was in that Show Within a Show that Blocky and Svetlana the Spy were voiced by June Foray, the same actress who voiced their original counterparts, Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha Fatale.
  • "Babies in Toyland" has Christmasland's Santa Claus actor voiced by James Belushi, who also played a Santa actor in Jingle All the Way.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Betty De Ville is an openly gay woman in the 2021 reboot.
• Adults Are Useless: Quite possibly the king of this trope. Every single adult on the show is liable to do something forgetful/irresponsible/neglectful that allows the babies to go off on their familiar adventures.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Drew, towards Charlotte, during the episode "Runaway Angelica":
  Drew: Snookums, I'm going over to Stu's for a few minutes!
  Charlotte: [off screen during entire dialogue] Okay. Is Angelica still upstairs?
  Drew: Uh-huh. I haven't heard a peep out of her.
  Charlotte: I'll go up and check on her. And Drew?
  Drew: Yeah?
  Charlotte: Don't call me "Snookums."
  Drew: Noted.
  • Drew also has several of these for Angelica, as noted in the same episode. He calls her Princess, Angel, Muffin, Cupcake, Pumpkin, and apparently... "My Little Tax Shelter."
  • Stu often refers to Tommy as "champ" and Grandpa Lou will refer to all the babies as "sprouts," and to Tommy in particular as "Scout."
  • Betty refers to the babies as "pups."
• Affection-Hating Kid: Lil claims to hate kissing stories because "nothing ever happens".
• Ageless Birthday Episode: Averted in the aptly titled "Tommy's First Birthday," but played completely straight with the episode "Angelica's Birthday," to the extent that, in a later episode ("Pickles vs. Pickles"), her parents say that she's still 3 years old. "Ransom of Cynthia" takes place during Susie's (offscreen) birthday but it's never mentioned how old she is.
• Age-Stereotypical Food: One-year-old Tommy likes Reptar Cereal (based off of his favorite monster character). Most adults prefer Corrugated Bran Puffs, however Tommy's grandpa found Corrugated Bran Puffs yucky, and he found Reptar Cereal more appetizing by comparison.
• All Just a Dream: A ridiculous amount of episodes employed this device, though considering the main characters are infants and can't really be involved in elaborate plots otherwise, it's justified. Some prominent examples are:
  • "Visitors From Outer Space", though the aliens' resemblance to Tommy's relatives gave it away.
  • "The Inside Story", when Chuckie accidentally swallows a watermelon seed and lies down, and the babies pull off an incredible journey to remove the seed. Jarring because there was no art shift to indicate the starting of the dream sequence and the ending of the dream looked like film getting ripped out of a projector.
  • "Pickles vs. Pickles", though the Kangaroo Court setting clearly gave it away.
  • Played straight, then inverted in "In the Dreamtime", in which after having several nightmares, Chuckie convinces himself he's dreaming when he's actually not.
  • "Angelica's Worst Nightmare". The title even gave it away (to an extent-- it could have just been a metaphor).
• Alter Kocker: Tommy's maternal grandparents, who are justified since they actually are Jews from Eastern Europe.
• Ambiguously Human: Overlapping with Or Was It a Dream? in "Chuckie's Wonderful Life" — Chuckie sees what life would be like if he wasn't born, with his guardian angel showing him, and he appears to wake up, only to see what looks like the guardian angel outside. If it wasn't a dream, then this was indeed the guardian angel, but if it was one, it was just a coincidentally similar-looking human.
• Anachronism Stew: The flashback episode is ostensibly set in 1959, as Stu was born in 1958 according to the official timeline. However, Lou says that Stu and Drew's mother is off working on the Estes Kefauver campaign that occurred in 1956. Also, Lou says that if Stu and Drew keep behaving (unawares they’re out of the playpen) he’ll let them watch Peyton Place; a show that didn’t premiere until 1964. If he was referring to the movie, that premiered in 1957. Additionally a news report talks of how President Eisenhower attempted to cover up the U-2 incident, which happened in 1960.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: In "Home Movies", when Angelica sees Tommy as a weird version of Superman in Chuckie's home movie:
  Angelica: If he's Tommy, then I'm the Queen of ^English  England!
• ...And 99¢: In the episode "When Wishes Come True", Drew buys Charlotte a present that he shows to Stu first. In Drew's words, "It's brilliant, it's stunning, it's masterful!" And in Stu's words, "... it's Angelica." More specifically, a life-sized statue of Angelica, which cost $469.57, according to Drew.
• Angry Guard Dog: The "big, mean, nasty monster dog" next door, named Frou-Frou, constantly referenced (with dread) and actually seen on-screen twice in "In the Dreamtime" and "Barbecue Story".
• Animal Lover:
  • Kimi likes all the animals she meets. She once threw away plastic toys to play with Fifi as she claims she likes real "aminals" better.
  • Susie likes animals, owning two gerbils and a cat and playing with her friends' pets.
• Animation Bump:
  • The original intro sequence, which has fuller animation than the show itself. Most of it was animated by Peter Chung of Æon Flux fame.
  • The pilot episode is also very much in style with this, using more fluid and surreal animation.

• Annoyingly Repetitive Child: In "Naked Tommy", Tommy the baby repeatedly throws his clothes off when he realizes how fun it is to be naked, much to his parents' chagrin.

• Arc Number: 15. Grandpa uses it almost every time he shows up.
• Art Evolution:
  • Season 1 has a very different look from the other seasons. The animation (done in Taiwan by Wang Film Productions) is quite crude, and character designs are slightly different. Beginning with season 2, the animation work was done by various Korean studios, mostly Anivision, and became much more refined.
  • Compare the first movie and the second. Compare the episodes before and after each movie to each other.
  • The Wiki has an article detailing the changes, among other differences.
  • Art Shift: The "Chanukah" special, which was the first new Rugrats episode when the series was revived in 1996, was animated with darker lighting and shading effects and more fast-paced movements, akin to Klasky-Csupo's other Nicktoon of the time, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Multiple instances:
  • "The Sky is Falling":
  Angelica: First the sky fell, then rivers overflowed, mountains crumbled, and finally... all the TV shows were cancelled.
  Babies: [gasp]
  • "The Legend of Satchmo":
  Grandpa: Some folks call him "Bigfoot." Some call him "The Abominable Snowman." The rest just call him "Sir."
  • "Tommy and the Secret Club":
  Angelica: If you don't remember to ask for the password, anyone could just waltz right into the club! Count Draculator, Sandman Husseiney... or even Chuckie. ^note  Chuckie actually did walk into the club with little trouble
  • "The Mega Diaper Babies":
  Angelica (as Angelitron): Now prepare for battle! Order out my robot army! Unleash my zombie warriors! Release our secret weapon! And get me more cheese balls!
• Art Shift: The kids' movies from the episode "Home Movies."
  • The opening of "Reptar 2010" also exhibits one with its prehistoric setting being done in a more realistic, colored pencil-esque style. Made more noticeable when the T-Rex fades into Reptar, who is drawn in the show's usual style.
  • To a lesser extent, the switch from Wang to Anivision can also be considered such.
• As Himself: Pat Sajak in one episode and Alex Trebek in another, although Alex was an expy of himself on an expy of Jeopardy!
• Asinine Alternate Activity: In "Reptar's Revenge", when the Pickles family visits the carnival, Angelica wants to ride a Gravitron-style ride called the Nause-O-Whirl. Didi thinks that the ride is too intense for Angelica, and suggests that Angelica ride the Snail Adventure ride instead. On the Snail Adventure ride, the children riding the bouncy snails look very bored, and Angelica screams, "I want to go on the Nause-O-Whirl! I want to go on the Nause-O-Whirl!". When Stu and Didi let Angelica go on the Nause-O-Whirl, it turns out to be too intense for her to handle, especially when Larry turns the ride up after mishearing Stu say "Stop it, she's gonna be sick!" as "Give it a kick!".
• Attention Whore: Angelica. Her parents spoil her, so she feels slighted when she's treated like anything but royalty. It's the driving force behind the plot of "Angelica Breaks a Leg".
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • As amazing as it was, what exactly was Stu hoping to accomplish by inventing an "anti-gravity playpen"?
  • The episode "Mirrorland" had Didi bringing home a Mystery Box of this stuff, including wigs, costumes, and etc.
  • In the episode "Chuckie Is Rich", Chas wins a multi-million-dollar sweepstakes, and he and Chuckie move to a wealthier neighborhood. At the daycare center Chuckie attends in said neighborhood, they have a slide in the yard with an elevator to take the kids to the top in lieu of the usual steps or ladder. One can only imagine whether or not that was really worth it.

B

• Baby Language: The babies speak to each other in a language that the adults don't understand. The reason we hear it as standard English is because the show "translates" it for us, but what we hear isn't what they're actually saying (on the rare occasion we get to hear it, it just sounds like gibberish). Several characters in the series can speak in this baby language and in adult English, the most prominent of whom are Susie and Angelica.
• Baby See, Baby Do:
  • In "Thumbs Up", Stu sucks his thumb after hitting it and the babies copy him.
  • In "Little Dude", Tommy witnesses a food fight and throws food when he gets home.
  • In "Piggy's Pizza Palace", Tommy gives somebody dog commands in Yiddish, even though he doesn't speak Yiddish, because he's copying what Grandpa Boris has said to Spike.
  • In "Naked Tommy", Didi puts a sweater on Spike, which he takes off. Tommy then takes off his clothes, wanting to be naked like Spike, and he gets his friends in on it too.
  • In "Finsterella", Kimi plays a game where she decides to copy whoever she sees. She first copies her pet poodle, Fifi, by scratching herself and licking Chuckie's face, then she later imitates Angelica's behavior, which leads the babies to believe that she's being mean to Chuckie, like Cinderella's stepsisters.
  • In "America's Wackiest Home Movies", after Stu complains about the winner of the titular Show Within a Show's contest not being very funny, he sees Tommy copying Spike scratching his body with his hind leg.
• Baby's First Words: Chuckie's first word was "No!" and Angelica's (apparently) was "cookie".
• Back Blocking: In the episode "Word of the Day". In the very beginning there is a huge round figure that fills up the screen. Then the camera zooms out to reveal it's the back of Tommy's head blocking Angelica's view of the TV.
• Baffled by Own Biology:
  • In the book Tommy Catches a Cold, Tommy catches a cold for the first time. He wonders why he can no longer smell anything. When he overhears Grandpa Lou saying he must've caught a bug, he thinks an actual insect made him feel this way.
  • Zigzagged in "Chicken Pops". When Chuckie gets chicken pox, he just takes it in stride (albeit being annoyed by the itch), until Angelica lies that it will turn him into a chicken. When she catches it off him, however, she screams and thinks that she actually will turn into one, though it was mainly just because an egg landed near her and she thought she'd laid it.
  • Invoked in "Rhinoceritis", when Angelica makes up the eponymous disease, and the babies get their revenge on her by tricking her into thinking it's real and she has it by pointing out her skin is getting thicker on her knees (actually scabs).
  • In "No More Cookies", Angelica gets a stomachache from eating too much, but doesn't know why she's in pain, noting, "It's the strangest thing: I keep having these weird tummy aches!".
  • In "The Smell of Success", Chuckie's congestion gets even worse, to the point where he can't even smell anymore. So when he gets it treated, he's confused by the fact that he can smell things, having forgotten what it was even like.
  • In "Chuckie's a Lefty", Chuckie is at first confused as to why he's been favouring his left hand (since he's recently become left-handed; handedness often doesn't develop until toddlerhood and he's two). When he hears Didi mention his "right" hand, he fears he's using his "wrong" one.
  • In "Chuckie vs. the Potty", Chuckie (who's being toilet trained) admits he finds the need to pee confusing when Phil asks him what it's like, as he sometimes doesn't think he has to, when he actually does or vice versa.
  • In "A Very McNulty Birthday", Phil mentions that he once got sick, and the doctor gave him medicine and then a lollipop. He thinks it's the lollipop that cured him instead of the medicine.
  • In "The Inside Story", Chuckie remembers throwing up in the car when his father sang "Old Macdonald" to him. He thinks it was the song that made him throw up when it was probably motion sickness since they were in the car.
  • In "Accidents Happen", Chuckie wets the bed, and is worried that this means he's aging backwards, or that (because he and the other babies were playing the day before the accident) that doing something fun makes him wet the bed.
  • In "The Family Tree", Didi initially mistakes her Morning Sickness for seasickness, since she's on a boat (which indeed may have been making her morning sickness worse).
  • In "The Big Sneeze", Chuckie thinks he's allergic to Kimi because he sneezes whenever she's near. What he's actually allergic to is the dandelions she was carrying around with her in her diaper.
• Bait-and-Switch Time Skip: In "Grandpa Moves Out", after Lou moves out of Tommy's house and into a retirement home, it seems like an entire year has passed, as the weather changes from summer, to fall, to winter, and then back to summer. However, only a week has actually passed since Lou moved out, as there is a subtitle that says, "One Week Later", and Drew says to Stu, "Crazy weather we've been having this week, huh?".
• Balloon Belly: Downplayed in "No More Cookies." Angelica ends up bloated after eating an entire jar of cookies by herself and it's actually played much less zany than this trope usually is. She ends up with a belly ache which kicks off the Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere plot that occupies the rest of the episode.
• Band Episode: In "Famous Babies", Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and Dil decide to form their own band after listening to Didi and Betty play music from their favorite band on cassette tapes. Tommy plays with a toy guitar, Lil plays with a jack-in the box, Phil plays with a bucket and shovel, Dil plays with his rattle, and Chuckie is left with an empty toilet paper roll, which Tommy suggests he sing into like a microphone. When Angelica overhears the babies playing, she decides to be their band manager. When she first has the babies perform for the other children in the playground, the babies do nothing, so she puts sand in Chuckie's pants to liven things up. This works, as when Chuckie starts shouting "I got sand in my pants!" while trying to shake the sand out, the other children start paying Angelica in cookies to see the babies perform. However, when Angelia decides to stage a concert in the monkey bars, Tommy, Phil, and Lil all want to sing their own songs. When they try to do so at the same time, this annoys the other children and causes them to leave.
• Bathroom Control: In "The 'Lympics", the kids are competing against the McNulty brothers. Chuckie says he has to use the bathroom, but Angelica says he can't yet because it's almost his turn to run in the relay race. This motivates him to finish it as quickly as possible, and this causes Angelica's team to win.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Occurs in at least four instances:
  • "Party Animals": After being read the story of Aladdin, Angelica makes a wish on her lamp that the whole world was a circus, and when the babies see the costume party the adults are throwing, they believe Angelica's wish came true. They like it at first, but then they believe that their parents have gone missing (not realizing that their parents are all in costumes, some of which, such as Chas' well-balanced breakfast costume, aren't much different from their normal appearances). Tommy even calls the trope by its name when Angelica makes her wish.
  • "When Wishes Come True": After Angelica intentionally wrecks the babies' "sculpture" (a bunch of blocks stacked on top of one another somewhat haphazardly), Tommy wishes that "the baddest thing in the whole world happens to Angelica" (possibly meant to be a euphemism for wishing death upon someone). A bug zapper lights up and sparks as he says this, and the babies think this means that their wish came true. Tommy is deeply regretful when he realizes he went too far in the heat of the moment.
  • "Angelica For a Day": While Tommy and Chuckie are playing in the park, Angelica explains the phrase "I wouldn't want to be in his/her shoes" to the babies— she tells them it means that if you put on someone else's shoes, you become just like him/her. Tommy tries this with Chuckie so he won't be afraid of everything; Chuckie puts on Angelica's shoes and turns into a bully, while Angelica puts on Chuckie's and is constantly in a state of fear. Tommy soon wishes he had the old Chuckie back, and, somehow, the old Angelica as well.
  • In "Dil Saver", after Dil knocks down a tower of blocks the other babies built, Tommy wishes Dil would go away. Following some trickery from Angelica and a photo of Dil being used as a background for Stu's computer, Tommy believes that Dil is trapped in the computer, and is desperate to get him out.
• Beanstalk Parody:
  • In "The Magic Baby", after Grandpa Lou tells the babies the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, they become convinced that Dil has eaten some magic beans (really some bean-shaped pieces of cereal) and that he now possesses the ability to grant wishes.
  • The direct-to-video Tales from the Crib special "Three Jacks and a Beanstalk" has the babies collectively playing the role of Jack, and Angelica playing the giant.
• Becoming the Costume: In "Curse of the Werewuff", Angelica convinces the babies that they will be transformed into their Halloween costumes.
• Berserk Button:
  • Angelica has some. No one but her gets to pick on the babies, and she'll throw a tantrum in a heartbeat if anyone ever dares to discipline her or not shower her with attention. Also, If you know what's good for you, don't harm her Cynthia doll—or try to give her away, as Charlotte did in All Grown Up.
  • Didi does not like being called names like "Fifi" or "Dodo", regardless of whether or not it was intentional.
  • For Stu, don't ever bad-mouth his inventions. This especially applies to his older brother, Drew.
• Big Brother Instinct: Played straight with Tommy to Dil and Chuckie to Kimi. Subverted with Drew to Stu. Phil is actually younger than his twin sister Lil (by two minutes), but he played this trope straight in the episode "Together At Last".
• Big Eater: In the beginning of the episode "No More Cookies", the babies watch as Angelica eats an entire jar of chocolate chip cookies.
  Chuckie: I never seed anyone eat like that before...
  Lil: Not even Reptar...
  Phil: It's kinda scary...
  • Pops up again in a later season episode, "Angelica Orders Out". Angelica uses her uncle's voice changer to pretend to be Charlotte and order all the available desserts from Zippy's Deli. She then stuffs her face.
  • Overall, this tends to show up in any episode where Angelica is trying to get her hands on cookies or candy. Once she does, expect to see her gobbling it or with huge smears of chocolate all over her face. In "No More Cookies", she doesn't even think twice about diving after several cookies that have fallen in soapy water.
• Big Damn Movie: Three times, no less.
• Big "NO!":
  • Chuckie's first word.
  • Chas, in "Mr. Clean" when the babies get into the trash, complete with Eat the Camera to close it.
  • Chuckie also did one in "Curse of the Werewuff" after Angelica lies that he will become the costume he will be wearing for Halloween, also with Eat the Camera to close it. Because of the scary situations Chuckie gets himself into, it's common to hear him use a this fairly often, sometimes obscured by screaming or crying.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • An early episode included a Chez Restaurant named "Chez Ennui"; "ennui" is French for "boredom."
  • Tommy's Grandma Minka would occasionally utter the phrase, "Thanks be to Gott." Gott is the Yiddish word for God.
• Birthday Episode: Tommy's birthday was the focus of the first episode of the series, not counting the pilot. Angelica, Stu and others also had birthday episodes.
• Birthday Party Goes Wrong: A ruined birthday celebration is discussed briefly when Stu mentions Dil spitting up on his birthday cake.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Angelica. She manages to pull it off almost flawlessly by being absolutely adorable◊ and knowing how and when to put on a sufficient "good girl" facade to fool the adults (although she still has somewhat of a "Spoiled Brat" reputation in-universe). All in all, she knows how and when to behave well (despite it arguably not being her nature), and she also knows when she can get away with being nothing short of nefarious.
    
    The worst part (or the best part, if you're Angelica) is that Angelica is one of the few characters who can communicate with the babies AND the adults. She can bully the babies into doing what she wants, and then put on the "cute, innocent little girl" act for the adults so they suspect nothing. And the babies can't tell the adults that Angelica torments them for kicks.
  • Based on which episode you're watching, sometimes inverted with Angelica being a Sheep in Bitch's Clothing.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: "Reptar 2010" had Reptar wrecking a skyscraper with Viacom's name on it at one point (that's the company that owns Nickelodeon, MTV, and Paramount).
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • "Chicken Pops" ends with the babies happy that they won't turn into chickens, but they still have the chickenpox.
  • "All's Well That Pretends Well" ends with the babies Playing Sick so that they can keep the sick Angelica company, and the adults taping the circus so that they don't miss it, however Angelica still has a cold.
• Bizarre Beverage Use:
  • In "Baby Power", when the babies think the baby powder (which they think is called baby power) has made Dil into a superpowered monster, they try to rinse it off with water from Spike's dog bowl.
  • In "Rebel Without a Teddy Bear", Angelica tells Tommy to spill juice on the floor on purpose to be bad. Tommy, however, drinks the juice instead and then knocks the cup over.
  • In "When Wishes Come True", when the babies see a statue of Angelica and assume she's been turned to stone since Tommy wished something bad would happen to her, Phil suggests spraying her with milk to turn her back, since he thinks it would be funny.
  • In "Chuckie Gets Skunked", Chas mentions that he bathed Chuckie in tomato juice (as well as tomato paste) to wash out a skunk's stench. However, all it did was just make a mess in the bathtub.
• Black Comedy Pet Death:
  • In the episode "Spike Runs Away", the Pickles family gets a pet tarantula, only Grandpa Lou thinks he's a pest and kills him.
  • In "Autumn Leaves", the babies experience their first autumn and think the leaves are changing because there is something wrong with the tree, and they think the reason something's wrong with it is because Chuckie spilt apple juice on a maple tree, which is like feeding a goldfish bird food. Phil remarks, "Oh, so that's why Flippy had to go to the vet, then the potty."
• Blind Without 'Em: Chuckie, Chas, Didi, and Grandpa Lou.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Charlotte, Betty, and Didi. In later seasons, Kira could be the Brunette of the trio in episodes where Betty is absent.
• Book Ends: A few with the first episode "Tommy's First Birthday" and the final (produced) episode "Kimi Takes the Cake", the main one being that the show began and ended with birthday episodes for two of the main characters. Tommy was also the first Rugrat to be introduced, and Kimi the last. The first line of the former episode is "Happy birthday, Tommy", while the final line of the latter episode is "Happy birthday, Kimi".
• Bookworm: Susie's brother, Edwin. In "Tooth or Dare," Susie, Tommy and Angelica ask him about the Tooth Fairy. When they get to his room, he has so many books that Angelica mistakes it for a library. He has a copy of "The Odyssey" by Homer, and is reading about quantum physics when they walk in. He also wears glasses with extremely large frames (bigger than Chuckie's) to drive the point home (as if it wouldn't be obvious otherwise).
• Bookshelf of Authority: In "Tooth or Dare", Susie introduces Tommy and Angelica to Susie's brother Edwin, who's quite a brainiac and sits at a desk with a large bookcase behind him.
• Boring Vacation Slideshow: One episode of revolved around Stu doing this with their group of friends after the family's awful vacation to the Grand Canyon, which had happened over the course of one episode earlier in the show's run. The audience is, predictably, bored, though various issues prevent him from continuing and at the end of the episode, by the time he's fixed the issues, everyone else is engrossed in the crayon art that the kids have drawn, including, eventually, Stu himself.
• Bouquet Toss: In "Let Them Eat Cake", Stu and Didi are looking for the kids, and find their way into another wedding in the building, just as the bride is throwing the bouquet:
  Stu: Look, Didi! I caught the bouquet!
  Didi: [takes it out of his hands and heaves it off-screen] He's already married!
• Bowdlerise: In one episode, Chuckie malaproped "germs" as "Germans." It was snipped to "Germs" in reruns.
• Bratty Food Demand: In "Angelica Breaks a Leg", Angelica is faking a broken leg and exploits her "injury" to get what she wants. This involves demanding chocolate pudding in the middle of the night.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Angelica.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
  • Phil and Lil made this a Running Gag, doing it several times a season at least:
  • Happens twice in "When Wishes Come True":
    Lil: [about Angelica] There's nothing worser than turning into a rock! ... 'cept maybe turning into mashed peas.
    Phil: Or bat drool!
    Both: Or mashed peas and bat drool! [Phil and Lil laugh]
  • And when the babies think twice about making a wish that may end up turning them into a rock:
    Lil: Or eyeballs!
    Phil: Or worm guts!
    Both: Or eyeballs and worm guts!
    Phil: Maybe it's an elephant!
    Chuckie: Maybe it's just the TV.
    Lil: Maybe it's an elephant watching TV!
  • From "The Blizzard", when the babies take shelter in an igloo:
    Lil: I'm cold!
    Chuckie: I'm hungry!
    Phil: I'm cold and hungry, and I think I need a new diaper!
  • In "The Box", when Phil and Lil find Stu's empty box, Phil wants to pretend the box is a house, while Lil wants to pretend the box is a cave. They argue with each other for a while, until they settle on pretending the box is a house and a cave.
• Breakfast in Bed: In "Mother's Day", Stu invents a robot that serves Didi breakfast in bed. When he presents it to Didi, she assures him that it's the thought that counts. The robot tries to make Didi a fruit smoothie, but, instead, just ends up making a mess of the bedroom (Fortunately for Didi, it cleans up its own mess). In the same episode, Betty tells Stu that she gave her husband, Howard, the day off for Mother's Day since he cooks breakfast for her every morning.
• Breakout Character: In the show's later years, Angelica Pickles became the most popular character of the franchise. She performed a track with Rosie O'Donnell in the 1999 holiday album "A Rosie Christmas," she was the only Rugrats character to make TV Guide's list of Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters in 2002, and she and Susie also got their own short-lived spinoff Preschool Daze.
• Brick Joke: In "I Remember Melville", the babies try to find a replacement for Chuckie's titular pet bug. When they suggest a snail, Phil retorts that a snail isn't really a bug. Lil assures him that "A bug's a bug", but then, later in the episode:
  Chuckie: I don't want a new bug! And besides, that's not even a bug, it's a snail! [throws the snail offscreen]
  Phil: ... told ya.
• Brought Home the Wrong Kid:
  • At one point, while Tommy and Angelica are staying with Didi's parents, the babies are up in the attic but Grandpa Boris rushes outside and brings back in two obviously different children (two boys and much older as well).
  • The episode "Toy Palace" has Tommy and Chuckie switch themselves with a baby doll and a monkey doll so they can stay in the toy palace overnight. Stu and Chas don't even notice their kids are gone until after they arrive home.
• Bubblegum Popping:
  • In "Showdown at Teeter-Totter Gulch", Tommy and Chuckie come face to face with "The Junk Food Kid," whose most common form of punishment was getting gum into the other children's hair, forcing their parents to have to get it cut. Towards the end of the episode, Tommy gives her a taste of her own medicine by popping her bubble as she inflates it. When the Junk Food Kid has a Heel–Face Turn at the end of the episode, she is more soft-spoken and kinder to the other kids and has taken up eating carrot sticks, which she shares with the other children.
  • In "Acorn Nuts and Diapey Butts", during a montage where Chas is shown dating a variety of quirky women, one of the ladies blows a giant bubble, which bursts on Chas rather than her.
• Buffy Speak: Because of the age of the characters we're dealing with, this tends to happen every once in a while.
  Chuckie: Don't do it, Tommy! If you give her permission to scare you, your whole life with be just one big scary... scary thingy!
• Busman's Vocabulary: Charlotte. She's so wrapped up into her job as a corporate executive that it comes through during her everyday life, at times when it's not appropriate at all. The most glaring example, arguably, occurs when Angelica wants to know where babies come from.
  Drew: Well, you see, cupcake... it all starts with a mommy.
  Charlotte: And a daddy.
  Drew: Right, and a daddy. First, they decide that they really want a baby.
  Charlotte: Right. First they make a responsible, well thought-out decision, not recklessly or on the spur of the moment, but after lots of careful, business-like consideration!
  [Beat as Drew and Angelica stare blankly at Charlotte◊]
  • It also arguably affects Angelica, having been raised by such white-collar parents:
    Angelica: It all started when the first present was given by the pilgrims a long, long time ago. After that, everybody started giving presents! Even the Easter Bunny started giving 'em til Santa slapped him with a lawsuit.
• Butt-Monkey: Chuckie has been known to complain "Why me? Why always me?" Stu also qualifies, especially in the early seasons, as does Jonathan (Charlotte's executive assistant).

C

• Call-Back: The console for Mega Corp's Christmas Land attraction is kept together using paper clips and rubber bands, just like the Reptar mecha was.
• The Cameo: The episode "Ghost Story" features Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina in a telling of a scary story.
• Canine Confusion:
  • In "Touchdown Tommy", Spike is seen licking up some of the spilled chocolate milk at several points and he doesn't get sick even though chocolate is dangerous towards dogs.
  • Spike is said to be a Siberian Tiger Hound, which does not exist in real life. He also has a cat-like tail.
• Captain Obvious: Chuckie, during the episode "Driving Miss Angelica":
  Angelica: Don't you know that whenever grown-ups hide things, they always hide 'em in the ezzact same place? Birthday presents, toys, candies, you name it. They only hide 'em in one place!
  Tommy: Where's that?
  Angelica: [with emphasis] The upstairs closet.
  Chuckie: The upstairs closet?! That's all the way upstairs!
  Angelica: No duh, Chuckie.
  • Didi, in "Let There Be Light":
  Didi: [after a power surge has caused a town-wide blackout] Stu, honey! All the lights in the house are off!
  Stu: [in near-complete darkness, with only his silhouette and the whites of his eyes visible] I'm aware of that, Deed.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass: Angelica often takes pleasure in bragging about what a rotten brat she is. In the Christmas Special this comes back to bite her, however, since shortly after she boasts about playing an especially cruel trick on Phil and Lil, she hears the stipulations of what Santa delivers to bad little kids.
• The Case of...: One episode was entitled "The Case of the Missing Rugrats".
• Cast as a Mask: An interesting variation occurs in "Angelica Orders Out". When Angelica (voiced by Cheryl Chase) speaks into Stu's new voice-changing invention, she sounds exactly like Charlotte, complete with Tress Macneille doing the distorted voice. Hilarity Ensues.
• Centrifugal Farce: One episode showed Angelica getting on something like this at a carnival. It turns out to be a very high speed one, and when Stu tries to get the operator to shut it off, he misunderstands and turns it up. When Angelica gets off, and Didi asks if she's alright, she responds, "I think so, Uncle Stu."
• Chained Heat: Chuckie and Angelica in "Cuffed".
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Tommy: "A baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do!"
  • Chuckie: "I don't know, Tommy!" and "I Don't Think That's Such a Good Idea." In the early seasons, Chuckie also had "Am I okay? AM I OKAY??" before going off into a tirade about how he's not okay. He's prone to saying "We're doomed" when he thinks something bad is about to happen, and to describe things as "Bad... real bad..."
  • Chas has "I don't know, Stu!"
  • Anyone (usually to Chuckie): "Quit being a baby!"/"Don't be such a baby."
  • Angelica: "You dumb/stupid babies!" and, murmuring to herself "Dumb/stupid babies..." And often, "Hands off the merchandise!" Sometimes uses "That's my name. Don't wear it out," when she shows up somewhere and someone addresses her directly by name. Also "Get outta town!" when someone says something she doesn't believe, and "Oh, [character's name], you're [funny/silly]."
  • Stu: "This (toy) is gonna put Pickles Toys on the map!"
  • Didi: "According to Lipschitz..."
  • Drew: "I think you've been watching too many cartoons" and "You stay out of this, okay?!"
  • In the episode "New Kid in Town", Tommy and the gang meet a big kid, Josh, who seems to want them to play with him and lets them decide what the group will do, unlike Angelica. Josh's catch phrase is, "Fair is fair," which he uses every time the babies do something he doesn't like.
• Character Focus: Tommy is undoubtedly the hero of the show and Chuckie is the Deuteragonist, but Rugrats in Paris is very clearly Chuckie's story. Generally each baby gets at least a few healthy Days In The Limelight.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • In Season 1, it was actually Didi who was scared of clowns. Chuckie's fear of them didn't pop up until around the second season. However, in "The Trial" Chuckie admitted that he thought Tommy's clown lamp was scary, and even thought about breaking it, but didn't.
  • In her first few appearances, Susie was almost as naive and hyperactive as the other kids, and something of a crybaby. While this returned on sparse occasions she interacted with her family, most later episodes played her as a more mature foil for Angelica or a Cool Big Sis for the babies.
  • Angelica in the first season was a villain because she bullied the babies behind the adults' backs, turning on a false smile and pretending to be well behaved whenever they were watching. She also had no love for her father at all and would mock him behind his back. In later seasons she was frequently caught by the parents whenever she misbehaved and never acted falsely nice around them. Additionally later episodes would show that her parents are the ones she does unambiguously love, becoming something of a Daddy's Girl. This is partly due to the writers' intentions changing; Angelica was written to be a bratty kid who never got her comeuppance - to teach children that sometimes life isn't fair. However the creators grew to quickly hate how horrible Angelica was and had her punished more often, as well as giving her Hidden Depths.
• Chekhov's Gag: In the episode "Driving Miss Angelica", Tommy asks Angelica why the sky is blue. When she asks him what color he expects it to be, he responds "I dunno... green?" Angelica brushes off the comment with "You dumb babies..." She's later seen with a coloring book, using a green crayon to color the sky.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the beginning of the episode "New Kid In Town", Angelica orders the babies to dig a "moat" for her "castle" (a jungle gym at the park). She claims "There could be an invasion any minute," and tells the babies that she's going to go get her "caterpult" (a wagon with a makeshift slingshot attached that she uses to throw water balloons) just in case. At the end of the episode, she uses it against Josh (who was bullying the babies) when she comes to the rescue.
• Child Hater: Angelica. Also Coco LaBouche from Rugrats in Paris, and Miss Carol (host of "Miss Carol's Happy House") in the episode "Word of the Day".
• Children Are Innocent: A driving narrative and comedic force of the whole show is the babies often misinterpreting what's going on around them simply because everything is so new to them, and letting their imaginations fill in the blanks.
• Children Are Tender-Hearted: In "Autumn Leaves", the kids mistakenly think a tree is sick when it's shedding leaves and are worried about said tree, especially Chuckie, who feels responsible for this happening because he spilled some juice on the tree.
• Christmas Episode:
  • There are two of them: An early one that only featured the principal cast, and a later one with Dil and Kimi. This isn't surprising. What is surprising is that there's also a Kwanzaa episode, a Chanukah episode, and a Passover episode.
  • Additionally, the second Christmas episode is not a Santamas episode. The babies actually encounter a Nativity scene and, despite not knowing who they're dealing with, give the half-naked baby in the manger some warm clothing. The baby doll and all the mannequins around them smile.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Larry and Steve, though they did make a reappearance in The Musical
• Cinderella Plot: "Finsterella" takes place after the events of Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, where Chas marries Kira and Kimi becomes Chuckie's stepsister. After Chas tells the babies the story of Cinderella, Angelica tells Chuckie that he has a stepmother and a stepsister just like Cinderella does, and decides to start calling him "Finsterella". Tommy tries to assure Chuckie that Kira and Kimi are nice to him, and not mean like Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters, but Chuckie starts to believe Angelica is right when he overhears Kira rehearsing her lines for a play about the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe and Kimi copying Angelica's behavior when she plays a game where she copies whoever she sees. Chuckie also has a dream where he really is Finsterella, and has to do chores for Angelica and Kimi while they get to go to a party. By the end of the episode, Chuckie finds out the truth about Kira and Kimi, who both love him very much and are happy to be a part of his family.
• Circumcision Angst:
  • This disconcerting quote from "Showdown at Teeter-Totter Gulch": "I didn't meet Tommy til he was eight days old. I dunno what happened to him during those first eight days, but he sure don't like to see people get pushed around."
  • Comes up in the Passover episode. At one point a store is shown with its sign in Hebrew text, which translates literally to "circumciser." It also is offering its prices at a "cut rate."
• Circus Episode:
  • In the episode "Circus Angelicus", the babies are forced to leave the circus when Chuckie cries out of his fear of clowns, and Tommy cries to back him up. Angry that she has to leave when she wasn't crying like them, Angelica stages her own circus in Tommy's backyard. Her circus features Tommy as a "lion trainer" and Spike as the lion, Phil and Lil as trapeze artists, and Chuckie as the human "candyball".
  • In the episode "Clown Around", Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Kimi, and Angelica go to the circus. While the other babies have fun, Chuckie is afraid of clowns. Angelica tricks the babies into thinking that Chuckie is going to turn into a clown, and after having a red snow-cone, clown shoe souvenirs, and a run-in with a powder puff, Chuckie ends up looking like a clown. He even gets roped into the center ring to perform with the clowns. Meanwhile, Angelica sneaks into the center ring to be a trapeze artist, which gets her in a lot of trouble when Drew sees her.
• Closest Thing We Got: In "Rebel Without a Teddy Bear", Tommy and Chuckie are trying to clean Tommy's lion, Herman-- er... Henry. They take him into the kitchen and then realize that they don't have any soap.
  Tommy: Wait! [points to kitchen table]
  Chuckie: Tommy, that's not soap... that's mustard.
  Tommy: Eh, close enough.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • A rare instance of The Leader falling into this trope more often than anyone else. Tommy is the youngest of all the babies (save for possibly Phil/Lil, who may be his same age, and Dil), and his naivety can cause him to unknowingly play this trope straight. Angelica's sarcastic remarks are prone to fly right over his hairless head, and he could also sometimes be described as oblivious to the obvious.
  • From the episode "The Alien":
    Angelica: Tommy, how can you BE so dumb?!
    Tommy: [smiling casually, not offended] It's easy. I'm a baby.
  • "Runaway Angelica" (after Angelica eats what she was told were cookies):
    Angelica: These aren't cookies! They're dog biscuits! What do you think I am, a dog?!
    Tommy: Uh... Spike likes 'em...
    Angelica: Of course Spike likes 'em— Spike's a DOG!
  • See also Laser-Guided Karma (excerpt on the episode "Moving Away") and I Have This Friend below.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: In "Mirror Land," when Didi comes down stairs to retrieve her glasses from Lou, after she tells him to "take off that ridiculous hair," he chuckles and says "Hey, where's the ballet?", referring to Didi (who's wearing a ballerina outfit) inadvertently flashing her white panties. Surprised and mortified, she hurriedly adjusts her tutu and blushes.

• Comical Overreacting:
  • In "No More Cookies", Angelica gets what her doctor describes as a "simple, ordinary tummyache" that will subside in a day or two. When the babies come to check on Angelica, however, she looks more like she's on her deathbed than anything.
  • Two instances in two different episodes involve similar gags. The first, "The Trial", occurs after Angelica admits to breaking Tommy's favorite clown lamp. Didi hears, and punishes her by putting her in a kitchen high chair, while she screams "NO! Not the chair! NOT THE CHAIR! [Beat after Didi plops her into the chair] Hmph! [folds arms angrily]"
    • In "Chuckie vs The Potty," Chuckie dreams of being a prisoner who's been sentenced to "the chair." After Phil and Lil (as prison guards) drag him, kicking and screaming, to the chair (an oversized adult toilet), he screams "No! No! NOT THE CHAIR!"
• Comic-Book Adaptation: There was a newspaper strip from 1998 to 2003.
• Companion Cube: Angelica's Barbie-parody Cynthia, Kimi's Super-Thing, Chuckie's teddy bear named Wawa, Tommy's stuffed lion (Henry), and Phil and Lil's teddy bear aptly named Bill.
• Competence Zone: Two levels which intersect: Angelica and Susie are on the upper level, who can communicate with the younger babies and the adults; most of the remaining non-baby characters can only communicate with Angelica and Susie. Dil is below both.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong:
  • This show tends to play with this trope, especially in the early days. The formula usually has Tommy suggesting they do something, Phil and Lil agreeing, Chuckie mentioning that it's not such a good idea, one of the three calling Chuckie a "big baby" and dragging him along. It's usually subverted when the adventure goes south, just as Chuckie said it would (but they still had a blast). In said early days, Chuckie's more temperamental attitude led him to point this out more frequently. In one episode he even lampshades how in every argument Tommy tricks him into following him and suggests to just skip it and go along with the plan right away.
  • An interesting subversion is the episode "Touchdown Tommy". The B-Plot has the dads watching a big football game, though Chas wants to watch the chess tournament. They blow him off and he's stuck watching the game. Apparently, he knew what he was saying - because the dads were too busy watching football, the babies covered the living room in chocolate milk and Didi and Betty were pissed when they got back:
    Chas: I told you we should have watched the chess tournaments.
    [the others glare at him]
  • At least a handful of episodes are devoted to something bad happening to Chuckie, or him finally drawing the line, at which point the others are apologetic, at least for a while (e.g. "Farewell My Friend", "Chuckie's Wonderful Life").
• Confirm Before Reveal: In Season 3 "Under Chuckie's Bed", while Chuckie is telling his friends about how wonderful his crib is, the other babies notice their parents taking parts of his crib out of his room after replacing it with a new bed.
  Tommy: Uh, Chuckie. Is that the crib with the wide bars on it?
  Phil: And the tall sides?
  Lil: And the picture of the pink and blue sheep?
  Chuckie: Yep, that's the one. Why?
  Tommy: Well, I think the grown-ups just carried it out of your room in pieces.
  Chuckie: 'WHAT?!'
• Conforming OOC Moment: At the beginning of "Circus Angelicus", the adults don't seem too bothered by the circus clown, not even Didi, who had been established to have a fear of clowns back in "Reptar's Revenge". This could be Character Development, though, since the latter was in season 1.
• Congestion Speak: In Tommy Catches a Cold, a book based on the show, when Tommy gets a cold, he mentions that he caught it at the "playgrowd". He also pronounces "let" as "led" and "it" as "id", and the boy he's implied to have caught it from pronounces "Hey, that's mine!" as "Hey, dat's mide!".
• Continuity Nod: Many, many instances.
  • In the episode Angelica's In Love, a new kid that spends the day at Tommy's house tells him that he heard talk that Tommy "escaped" from Daycare, referencing an episode only a few prior where Tommy did just that.
  • During the episode "Driving Miss Angelica", the titular character accidentally locks herself in a closet while trying to get back a box of chocolates her father took from her. She pounds on the door from the inside while screaming "Daddy! Daddy!" Drew passes by the closet, but can't hear her because he has a Walkman on and is listening to a song heard in the episode "Reptar on Ice".
  • The episode "Feeding Hubert" introduces (what the babies believe is) a monster named Hubert that eats garbage— in reality, it's the neighborhood garbage truck ("Hubert" presumably being the name of the driver). In a later episode ("The Mattress"), the babies think that there's a monster in Grandpa's bed and attempt to feed him to "a bigger monster," at which point Hubert makes his second appearance (and Chuckie refers to it by name, confirming the continuity).
  • During at least one episode ("The Odd Couple"), Chas is portrayed as writing left-handed. Chuckie is later revealed to have developed as a lefty as well.
  • At the end of an adventure at the Zoo, Chas discusses with Stu on where to take the Rugrats next, hopefully where they won't get into trouble; his suggestions were the bowling alley, the mini-golf course and the pool at the community center. In each case Stu mutters "Tried it," referencing previous episodes ("King Ten Pin", "Ice Cream Mountain", and "The Big Flush", respectively) where Stu takes them on trips to these locations and they inevtiably caused mayhem every time.
  • In an episode of the later seasons, the babies were eating watermelons. Chuckie worries about swallowing a seed again, and he even mentions how the babies went inside his stomach to try and retrieve it.
  • Certain events in Rugrats in Paris are alluded to in the first episode that aired after it, "Finsterella".
  • During the episode "The Big Flush", Chuckie goes on a rant, after being asked by Tommy "Have I ever got us lost forever?" Everything Chuckie says actually happened in previous episodes:
    Chuckie: How 'bout the time you took us down in the basement and I got stuck in the mattress? And the time you got us locked in that toy store! And the time you made us go through that mirror into Mirrorland! And the time we chased after that wedding cake! The time we got lost in the mooseum! [continues ranting as he chases after the rest of the gang]
  • Susie teaches Chuckie the Survival Mantra "I'm a big, brave dog" in Season 2. In Season 3 ("Farewell, My Friend"), Chuckie uses it again.
• Contortionist: In "Acorn Nuts and Diapey Butts", the cowardly Chas is setup with one by the outgoing Betty. Apparently this date scares Chuckie too, but for different reasons.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • So many. The babies often misintiprent things or believe something to be different from the reality (sometimes because Angelica makes it up to scare them), only for something to happen to support their theories. Sometimes, the lies Angelica tells them eventually appears to affect her as well (in "Family Reunion", when she mistakenly thinks her story about families trading kids at a family reunion is true, she tells the kids "I thought I was making it up").
  • Additionally, the babies might accidentally cause a happy ending or expose some kind of secret or fraud. In one episode, they wander into the basement and accidentally get Stu's invention to work properly. In "The Bank Trick", while wandering the bank for M&Ms, they unintentionally set 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.
• Cool Big Sis:
  • Susie tends to act as an older sister to the babies.
  • Angelica has her moments, too. See "Moving Away" and "New Kid in Town" for early examples. A later episode also focuses on the fact that Angelica, who by then is the lone remaining only child in the series, really wants a sibling. In fact, this popped up in the two-parter right before the first movie, where Angelica gets mad because Tommy and Chuckie don't see her as a big sister.
• Coordinated Clothes: Phil and Lil dress exactly the same, with minor exceptions— Lil wears a pink ribbon in her hair, pink shoes, and her top is a dress. Phil wears blue shoes, his top is a shirt, and he wears blue shorts (Lil wears only her diaper). Because of this, Phil and Lil can each easily impersonate the other, and are good enough at it to fool their parents. Phil can even perfectly imitate Lil's voice, as seen in the episode "Beauty Pageant".
• Couch Gag: From 1996 to 2002, the Nickelodeon haystack at the end would consist of an audio clip from one of the segments (or complete episode).
• The Corrupter: Angelica, to Tommy, in "Rebel Without a Teddy Bear". She's also done this to Phil and Lil. Chuckie seems to be less susceptible than the other babies, possibly because he's the smartest and, at the same time, the most cynical. The other kids are naive to Angelica's false sincerity, and Chuckie often sees right through it, sometimes better than the adults.
• Couple Theme Naming: Grandpa Lou eventually marries a woman named Lulu.
• Courtroom Episode:
  • In "The Trial", the babies do this to find out who broke Tommy's favorite clown lamp, with Tommy as the judge and Angelica as the prosecutor (although she says she's the "Persecutor"). They soon realize it was Angelica who broke the lamp and she even admits it, because she hated it and gloats loud enough that the adults hear her.
  • In "Pickles Vs. Pickles", Angelica sues her parents after they make her eat broccoli. The whole court is on Angelica's side and the judge even allows her to bring up her toys as witnesses. Luckily for Drew, it turns out it was All Just a Dream.
  • "Tricycle Thief" presents a trial of sorts, as Angelica is suspected of stealing Susie's tricycle. Angelica's doll Cynthia is tied to Susie's mylar balloon while testimony is presented. While Angelica claims she was innocent, evidence seem to be against her (literally caught redhanded^note Susie's bike was inside the shed that was just painted red and Chuckie overhearing Angelica quietly telling Susie she'll be sorry).
• Cousin Oliver: Dil and Kimi were introduced in the respective movies The Rugrats Movie and Rugrats in Paris. Both characters became series regulars after their debuts and were mainly created to add some new blood to the show.
• Cowboy Episode:
  • "Graham Canyon" - Tommy and Angelica travel to the Grand Canyon with Stu and Didi. However, when their car breaks down, they think the garage is the Grand Canyon. Angelica even goes as far to ride Tommy like a horse.
  • "Showdown at Teeter-Totter Gulch" - Tommy defends an old-western-esque playground from "The Junk Food Kid," who's a worse playground bully than Angelica.
  • "The Wild Wild West" - On a hot day, Grandpa Lou tells Tommy, Chuckie, and Susie a story about cowboys. Angelica steals a stack of coupons good for one free ice cream from the ice cream truck each. Tommy, Chuckie, and Susie pretend to be the cowboys and cowgirl from Grandpa's story to stop her.
• Crapsack World: "Chuckie's Wonderful Life". In the alternate timeline Chuckie's guardian angel shows him, the world, for the main characters at least, is horrible as a result of Chuckie no longer existing.
• Credits Jukebox: Every episode featured the same OP of its era, but the ED could vary; sometimes it would use the usual ending music but other times it would play a different piece of music instead. Dialogue and sound effects from the just-ended episode sometimes continued into the credits.
• Crossover:
  • With The Wild Thornberrys.
  • In the comics there was an issue that crossed over with Rocket Power.
  • The episode "Ghost Story" features a crossover with Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.
• Crying a River: Discussed in "Hand-Me-Downs" when Angelica is trying to scare the babies by claiming that giving away hand-me-downs makes you disappear. She claims that this happened to Susie's older sister Yvonne and the reason why Susie hasn't mentioned Yvonne is because she's too sad and she once cried so much that the Carmichaels needed a boat.
• Crying at Your Birthday Party:
  • In "Three Jacks and a Beanstalk" from Tales from the Crib, Giant Angelica wails enough to accumulate several puddles after the babies escape her castle. It's then revealed that today is her birthday and she has nobody else but Giant Harold to celebrate with.
  • In "Tommy's First Birthday", all Tommy wants to do is eat dog food after seeing a commercial for it on television, believing that eating dog food will turn him into a dog, so that he can do whatever Spike, his pet dog does. Tommy's every attempt to eat Spike's dog food is foiled by the adults, and at one point, it's time for him to open his presents. When Didi tells Tommy that he still has many more presents to open, Tommy cries, and Didi tries unsuccessfully to calm him down as she complains to Betty how the party has been a disaster thus far. Tommy stops crying when some caterers arrive at the door with the puppet stand that Didi rented for a puppet show she planned to put on.
  • In "Angelica's Birthday", Angelica wants to avoid the responsibilities that come with growing up, so she dresses and acts like a baby, which of course, includes crying like one instead of talking like a big girl. When Drew sees this, he complains to Charlotte that whenever Angelica wants something, she just cries. Charlotte then tells Drew, "It's her party and she can cry if she wants to."
• Crying Wolf: Angelica lies about something to someone—mainly the babies—in almost every episode. Usually the only time people don't believe her is when she's actually telling the truth.

D

• Daddy's Girl:
  • While Charlotte obviously does love Angelica and cares dearly for her daughter, Angelica's usually portrayed as being closer to her dad, Drew, than she is to her. This is possibly because Charlotte is constantly working, to the point where it wouldn't be a stretch to say that she's talking, on her cell phone or in person, to her executive assistant Jonathan (or a potential client) in every episode she's been in. Subtle hints indicate that Charlotte is threatened by the fact that the working world is dominated by men, and is a workaholic to compensate.
  • Subverted in "The Shot". Drew (by himself) takes Angelica to the doctor's office to get a booster shot, which is far from the first or last time he and Angelica are seen together without Charlotte. At the end of the episode, however, when Angelica bursts into tears after getting her shot, she cries for her mother, even as Drew tries his hardest to console her (Charlotte hadn't even appeared yet in the entire series at the time this episode premiered. She is first seen in "The Santa Experience" later that season).
  • Certain episodes also imply Charlotte, when properly focused on her parenting, is actually more stern and capable of disciplining her, while Drew is frequently an Extreme Doormat who struggles to draw the line. When Charlotte scolds Angelica for playing with her office equipment and asks how to behave when she tells her "No," Angelica's first suggestion is "Ask Daddy?"
• Darker and Edgier:
  • The Rugrats Movie. But also towards the show's ninth season and Rugrats Go Wild!. Later episodes consisting of nude beaches, and Rugrats Go Wild was even rated PG by the MPAA, first for a Rugrats movie.
  • The third season has much more unnerving imagination sequences and delves into the psychosis and negative aspects of the characters a lot more. In particular Chuckie reads Tommy the riot act over his selfishness multiple times and a lot of Angelica's schemes are jarringly malicious, bordering on Mind Rape, with the effects of her constant bullying sometimes given more severe toll. There's a lot more Black Comedy concerning the adults' side plots as well.
• Daycare Nightmare: The show had a couple of episodes centered around this.
  • "The Big House" had Tommy dropped off at a daycare where the staff acted like prison guards and proudly proclaimed to the parents that there had never been an escape. Tommy and the other babies try to do just that until the parents just happen to show up at the moment they were about to break out.
  • Subverted in "Dayscare", where Chuckie and Kimi are sent to another daycare center. This one is shown to be a very cool and fun place. But Chuckie, being the shy, paranoid, easily frightened little boy he is still spends the whole episode expecting something bad to happen until his sister finally convinces him to chill out....literally, they're having ice cream!
• "Day in the Life" Titles: The opening credits sequence shows the babies playing in Tommy's living room as Grandpa Lou falls asleep until Stu and Didi arrive home, at which point Tommy squirts milk from his bottle at the camera. The seventh season features an updated intro to incorporate the new characters introduced by then, including Dil and Kimi. This intro ends with Angelica falling headfirst into a plate of cookies that Didi serves the babies.
• Deadpan Door Shut: In "Baby Commercial", Phil and Lil star in a diaper commercial until Betty becomes fed up with the Prima Donna Director and quits. At the end, the director comes to the DeVilles' door saying that the commercial was a hit and he wants to put the babies in another one, but Betty slams the door without a word.
• Deadpan Snarker: Chuckie, Stu, and sometimes Angelica.
  Angelica: Tommy?
  Tommy: Yeah?
  Angelica: You're a dope.
  • From the episode "Chuckie's First Haircut", after Tommy suggests that Chuckie go through with said haircut instead of living in fear:
  Chuckie: You know something, Tommy? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.
• Defeating the Cheating Opponent: "King Ten Pin" sees Grandpa Lou Pickles faces off against his old bowling rival, Billy "Strike" Maxwell, whom he's never been able to beat, all the way back to an incident when they were young men (which the audience is teased about, but doesn't get to see). Maxwell was cheating with things like bowling pins designed to stay up during Lou's turns and having a minion in the back using a spray gun to knock the phony pins down during Maxwell's turns. Once the cheating gets exposed thanks to the Rugrats' intervention, Lou still wins fairly by bowling the game of his life.
• Defeat Means Friendship: The Tales from the Crib direct-to-video films "Snow White" and "Three Jacks and a Beanstalk" both depict Angelica as the main villain, portraying the Evil Queen in the former and Angelica the Giant in the latter. Both films end with Angelica making amends with the babies after they defeat her.
• Delayed Reaction: Howard in "Family Feud".
  Stu: IT ISN'T A MUSICAL, YOU IMBECILE!!
  Didi: Stu! Don't yell, it's just a game!
  Stu: Then why do I always get teamed up with Howard?
  Howard: Just a minute... are you calling me an imbecile?
  Stu: Oh, very good. And it only took you fifteen seconds.
  
  Stu: I'm sorry I called you a fathead.
  [after everyone made up and leave]
  Howard: Wait a minute... you called me a "fathead"?
• Deliberately Cute Child: Angelica, when grownups are around.
• Deliberately Jumping the Gun: In the episode, "Susie Vs. Angelica", Susie and Angelica compete in a race to see who's the best three-year-old in the world. Tommy is given the job of waving the flag (which consists of a pair of underwear on a stick). Angelica drives off before he waves the flag, which leads to this exchange:
  Lil: Hey! That was cheating!
  Tommy: Nah, Angelica told me, she was opposed to go right before the flag was waved, and Susie's opposed to right after.
  Phil: Oh. Well, as long as it wasn't cheating.
• Delivery Stork: Explanation given to Angelica when she asks her parents where babies come from.
• Denied Food as Punishment:
  • Angelica had this happen to her at the beginning of "Pickles Vs. Pickles" when she refused to eat her broccoli and threw her dinner plate against the wall.
  • An inverted example occurs at the end of "Angelica Orders Out". Charlotte makes Angelica eat all the flan she ordered from Zippy's as punishment for ordering sweets against Didi's wishes. Angelica refuses to eat it, as she doesn't like it. Grandpa (who has his teeth taken away as his punishment for falling asleep and not watching Tommy and Angelica) eats some himself.
  • In "Chuckie's Wonderful Life", Angelica steals a CD from Chas and makes Chuckie think it was his fault it disappeared. Drew eventually finds the CD, and after returning it, informs him that Angelica won't have dessert for a week.
• Depraved Kids' Show Host: Miss Carol, at least until Angelica makes it backfire.
• Description Cut: Angelica's father finally gets the backbone to punish his daughter for her misbehavior, and he's so proud of himself that he tells Charlotte the good news:
  Drew: I did it! I actually did it. I disciplined Angelica!
  Charlotte: I hope you weren't too hard on her.
  Drew: Oh, nah...our daughter's a fairly mature girl. I think she'll take it well.
  [immediate cut to Angelica wrecking her room while screaming "IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!"]
• Devil in Plain Sight: Angelica.
• Did You Get a New Haircut?: In "Naked Tommy", Phil and Lil try to guess what's different about Tommy, which includes asking if he got a new haircut (when he has virtually no hair), before Phil correctly guesses that Tommy is completely naked.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • In "The Inside Story", Chuckie swallows a seed and an Imagine Spot begins with the babies shrinking in to get it out. Angelica later reveals her secret motive to actually water the seed so it will grow and Chuckie's stomach will explode. When she succeeds, she begins her Evil Gloating, until Tommy points out Chuckie will explode with her still inside.
  • When the episode "All Growed Up" switches to the babies and toddlers being pre-teens, Tommy Pickles is forced to steal his father's lucky medallion for Angelica so that she can convince her friend Samantha to reciprocate Chuckie's feelings for her. To prevent his dad from freaking out about his medallion missing, Tommy makes a fake one by wrapping gold paper over a dog treat. The problem? Spike was in Tommy's parent's bedroom and was able to smell the dog treat used to make the fake medallion, so he ate it, resulting in Stu finding no medallion and freaking out.
• Didn't Want an Adventure:
  • All Chuckie ever wants is to do something nice and quiet.
  • Grandpa Lou, not thrilled at the idea of having to see the Dummi Bears movie.
• Diet Episode: The B-plot of "Man of the House" involves Didi putting Grandpa Lou on a diet that he doesn't like after finding out he has high cholesterol. At first, Lou tries to order greasy food from Zippy's without Didi finding out, but near the end of the episode, Tommy's attempt to invent a new toy for Dil in the episode's A-plot results in Lou watching a disturbing health video given to him by his doctor. Lou freaks out upon seeing the video and eats the healthy lunch that Didi serves him without hesitation.
• Dinosaur Doggie Bone: When Grandpa takes the babies to a museum without Spike, they try to get him a dinosaur bone as a present. They succeed.
• Disappeared Dad: Kimi's; in All Grown Up! it's revealed that he's alive and lives in Japan, having remarried and started a new family.
• Disco Sucks: The death of disco is mentioned in the episode "Garage Sale".
  Angelica: Aunt Didi, what's disco?
  Didi: Oh, nothing, sweetheart. It's something that happened a long time ago and it's never, never coming back, so don't you worry.
• Disney School of Acting and Mime: The series intentionally avoided this style of acting to better serve the down to earth tone of the series. The original style guide for the show even warned the artists not to use theatrical gestures like finger pointing for the babies, saying that characters like Tommy, being a one year old, should be free of any kind of acting that conveys affection, maturity, cultural conditioning and malice. The movies get a little more expressive in the acting, but nowhere to the extent of a Disney movie.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Chuckie, when the other babies ask why Barney, Chuckie's imaginary friend, never comes over to play:
  Chuckie: Well, um... it's very sad, you guys... Barney... he wouldn't eat his broccoli, so... they sent him to prism!
  Other babies: *gasp!*
  Chuckie: They can do that, you know.
  • Inverted by Angelica's parents at least once. Angelica refuses to eat a single serving of broccoli, acting rudely towards her parents about it despite the fact that they're asking her as nicely as possible. At one point, Drew threatens her with "Angelica, if you don't eat some broccoli, then you're not going to get seconds on dessert!", to which she responds "But that's not fair!" She then throws the plate of broccoli against the wall, which shatters on impact. Spoiled Brat indeed.
    • The entire episode revolves around Angelica successfully suing them for grounding her for the act. Though it was All Just a Dream.
  • Yet another one involving broccoli: in the episode "The Baby Vanishes," Angelica reveals to Drew (thinking she's invisible and he can't see her, and possibly thinking he can't hear her) that he didn't lose a set of important documents, as he had thought. Angelica threw them out of the car window on the freeway "because [Drew] made her eat broccoli." She thinks it's hilarious.
• Disqualification-Induced Victory: In the episode "Beauty Contest", in order to win the Kingfisher 9000 sports boat, Stu and Grandpa Lou dress Tommy as a girl and enter him in a beauty contest, where Tommy's cousin, Angelica is also competing. Tommy wins, until Didi reveals to the judges that Tommy is actually a boy by removing his wig. The judges disqualify Tommy and Angelica wins. Grandpa Lou doesn't mind when he remembers that Angelica is his granddaughter.
• Distant Reaction Shot: Practically a Running Gag. Any time any character, usually Stu or one of the adults, screams at the top of their lungs, the scene cuts to the outside to show just how loud the scream is.
  • In "Garage Sale," as Stu does his trademark Stock Scream as we see outside the house (he was reacting to that the babies made them sell all their possessions), their satellite dish tumbles off the roof of the house as Stu screams.
• Ditzy Genius: Stu is an inventor, but lacks common sense and has a childlike mindset.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Tommy's parents attempt to wean him, after being without a bottle for a while, he gets a pouch-eyed look and starts desperately trying to bum one off Phil and Lil. Then comes the fever dream...
  • The Episode "Give and Take" features Chuckie becoming enamored with Tommy's clown-faced punching bag named Boppo, to the point where Phil expresses concern over the endless hours Chuckie has spent literally punching the clown.
  Lil: He's been boppin' it all afternoon.
  Phil: I think something's wrong with him... A kid his age should be playing with his friends, not alone in a room boppin' his boppo.
• Dodgy Toupee: In "Grandpa's Date," Lou reunites with an old flame from almost 40 years ago. He doesn't want to seem old when they meet, so he wears a black toupee, despite the fact that the hair on the sides of his head, and his moustache, are gray.
  • Morgana even knows it and asks him to take it off at the end.
• Domestic Appliance Disaster: In the episode "Accidents Happen", Stu puts Dil's onesie in the laundry with something else and it turns pink.
• Downer Ending: A downplayed version is double-subverted in "Twins' Pique." At the end of the episode, Angelica urges Lil to throw her father's "quack-u-lator" in the mud, for no reason other than For the Evulz. She refuses, and a frustrated Angelica takes it from her and hurls it towards a mud puddle. Phil runs underneath it and catches it, keeping it from going in the mud. At this point, Tommy gives Phil a congratulatory embrace for making the save... which causes Phil to fall over and drop the calculator in the mud.
• Dream Episode: "Sweet Dreams" begins with the babies dreaming. Tommy's dream involves him exploring an ancient temple as "Okey-dokey Jones", Kimi dreams that she's an acrobat at the circus, and Phil and Lil share a dream, wherein Phil rides a frog while Lil rides a flying mud pie. Unfortunately, Chuckie doesn't have an exciting dream like the other babies. When Chuckie tells the other babies that his exciting dreams involve him being a superhero who isn't afraid of anything (which is a huge contrast from his cowardly personality), they try to help him find his missing dream.
• Dream Within a Dream: In "In the Dreamtime", Chuckie has a dream that takes place in a dream of his, and in the end, it all turns out to be Chas' dream.

• Dub Pronunciation Change: Angelica's name is pronounced "ahn-hel-ee-ca" instead of the original "an-jell-ica" in the Mexican Spanish dub.
• Dull Surprise: Lil's reaction to the army of Nightmare Fuel-inducing Mr. Friend dolls in "The Mysterious Mr. Friend" is priceless.
  Lil: Boy, this has really been one of those days, huh?