As fondly remembered as Rugrats is, sometimes it produces messes worse than the smell of a loaded diaper.
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Dethroning Moment of Suck. - No Real Life examples, including Executive Meddling. It only invites a flame war.
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- Kittens: There was an episode that had a really dumb moment, and the episode's called "Piggy's Pizza Place". The episode wasn't that bad, but what I thought was stupid was when that jerk in the bull costume kept putting Angelica in the time out booth all because she was just trying to get her tickets. Seriously, all she was trying to do was get her tickets off of Piggy's tail that she won fair and square. And its pretty obvious that they're stuck to his tail and she's trying to get them off! How that idiot can't see that I'll never know.
- Disco Glacier: One moment that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is in "The Big Flush", when Lil unwittingly traps Deedee and Betty in the steam room when it's at its maximum temperature. Considering the two were in serious danger of heat exhaustion (and they were parched by the time they were freed), this sequence comes off as mean-spirited rather than funny, especially considering this series isn't known for such humor.
- Kishou: For me, it was the moment that the babies decided to "flush" the pool because they're so convinced that it's a potty. Even when Chuckie explains that there are people in it, Tommy brushes it off saying "they shouldn't be playing in the potty anyway". I get that they're babies and don't know any better, but that scene actually made me wish Tommy died via drowning for actively endangering his and the other's lives because their next big adventure was to go to a pool with no supervision.
- Total Drama Rox 97: Didi can't be given the award for "Most Attentive Parent" but in the episode "The Big Showdown", this inattentiveness irritating levels. Dil was having bad dreams and Didi thinks all the Reptar stuff is scaring Dil (when it's obviously the thunderstorm outside). So what does she do? She takes away all of Dil's and Tommy's Reptar stuff and replaces it with a character named Goober the Gopher after a hotline caller recommended it. It's easy to understand why she wanted to keep it hidden Dil, but why Tommy he was never crying or anything? When Tommy shows a distaste to Goober, Didi considers throwing the Reptar stuff away. One can only wonder why she thought that would be a good idea. Thankfully, the hotline director recommends she goes to a Toy Fair where a man dressed as Goober would be. This is where it gets infuriating. While there Betty tells Didi that she might be going overboard and tries to point out Reptar isn't that bad, Didi disagrees. Here's the infuriating part. When they go to meet Goober, the man turns out to be a complete Jerkass. He takes Tommy's Reptar toy making him cry and replaces it with a Goober stuffed animal. Time for Didi to stand up to Goober? Not quite. She defends Goober and is shocked that Tommy would respond that way. The guy just stole your baby's toy, made him cry, and she thinks he's the good guy? I understand Didi can lack common sense sometimes but this episode took it way too far.
- Kishou: Personally I felt the guy in the Goober suit was a Designated Villain for the episode. I get Goober was meant to be a joke and parody on Barney the Dinosaur, but Chuckie and Dil honestly liked having a role model who wasn't so scary looking. They could have done something nice with Goober to show that it's okay for friends to like different things, and it was kind of half-assed with emphasizing all Goober does is "give hugs". Yes, what the guy in the suit did was pretty mean stealing another kid's toy (and all the horrible parenting points go to Didi for not noticing this), but we don't know anything about this guy besides he's kind of a jerk. He might have a legit reason to hate the Reptar suit guy. He was eating his sandwich, for one, and when he threatened him, the Reptar guy just mocked him saying he would give it back if he would "give me a hug!" In the end, he lost the fight, and everyone cheers for Reptar for saving the kids he sent flying while booing him for saying "hey, I could have done that too!" It was really both their faults as Reptar pushed Goober into the table that sent the babies flying.
- CJ Croen 1393: "Wash-Dry Story" randomly turns into a West Side Story parody for no good reason. All of the songs (besides "Cynthia", which was actually kind of sweet) were completely random, sounded awful and filled with Painful Rhymes. It was full of plot holes (how exactly did Angelica know they were all singing when she was at home and not at the laundromat?), the McNulty boys were flanderized horribly and the plot was just nonexistent, and not in a good way. Overall just a terribly dull episode.
- Princess Togezo: The end of "Silent Angelica", already an episode with few laughs in my opinion, cements it as one of the least rewatchable episodes of the show for me (and this is coming from someone who actually likes the Dil and Kimi episodes). Angelica spent the whole episode trying to stay as quiet as possible so she could get new toys, and otherwise was generally behaving herself, but when the babies pushed her to her Rage Breaking Point, that was when Drew and Charlotte decided to come in, and instead of finding out the whole context, they decided to punish Angelica for the mess the babies made and for yelling once (right at the end of the designated quiet time, no less). The fact that Angelica actually tried her hardest to behave herself doesn't seem to matter to them, and at the very end, they still refuse to let her have either of the toys she wanted.note Remember back in the Christmas episode where she was told by no less than Santa Claus himself that sometimes trying to be good is just as important as being good? This episode takes that moral and adds, "Except when it's funnier for that not to be the case." I just wanted to get Angelica both of those toys and maybe a little extra after the episode just for putting up with all of that, because if that's how her parents react to an honest slip-up that she made after having her patience pushed to the limit, then she really needs a break.
- Brony Of The Octaves: The episode 'Tricycle Thief' was the biggest middle finger insulting episode of the show. The basic premise is that Susie's tricycle goes missing, and blames Angelica for stealing it just because she ended up damaging it earlier in the episode. Granted, Angelica has lied several times before, but still, she was clearly completely innocent of the "lost" trike from the very beginning. Worse, while confronted about the "stolen" trike, when hints that are obvious to the contrary are pointed out (such as the reflector being completely intact), Susie stubbornly comes up with ridiculous theories stating "she threw away the broken one and stole it from someone else's trike." Now this would have been a decent episode using the "Misblamed" plot, but instead comes off as a degrading episode to Angelica with Susie literally decides that as a means to make Angelica confess (to something she honestly doesn't know about) or else her dang doll is going to be sent into the air by Chuckie's balloon. Even if it's made to seem Angelica "stole" Susie's tricycle, you can tell she didn't and yet this entire episode is making you sit through god knows how many agonizing minutes of Angelica pleading that she didn't steal the tricycle. It's a basic Character Derailment to Susie, who's known to be level headed (at least before All Grown Up! came in) and just having her order Phil and Lil into holding Angelica like that (especially when Cynthia is let go). It actually made this troper smile when Angelica started to give a huge "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Susie after it's revealed she obviously didn't steal the tricycle, even if it was a little one. But of course course, it was taken back when Cynthia is returned. The episode was just poorly done and derailed Susie's character, as well as Phil and Lil's, but not so much.
- Ms CC 93: My moment would be in the episode "Chuckie's Wonderful Life," in a scene after Chuckie "loses" his father's CD and gets angry at his friends for influencing him to take his dad's CD (when really, it was Angelica who stole Chaz' CD). Angelica flat out tells Chuckie that the world would be better off without him. This is taking Angelica too far in my opinion, because even though she's a jerkass, I'd never think she would do such a thing! In all fairness, Angelica does end up getting punished by her father though.
- Tropers/neonhitch: I love this series to pieces, though I disliked the episode 'Curse of the Werewuff.' Not only did it succeed in being incredibly boring to me, though the characters seem to act like just because Kimi is now there, the previous Halloween episode never happened, and they're acting as if this is the first time they've ever celebrated Halloween. What? I understand that Negative Continuity exists, and many shows follow this trope, though Rugrats usually follows continuity. The original Halloween episode was excellent, so for them to just ignore it in this episode was a Dethroning Moment for me when I was little, and it is for me now.
- @Troper/middone: To be honest, Mommy's Little Assets or whichever one where Charlotte decides it would be a good idea to bring kids to work has always upset me. Everything is too obnoxious for me, especially the fact that Jonathan gets fired when he was honestly trying his best. Charlotte was a bit overkill sometimes, which disappoints me.
- Kishou: At least Jonathan got rehired, but only to be bossed around by Angelica again by being a supervisor of the new daycare, and forced to take care of Tommy and Angelica. Poor guy never caught a break after this.
- Just Another Troper: After reading this list, I'm incredibly surprised nobody has added the episode "Party Animals" to it. This episode, in my opinion, was one of the biggest Stu-torture porns in the whole series. Basically the whole plot of the episode is that Drew and Charlotte have a big costume party at their house. Stu comes dressed up as Tarzan, "King of the Jungle" to which Drew tells Stu that King Kong is the real king of the jungle. This leads to an argument that eventually leads to Drew locking Stu out of the house. When Drew refuses to let him back in, Stu decides to climb his way up a drainage pipe so he can climb through an open window. However, his costume becomes stuck and he fails to make it back inside. To make matters worse, the cops show up and arrest him because they think he is some lunatic trying to break into someone else's house. The episode ends with Stu sitting in a cop car as the two cops who arrested him and a diner waitress laugh at him. The absolute worst part of this episode is that nobody at the party tries to look for Stu. In fact, nobody knows that he got locked out in the first place. Not to mention Drew doesn't even get punished for what he did. Keep in mind this whole thing started over an argument over who's "King of the Jungle". A simple, petty argument that Drew took too far by locking his own brother out of the house. Drew was the one holding the Jerkass Ball here, yet Stu, the victim, is the one who received the punishment. It's these kinds of episodes that leave a bad taste in my mouth by the end.
- Jade Eyes 1: Not only that, but Drew, the cops, and the waitress were all wrong: Tarzan is the King of the African jungle (i.e. what most people think of when they think of "the jungle"); King Kong is only the "king" of Skull Island. Anyone who has even a basic knowledge of these characters should know this. Not only does Stu go through a Humiliation Conga, but he does so at the hands of people who are too dumb to know what they're talking about — and, in the case of Drew, too petty and stubborn to admit when they could be wrong.
- Supreme X 15: Looking back on this episode, Stu's treatment here definitely rubbed me the wrong way. While the rest of was fun for a while, it went down hill when Drew just locks Stu out of the house, leaving his brother to get arrested and laughed by two Jerkass cops and a waitress, and all because Drew was petty asshole who got away with treating his brother like crap, and no one seemed to realize Stu was missing. I never really liked Drew, and now I remember why. It's because of this episode's ending. I now see where Angelica's brattiness comes from.
- Yasmin Perry: I'm not a big fan of Dethroning Moment pages in general, but "New Kid In Town" is easily one of the worst episodes of the show, thanks to its cringe-worthy case of Fridge Horror, almost bordering on Values Dissonance (given that the episode was from the early 90's). Basically, the episode is about how the babies are (rightfully) sick and tired of being bullied and bossed around by Angelica. They meet a new boy, Josh, who at first seems nice and friendly, but turns out to be an even bigger bully than Angelica. Angelica comes and "rescues" the babies from Josh, and they go right back to being bullied by her. Where oh where to begin? First of all, the episode has the rather terrible message that, it's better to be bullied by a "lesser" bully than to not be bullied at all, as the babies never consider the possibility of either meeting a new kid that won't bully them like Josh or Angelica, or simply not hanging out with Angelica. Secondly, if the episode is taken as a metaphor for something else, like say, Domestic Abuse, it takes a nose dive straight into creepiness. Thirdly, this is yet another example in the loooong list of instances where Angelica is bullying the babies and doesn't get any sort of comeuppance for it. In conclusion, this episode does not only have a terrible moral, it makes me like the show in general a whole lot less, as I was bullied a lot growing up, so this episode really hit home for me.
- Waters 20: Gotta agree with you there. Seriously, the whole We Want Our Jerk Back! trope is getting really banal.
- Space Hunter Drake Redcrest: Rugrats has been a childhood favorite show of mine, but there's one episode that's always bothered me: "Day of the Potty." The main reason is because of the opening scene, which even as a child bothered me. What gets the plot going is Chuckie flushing a toy airplane down the toilet. I'd say It Makes Sense in Context, but it doesn't. When Chuckie explains to his friends why he did it, he gives two reasons, both of which are stupid. The first is that he didn't want to go his whole life without flushing an airplane down the toilet, and the second is that the plane didn't fly, so he figured he'd dispose of it by flushing it down the toilet. I'd expect this level of stupidity from Phil, Lil, or maybe even Tommy. But Chuckie is supposed to be the smartest of the group. The other problem I have with it is that Chuckie is never punished for what he did. If I had flushed a toy airplane down the toilet at his age, my parents would have killed me. Not out of anger, but because it would be a sign that I would never function within civilized society.
- Kishou: Chaz is too much of a wuss to discipline his son, and if Kimi is any indicator, Kira has a bit of hands-off approach to her children. That being said, the episode was pretty stupid. Phil even asks why he didn't flush a sock down instead (which, while still could clog a toilet, wouldn't damage it as much as a toy plane). Chuckie snaps "I don't know why!" and Tommy tries to defend him that it was an accident. Chuckie then admits "Not really". You lost all credibility and excuses that moment, Chuck, and you deserved to be haunted by toilets the whole episode (even though you really weren't).
- KoopaKid17: The ending to "Angelica's Worst Nightmare" made Angelica more insufferable than she already is. It's built up when Drew and Charlotte tell her that they're not going to have another child after all. What exactly happened is left to the viewer's interpretation. Angelica seems to share their pain until she goes up to her room, closes the door and lets out a Big "YES!". Fade to black. Okay, Angelica is supposed to be selfish but it's downright cruel to celebrate an event that leaves your parents traumatized. This especially considering we were supposed to sympathize with her after her nightmare, and one that dealt with a potential real-life issue that kids can relate to.
- Random Troper: "The Word of the Day" where Angelica learns a swear word. Drew and Charlotte really did not handle the situation well at all. They just punish Angelica for saying a bad word when she had no idea what she was saying.
- Kris Simsters: Are we not going to talk about "A Visit from Lipschitz"? I have to give huge idiot points to Didi, Stu, Grandpa Lou, and Chaz for leaving a stranger in the house by himself because they went looking for the babies who "vanished." This was not a good idea on anybody's part. Why did this man take a bath in the house?
- Just Another Troper: Now, I honestly loved Rugrats ever since I was a little kid, but there is only one episode I just can't stand watching, and that episode is "Angelica Breaks a Leg". The reason I hated that episode is because of how Angelica treated Stu and Didi poorly to do her bidding, and what's worst? Angelica asked Stu to make chocolate pudding and then he went to the convenience store and buy pudding mix, and then he makes it at 4am, and Angelica say's she's not hungry anymore. Wow, that is really mean spirited of Angelica to force her uncle to do her bidding (I know she did means things before, but this is way too far). Poor Stu.
- Come to think of it, Angelica trying fake her broken leg pretty much feels like a scam. She can't just pretend to fake a broken leg to get her attention, It's just not right. Luckily in the end, Didi had a phone call from the doctor, who told her she hasn't broken her leg after all. Why didn't he just call her earlier before? or better yet, tell Didi and Stu that Angelica didn't actually broken her leg after she had her X-ray? However, Charlotte did actually broken her leg, after she fall of the waterfall, along with her coworkers (and probably Drew as well). I think Angelica really deserves her punishment for what she did to her uncle and aunt. If the scene where Stu makes chocolate pudding was cut, then the episode would've been slightly better. Wow, that episode really traumatised me. I don't know why it became an internet meme in the first place, it's just unfunny and too disturbing to watch. That is not a good idea to teach kids it's okay to fake a broken leg, it's just feels.... wrong.
- defender2222: "Dil Saver". Tommy goes through the entire episode getting more and more fearful that Dil has become trapped in the computer, desparetely trying to rescue him and return him to normal. Not only is this just a rehash of "Dil We Meet Again" from Season 6 (only they babies think Dil is a watermellon) but the ending is utterly horrible. Stu's new expensive computer is destroyed meaning he is now out of a ton of money. This is played for laughs. Then Dil returns and Tommy expresses how thrilled and happy he is to see him... and Dil violently smacks him over and over on the head, with Tommy weakly saying its okay. It makes one wonder WHY Tommy wants his brother back when Dil is so mean and evil. And to top it off only half a season later we get another rehash of the same plot in "Hello Dilly" only this time with a FAR superior ending (Dil's subplot seeing him also in distress as Angelica has kidnapped him and he just wants to get back to Tommy; when Dil does get back home he is the first one to react, being utterly thrilled to have found Tommy and giving him a hug). "Dil Saver" just makes Dil off as a selfish horrible baby who does nothing to earn Tommy's love.
