Shout Out / Rugrats

• Grandpa Lou's full name is Louis Calhern Pickles.
• One running gag is that Chuckie is terrified of the guy on the oatmeal box.
• "The Mysterious Mr. Friend":
  • The new toy Stu made for Tommy scares him when Stu places it in his crib while Tommy sleeps. It sits up says one of his catchphrases (as the toy's audio chip causes the voice to skip eerily), and its head spins around manically.
  • Chuckie's idea to get rid of Mr. Fiend is pushing it off the "Entire" State Building; he saw it in "King Krong".
• "Destination: Moon" has Phil telling Chuckie that "In space, no one can hear you scream."
• "The Trial" features Angelica putting on a bunny mask from her first-person perspective, sneaking up on Tommy, and using it to frighten him away, in a visual homage to Michael Myers from the opening of Halloween (1978).
• Flushing Waters, a rest home where Grandpa Lou briefly moves, is owned by a man called Roberto Matzatlan. The television ad shows his image superimposed over a paradisaic background in the style of Fantasy Island.
• Grandpa Lou shares a tale about "Satchmo,"^note  it's actually "Sasquatch" a monster that lives in the woods.
  • His line, "The rest just call him "Sir."" may be a reference to Jim Croce's "Bad Bad Leeroy Brown".
  • In the same episode, Grandpa reads an excerpt from Walden to the kids (you can see the name on the spine if you have great eyes or pause it at the right time). He even name-drops Thoreau.
• Tommy says "Make it so, number one" when they're pretending to have gone into space.
  • Tommy also says "This is Major Tom to Ground Control" in the same episode, a reference to David Bowie's song "Space Oddity."
    Angelica: Tommy, I am your cousin.
    Tommy: NOOOOOOOOOOO!
• Angelica tells Tommy "Let's make like a tree and get out of here."
• The Blasto Oath is pretty much ripped straight from the Green Lantern oath.
• "Mega Diaper Babies" was an early episode featuring a quartet of superheroes battling a metallic supervillain (which naturally, the babies imagined themselves recreating).
  • An episode that also featured elements similar to Captain Planet and the Planeteers and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, tripling the referencing.
  • Quadrupling. One of the villains is apparently named Megalatron.
• One of Angelica's nightmare-inducing stories about a boy who was eaten by a monster beneath his bed, was named Barnaby Jones.
• In "The Case of the Missing Rugrat", Tommy was accidentally adopted by two eccentric old ladies who lived in a dilapidated mansion. The Pendragon sisters' manor is even called "Grey Gardens".
  • Also, Sidney Poitier, Mel Brooks, Humphrey Bogart, and Phil Silvers are referenced as four stores respectively: Sidney's Pottery, Mel's Books, Humphrey's Yogurt, and Phil's Silverware.
• After discovering a nickel in the sandbox, the babies and Angelica get ^nickel gold fever, and paranoia sets in. The reference is doubled, when just like the gold, the nickel is eventually reclaimed by the wind & sand. Not to mention Chuckie saying "We don't need no stinking nickels!"
• In one episode, Chuckie wanders into a group of elderly people (including one who looks like Albert Einstein) doing the Hora. He wanders out in a daze. Upon being asked what he saw, he says, "The Hora! The Hora!" Capped off with a Rimshot.
• "The Word of the Day" features a beloved children's entertainer who is really crude and vulgar (and dumped from airtime) while being waited on by a sweeter and more wholesome woman which sounds similar to "The Killing of Sister George".
• An episode in which Angelica promises her mom to be quiet up to a certain point to win a new Cynthia doll toy parallels that of The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "The Silence."
• When the Pickles attend their family reunion and also from flashbacks featured in "Grandpa's Date", a train conductor is seen shouting "Willoughby!"
• The episode "Toy Palace" contains some pink Dalek toys in the background of one scene. Considering they created Tommy—who solves most of his problems with his "trusty screwdriver"—it's safe to assume that the creators of the show were fans.
• Chuckie declares "I am not a aminal! I am a human bean!'' in "The Slide."
• One episode, "Chuckie's Wonderful Life," is a shout-out to It's a Wonderful Life, albeit without the Christmas themes or suicide.
• "Showdown at Teeter Totter Gulch'' indirectly alludes to a number of Westerns and real historical figures. For example:
  • The antagonist is called "The Junk Food Kid." This may be a parody of The Sundance Kid, Billy the Kid, or both.
• Tommy has an aunt and uncle named Elaine and Ben.
• Angelica's "You like me, you really like me" in the final episode of the original series, is clearly a reference to Sally Field's Oscar acceptance speech in 1985.
• In the Halloween episode where the babies find the mouse in the garage, Tommy and the mouse are about to touch fingers like the poster for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial before the garage door opens.
• The infamous episode "Angelica Breaks a Leg" features a young doctor named Hogie Dooser.
• "Ruthless Tommy" has Tommy kidnapped by two dumb criminals who think he's the son of Ronald Thump.
• "Radio Daze" features a radio drama about a handsome crime-fighter in a domino mask named "The Mass Defective," ^note "The Masked Detective" who gets embroiled in a battle over a MacGuffin called "The Malties Woodchuck." ^note A stuffed woodchuck filled with malted milkballs, that is.
• "Heat Wave" has the babies making a "perilous journey" through the local park on a hot day, eventually encountering a wise Middle Eastern baby who wears a burnoose and gets around by riding on the back of a toy worm. He insists that it's actually a camel, but the reference is still clear. In the same episode, Tommy manages to win said baby's admiration after he backtracks his path through the park to rescue Chuckie, who was accidentally left behind after passing out from the heat.
• Angelica has expressed on several occasions that she enjoyed watching Gilligan.
• "Visitors From Outer Space" is a barrage of references to outer space movies/tv shows, including Lost in Space and Star Trek.
• Look closely in "Stu Gets a Job" and you'll see Stu's been reading ''The Portable Stephen King''. Also doubles as a shout out to one of his quotes. Also, The Rockford Files are on in five minutes.
• During the episode "Destination Moon," Chuckie is scared to leave the "spaceship." Tommy reassures him that it's just "One small step." Chuckie responds "It looks more like a giant leap to me."
• "King Ten Pin":
  • The babies find several pairs of bowling shoes that they mistake for clown shoes. Phil comments "Maybe they'll send in the clowns," and Lil replies "Don't bother. They're here."
  • Ed, the man helping Billy "Strike" Maxwell cheat, says "I didn't do it; I was a patsy!" after being exposed, a reference to alleged J.F.K. murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald.
• Angelica once tried to make a macaroni bust of her mother using a brand of glue called Wilbur's Glue. A picture of a horse was on the label.
• Angelica's magic words in "Angelica the Magnificent" include Humphrey Bogus and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
• The Direct to Video movie "Tales from the Crib: Three Jacks and a Beanstalk" features Angelica shaking a piggy bank and quoting word-for-word Lucy's "nickels" speech from A Charlie Brown Christmas.
• Shown Their Work: When Didi goes on the game show, one of the questions is "What was President Nixon's favorite food?" The answer was ketchup and cottage cheese, which really was his favorite food.
• Show Within a Show: Reptar, The Dummi Bears, and several others.
  "Sing a happy happy happy happy happy happy song."
  • Including the blatant parody Blocky and Oxwinkle. They even got June Foray to do the voice of both the Rocky and the Natasha Expy. The same episode features The Dimstones and The Stetsons.
  • It should be noted that the one show Tommy hates is "Space Trek Babies."
• Tommy: "Chuckie, I knew Spike! Spike was a friend of mine! And let me tell you something: That Poople is no Spike!" A reference to a remark made during the 1988 United States vice-presidential debate by Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis's vice-presidential running mate Senator Lloyd Bentsen to Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator Dan Quayle.
• The episode "The Smell of Success" bears more than a passing resemblance to the story "Flowers for Algernon".
• In "Angelica's Party" when Drew asks Charlotte what he should do about how Angelica is acting like an infant, she says "It's just a phase. It's her party and she can cry if she wants to", referencing the song "It's My Party".
• In "Sour Pickles", Lou mentions Walter Cronkite and Lawrence Welk.
• The episode "Cool Hand Angelica" has references to Cool Hand Luke, including the line "What we've got here is a failure to communicate".
  • Angelica goes through a few activities so to become a better camper like arts and crafts, an obstacle course, and chasing around a chicken (to Susie’s confusion).
• Chuckie had a crazy doctor named Lecter.
• In an episode Angelica makes mention that she loves the series The Adventures of Shirley Holmes.
• In one scene when Stu, Didi and Grandpa sit down to watch a movie together, Stu notes that he heard "the bald guy" gave it thumbs up, to which Grandpa bets that "the fat guy" probably hated it.
• Among the new looks the Dog Groomer recommends to Didi to give Spike in "The Dog Broomer" are "The Schwarzenegger Special" and "The Don King".
• Elvis is the Pelvis on the stamps Phil gets covered in in "The Odd Couple".
• The movies playing at the Octoplex in "At the Movies" were as follows:
  • Reptar
  • The Dummi Bears in the Land Without Smiles
  • My Dad, the Kid
  • In Love
  • Total Mayhem
  • The Adventures of Idaho Ike
  • A Die Hard/Taxi Driver parody
• The very first pop culture reference on the very first episode was Didi telling Tommy to "open the pod bay doors".
• In a plea for attention in "Angelica Breaks a Leg", Angelica at one point, tries to entertain Didi by first impersonating Popeye and then Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• In "Chanukah", there is a promo for a movie called Santa Vs. the Alien.
• One episode from the last season of the original series was titled "Diapies & Dragons".