Rugrats

I still kind of detect a slightly hipsterish quality to these sort of complaints. "I was into it before it was cool..."

And it was popular back in its day. I recall seeing an advertisement for Nick-related videos from 1997 or so - the Rugrats videos dwarfed everything else by an incredible amount.

Can you really have a personality when you've just been born?

edited 27th Jun '15 9:16:03 AM by Aldo930

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

Likely not. Which really doesn't make for a good character to have major focus on. It's the same problem with Poof in FOP. Hearing baby talk and cries gets old fast esp. when the baby has practically a main character.

My Tumblr "If theirs one thing I'm good at, it's blowing" Jesse Cox 2013

I was slightly annoyed that they changed the theme song's arrangement post Rugrats in Paris (and the intro animation, but since they had added many characters to the main cast by then, I understand why they did that), but I didn't have a problem with the episodes themselves (except the babysitter episodes I remember being boring). Dil was kind of useful for inserting some of the season 1 Tommy humor into the later seasons, and I did like Kimi except I thought she was fairly redundant with Tommy at times. I barely watched All Grown Up though.

I forgot all about the baby sitter. Likely I didn't watch those episodes.

My Tumblr "If theirs one thing I'm good at, it's blowing" Jesse Cox 2013

I prefer the pre-Kimi intro myself, really. That's one thing I never really liked.

(It rankles me that you can get both Rugrats intros on CD yet the B-52's take on the Rocko theme was never on CD.)

edited 27th Jun '15 9:31:15 AM by Aldo930

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

I can't remember what the theme sounded like post-Kimi. Perhaps it's for the better.

Also, it's likely that the reason why Rugrat's two themes are available on CD but not Rocko's is that Rugrat's had a shit ton of merchandise. More than Rocko had I bet. And the people behind the merch likely thought that the Rugrat's music is more profitable than Rocko's.

My Tumblr "If theirs one thing I'm good at, it's blowing" Jesse Cox 2013

Perhaps it was copyright issues from using a notable band with the Rocko theme (for all we know one of the Rugrats themes could have been to fill it's space). Granted I preferred the Season One theme anyway.

I remember the original Rugrats intro being less generic. It and the first season had this much more surreal feel to it animation wise.

A lot show's first seasons are pretty shaky. Season 1 is weird though. It was kinda like those T&J shorts with the baby that kept escaping. Did any of the S1 episodes have the other kids besides Tommy? Cause I can't remember if they did. Since I only remember those episodes being about Tommy finding himself in places he shouldn't be at.

My Tumblr "If theirs one thing I'm good at, it's blowing" Jesse Cox 2013

The CD was, in fact, The Best of Nicktoons, made long before they redid the Rugrats theme.

It's interesting how Nickelodeon was still willing to promote its reruns at the time. Ren And Stimpy was on that CD despite having been in reruns for years, and even went off the air that year. (There were no Doug songs, though.)

Even in 2001, with The Newest Nicktoons, they had songs from The Angry Beavers, which ended that year - and I believe wasn't even running regularly at that point.

The first season did have the other kids.

edited 27th Jun '15 9:46:39 AM by Aldo930

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

If that's the case, maybe it was copyright problems.

EDIT:That shows how much this show sticks out in my memory. Not saying I hated the show, but either I can't remember much about it cause I watched at a very young age or I was more into other cartoons so they stick out more.

edited 27th Jun '15 9:48:22 AM by ScottPilgrim2013

My Tumblr "If theirs one thing I'm good at, it's blowing" Jesse Cox 2013

I heard Nicktoons liked maintaining their old shows at the time, they turned down a proper series finale for The Angry Beavers partially because they liked the idea of the series rerunning over and over open ended, constantly (and somewhat cruelly) leaving kids hopeful some new episodes might eventually come on.

Hell, this is what got Rugrats Uncancelled to begin with (shame it didn't work with any of the other shows...well except Ren and Stimpy for a brief while).

Concerning Season One, I remember they had at least one Day In The Limelight for Phil and Lil (the diaper commercial episode) but otherwise I think Tommy was usually the main focus with everyone else more a supporting cast at that point (though the adults were as prominent as usual). Season Two it became more of an Ensemble Cast show.

edited 27th Jun '15 9:54:21 AM by Psi001

I think I remember that episode.

Shame that the Bye Bye Beavers episode never got animated. I've listened to the audio and I laughed my ass off through the whole thing. Then again that's likely cause I've always love when cartoons demolish the fourth wall.

My Tumblr "If theirs one thing I'm good at, it's blowing" Jesse Cox 2013

With "Bye Bye Beavers," they were preparing to let that restriction slide just that once - but then decided not to kill off the characters, even as a joke.

What got Rugrats uncanceled was that the reruns proved to be really popular. They would have done the same with Doug - but Jim Jinkins had already gone with Disney (to the detriment of its quality)...

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

I just dusted off those old orange clamshell Rugrats videocassettes of mine that I hadn't seen in over a decade (and no, that is Not Hyperbole), and gave them a rewatch. Chuckie The Brave had some good episodes (like The Slide), The Rugrats Movie isn't as good as I remembered it being (and This World Is Something New To Me was a completely pointless song), but Diapered Duo had my all-time favourite episode, Mirror Land. The way the events in the episode were set up so that it seemed to Tommy and Chuckie like they actually went to the titular place was fantastic. Does anyone know if there were more episodes like that?

Can't remember, really.

But at least you have those old clamshell orange tapes. A friend of mine who collects tapes says they're not common - well, the Rugrats ones are kind of common. But anything else... You gotta look hard.

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

I don't actually have a lot of videocassettes. Mostly Rugrats, a couple of Sonic (AOStH and SatAM) ones, some Madeline ones ( including a really cheesy sing-a-long one), and, of all the movies, Death Race 2000. No, really.

edited 29th Jun '15 10:57:20 PM by YasminPerry

You know, I'd completely forgotten until now that The Rugrats Movie was ostensibly a musical. A musical with, honestly, no real purpose for being a musical. I don't think anyone ever was clamoring to hear Angelica singing a Blondie song.

I should go watch the movie again sometime, though. Honestly, I was never really as into Rugrats as most people seem to be—it's a fine enough show, but nowhere near as revelatory as people make it out to be—but I've always thought the movies were pretty decent (though the crossover movie with The Wild Thornberrys was just kinda weird and pointless...still I did get to see it at my local theater for free, so I can't complain about that).

edited 29th Jun '15 11:11:15 PM by Odd1

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I think TRM was made a musical as a way to cash in the Disney animated musical craze of the 90's.

Speaking of Rugrats movies, I thought Rugrats In Paris was a far superior film to the first, mostly because it focused on Chuckie, my favourite character. I liked it much more as a kid, though. I liked it so much, I begged my mom to take me to Reptarland - I had no idea it didn't actually exist at the time.

Chuckie was probably the best character on the show, mostly because, outside of the adults and Angelica, he's really the only one who has any well-defined characterization and any sort of development. The other babies just don't seem to have as much personality...though, really, now that I think about it, that does make sense, as they are still babies, whereas Chuckie and Angelica seem more to be toddlers and thus have had more time to actually develop personalities.

Also, for those curious, I just found the first movie and Paris on Netflix, so if anyone wanted to rewatch them...

edited 29th Jun '15 11:35:02 PM by Odd1

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Meh, I thought Tommy had a pretty well-defined personality - he craved excitement and adventure. Hell, one of the reasons I wasn't too keen on All Grown Up back when it was running on Nick was that they diluted Tommy's personality to being not much adventurous and brave any more.

edited 29th Jun '15 11:51:57 PM by YasminPerry

That's really all there was to Tommy, though. I don't really find "brave and adventurous" to be that interesting of a character trait. That's partially why I liked the movie—he shows more personality than that there, running the gamut of emotions and going everywhere from jealousy of his little brother and anger at him to unsureness when they're lost to genuinely caring, etc.

Maybe I just prefer my characters to have some sort of neuroses to them.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

As for All Grown Up...well, let's be honest, they kinda screwed everyone up there for the purpose of turning the show into Child-Friendly Degrassi™.

edited 30th Jun '15 12:06:58 AM by Odd1

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I vaguely remember the babysitter episodes. It was an obvious Amanda Bynes vehicle to try and spread her name around more, which don't work now when she is off in obscurity.

I think those episodes came about because Amanda's (very funny) sketch comedy show was canceled and they wanted to keep her around somehow.

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

Phil and Lil were kinda the 'neutral' characters for most of the classic era, until they got their Divergent Character Evolution. They didn't have many highs and lows in opinion, they were usually open minded and even a bit weak willed and corruptible. Usually they'd just follow Tommy, or sometimes they'd even be lured to follow Angelica (e.g. the one where she convinces them to kill Chuckie because he's an alien).

I did notice Tommy could be a bit more selfish and manipulative towards Chuckie early on, The Complainer Is Always Wrong tended to come into play and he didn't care as much about how scared he was. "Farewell My Friend" seemed like sort of an apology for this (albeit by also portraying Phil and Lil as Dirty Cowards).

edited 30th Jun '15 12:11:37 PM by Psi001