YMMV / All Grown Up!

• Accidental Aesop: A specific one within the main Aesop of "Susie Sings the Blues" - a performer shouldn't have to pay for their own audition. Numerous agents in real life offer 'open days' or charge a fee for being represented which, while not necessary illegal, is hugely unethical. Most of the time, it's a scam, and a legitimate agent or manager won't charge the performer beyond the agreed-upon commission of their earnings.
• Badass Decay: In Rugrats, Tommy and his plastic screwdriver can save the day (albeit mostly in an Imagine Spot). Here, Tommy no longer has the same courage he had when he was younger (implicitly partly because he nearly drowned while on a fishing trip with Grandpa Lou sometime between Rugrats and All Grown Up), nor does he often serve as a leader to his friends. That said, can still be just as brave as he used to be (diving into a raging river after a drowning Phil despite being terrified of being in the water comes to mind); it's just the setting doesn't allow him to show it off as much.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In "TP+KF", there is a montage of Chuckie asking other people to trick-or-treat with him after his falling out with Tommy. One of the people he asks happens to be a mouse that can talk. Absolutely nothing was said or done to clue the audience in on the mouse being able to speak and it isn't brought up ever again.
• Bizarro Episode: "Tommy Foolery" mainly for the Gainax Ending that aliens apparently are real in this universe.
• Broken Base: The characterization of the main protagonists is subject to debate. Some viewers, particularly those who prefer Rugrats, find that their personalities are altered far too much to be recognisable. Others however think the show did a good job of developing the original personas into preteens, and their personalities feel natural.
• Character Rerailment: Susie had been introduced as a normal child in her first few appearances on Rugrats, before becoming a Foil to Angelica that led to her being a near Flawless Token. All Grown Up retains the things that make her a foil to Angelica, while also giving her realistic flaws and overall making her a more rounded character. She's also allowed to be funny in her own right.
• Common Knowledge:
  • The Rugrats "All Growed Up" two-parter was a Poorly Disguised Pilot to keep the series relevant? Wrong! The special was a standalone just designed to celebrate the show's ten year anniversary, and a spin-off was only greenlit after strong ratings and fan requests.
  • The series compared to Rugrats is a bland Slice of Life with no adventures and Imagine Spots, and overemphasis on tween issues? The series is full of Imagine Spots, with Tommy and Dil in particular having many elaborate ones, and there are in fact several specials that are based around adventures - "Interview with a Campfire" and "RV Having Fun Yet?" most notably. The series also has gags involving aliens existing, Angelica's Cynthia doll being sentient and a talking mouse.
• Contested Sequel: Some fans disliked the show for its massive differences, considering several characters got massive personality changes from toddler to preteen. However there are plenty of fans that enjoyed this and Rugrats - there is still fan art/fanfiction being created based on All Grown Up and it isn't uncommon to find fans who prefer this show over Rugrats for one reason or another.
• Designated Monkey: Tommy becomes this in his preteen years, whenever his friends make him the scapegoat of their fury, whenever they're in a tight situation. This is done throughout episodes like "Truth or Consequences", "Dude, Where's My Horse?", "All Broke Up", and "Brothers Grimm".
• Die for Our Ship: Nicole, Rachel, Z and Nicholas for being the love interests of Chuckie, Tommy, Kimi and Lil, respectively. Strangely, a lot of them (save for Rachel) end up getting Put on a Bus, particularly noticeable with Z, who doesn't appear much save for a couple of non-speaking cameos at the start of Season 2.
• Epileptic Trees: People were trying to figure out if Savannah Shane and Samantha Shane were one and the same girl (they do share a last name, after all), despite looking and acting completely different. It doesn't help that Klasky-Csupo confirmed this rumour, right before Retconning it by having both characters appear in the same episode.
• Fanon: Savannah and Samantha are relatives. The most common consensus is twins, though them being half-siblings or cousins isn't unknown.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: "Yu-Gotta-Go", the episode with a Yu-Gi-Oh! parody, features a purple clad character named Shark.
• Ho Yay:
  • When Phil dresses up as Lil, Tommy remarks "Phil looks good as a girl". The rest of the guys agree.
  • Chuckie and Tommy share several significant moments together. The scene where Chuckie helps Tommy absail in "Fear of Falling" is full of it.
  • Susie and Angelica also have some Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moments, often playing out like they're a Slap-Slap-Kiss couple.
  • Angelica's desire to suck up to Savannah can make it seem like there's more than friendship on her mind.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Tommy pretty much bounces between shipping himself off with either Lil or Kimi. In universe, it starts with a girl Chuckie has a crush on, then he has a couple more single-episode girlfriends, then Rachel for a season and then an episode teasing Kimi.
  • Kimi is also often shipped with Phil in the fandom. And of course Tommy and Z, both of which get Ship Tease in the cartoon.
• Moral Event Horizon: In-universe in "Lucky 13". Savannah deliberately plans another party on the day of Angelica's, knowing everyone will come to hers instead, just as a Kick the Dog moment. Despite how bratty Angelica can be, the gang think even she doesn't deserve that, and Savannah's own friends initially seem uneasy about it too.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Dil was viewed as the most annoying character on Rugrats, due to being The Load who couldn't talk and essentially had no personality. Here in the spin-off he's given the personality of a Crazy Is Cool Cloud Cuckoo Lander who usually gets the best lines. He's one of the favourite characters of All Grown Up.
  • Kimi isn't necessarily hated on Rugrats, but her arrival on the show is associated with Seasonal Rot. Here, she's far more popular, and one of the biggest targets for shipping.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general opinion of the show. Most would agree that Rugrats is the better show of the two, with this show having a more lukewarm reception. Being Vindicated by History has helped it gain far more positivity, though overall the fanbase still regards it as a mostly average teen cartoon that does happen to have some stand-out episodes.
• Squick:
  • The kids' understandable reaction to Lou Pickles' Haggis.
  • Everyone's reaction to Phil's science experiment.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: It may surprise a few that the series actually did get a couple of video games, one PC platformer game based on the pilot, and one Game Boy Advance title which was a Minigame Game based on the first few episodes. Neither was remarkable, and both fell off the radar as quickly as they came.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Your mileage may vary on whether or not some of the more drastic Season 2 redesigns were a good thing. Tommy in particular, since his hair was a colored a lighter shade of purple (as opposed to dark purple substituting for black) and he was given a flattop-like hairstyle, which was very outdated even in the 2000s.
  • Some of the redesigns for the adults get this too. Examples being Charlotte's horrific plastic surgeries and Howard looking about two decades older than he should be.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: It's often accused of being an As Told by Ginger rip-off, due to being Slice of Life cartoons with preteen protagonists. This ignores that As Told By Ginger is Darker and Edgier, tackling more serious coming of age issues. All Grown Up meanwhile was more comedic, and leaned more towards the surreal. Some of this also assumes that the protagonists of both are the same age; Tommy, Kimi, Phil and Lil are only ten, Chuckie is eleven and Dil nine, with no one aging besides Angelica turning 13 in one episode. Ginger and her friends are all twelve and age to fifteen over the series.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Stu and Drew. In Rugrats, they were fan favorites, and their bickering were a great source of comedy on the show. In All Grown Up, they fell Out of Focus as characters, only to reappear together in one episode bickering like before (making it seem like a return to the good old days)...and then the show ended.
  • Also, Samantha. Promoted as a possible love interest for Chuckie in the pilot, only to vanish from the show proper.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • "TP+KF" suggested it might finally have Tommy and Kimi become a couple, but is instead an episode where Chuckie believes Tommy is hitting on his sister and Tommy is trying to make it up to him.
  • The filmmaking contest episode shows home movies from earlier in the characters' lives - after events that happened in Rugrats and before this show. None of them are ever really touched on, aside from Tommy's fear of water stemming from a childhood accident.
• Unexpected Character: Not a lot of fans were expecting to see Reptar or Cynthia again, but sure enough they returned in "Curse of Reptar" and "Saving Cynthia" respectively.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • "It's Cupid, Stupid" is centered on a parody of Li'l Romeo (played by the man himself), a rapper from the early 2000's and star of the 2003 Nickelodeon sitcom Romeo!. He hasn't been very active since the 2000's, so very few people would recognize the parody today.
  • The Sulky Boys are also a parody of the '90s and 2000s Boy Bands that were starting to fall out of popularity.
  • Tommy's camcorder is likewise late '90s/early 2000s technology that still shoots on video tape, and the characters likewise watch his films on VHS. "Interview With a Campfire" likewise has Tommy parodying Scream, which was still considered a contemporary film in the early 2000s.
  • Everyone is obsessed with a Yu-Gi-Oh! copy around the time it was huge in pop culture.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Dil big time in "Brother, Can You Spare the Time?" The plot is about Dil feeling forgotten because Tommy wins an award and gets a lot of extra attention, and Tommy is the one who has to dramatically apologise for not making time for him and neglecting his brother. Except Tommy did make time for him, indulging in Dil's ridiculous bucket list over what looked like days. And one of the instances of him 'neglecting' Dil is because a mob of Loony Fans were swarming him and dragging him off, the other being Tommy taking a phone call from a reporter. And then Dil is the one who goes on a Point-and-Laugh Show to claim that Tommy shut him out, making Tommy look far more like a Jerkass than he was. It looks instead as though Dil was expecting Tommy to spend every waking moment of his life with him, and his main problem was his own giant insecurities. And it was Tommy who had to coax that out of him. Dil basically acts like a self-centered Jerkass and expects to be forgiven because he couldn't handle having a brother that *gasp* other people wanted to talk to for a change.
  • Phil, Lil and Kimi in "All Broke Up". When Tommy and Rachel have to separate, due to Rachel moving away, they don't believe Tommy when he insists he's not as heartbroken as they think he is. They resort to completely smothering him, refusing to even listen to him. Sure Tommy's eventual act was a bit out of line, but it's somewhat understandable considering how overbearing they were. Blowing their allowance and "pulled an all nighter" for their surprise of Rachel coming back to town, which ends up enraging Rachel and humiliating Anita, seems like a fitting comeuppance. Chuckie took part in the scheme as well, but he at least appears to realize his mistake at the end of the episode, attempting to comfort Tommy afterward.
• Vindicated by History: The show was initially met with poor reviews online, but over time, it gained a huge cult following. In 2020, thanks to growing nostalgia for it, All Grown Up was subject to a video titled The Strange Rugrats Spin-off That Kind of Worked. Especially in light of the divisive Rugrats reboot making All Grown Up look better by comparison for some fans, with some fans admitting that they'd have preferred a continuation of All Grown Up featuring the 'Rats in high school, college or even as actual grownups with kids of their own over the reboot.

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