The fifteenth and final episode of the seventh season of Rugrats (1991). The episode first aired on July 21st, 2001 as part of the tenth anniversary of Rugrats.
The episide opens with a scientist preparing to use a pumpkin as an energy source for his time machine before revealing it to be a movie the babies are watching.
Tommy is intrigued by the idea of going to the future, but Chuckie is skeptical. What if there are even more scary things in the future than now? Tommy and Kimi posit that it won't be as scary because they'll be bigger and smarter. Phil points out that they can also spit. Lil points out that he can spit now, but Phil is convinced that it'll be smarter spit.
The discussion is interrupted by Angelica, who wants the babies to serve as her audience while she sings karaoke. The babies are impressed by her karaoke machine, but not so much by her singing. Angelica refuses to let Tommy have a try at singing, but is willing to let him do so if she gives him what she wants.
When Didi comes into the living room with cookies, Angelica pretends to have been singing while the babies made a mess (in reality, Angelica made the mess while singing). Didi puts the babies in the playpen so she can clean while Angelica takes all the cookies.
Frustrated, Tommy resolves to play with the karaoke machine whether Angelica wants them to or not. He and the other babies return to the TV area with Chuckie protesting the entire time. When Angelica returns to find Tommy playing with the karaoke machine, she's furious. After being chased into the closet, Tommy resolves to build his own time machine. That way, they can go to the future where they'll be grown up enough that Angelica won't boss them around anymore. Meanwhile, Angelica is giving them to the count of ten to come out with her karaoke machine.
Tommy uses an old stereo, a helmet, and a pair of headphones as Angelica (incorrectly) counts to ten.
When the closet door opens, Angelica is 13-years-old and expressing bafflement that Tommy and his friends are still playing in a closet. "You are such preteens", she scoffs before demanding they hand over her brand-new Emica CD.
Tommy crawls out, saying that she said they could borrow it. Chuckie adds that they want to learn all of her songs before the concert. Phil crawls out of the closet before Lil and Kimi come tumbling after, with Lil grumbling that the bottom of the pyramid needs to warn the others before moving. Angelica demands her CD back. Instead, Dil tosses a Reptar toy from still inside the closet. He does end up handing the CD over as he leaves, but not before Angelica threatens to tell his mother about the lizard in the shoebox.
As the camera pans over a shot of a picture of Grandpa Lou, Didi is musing how careful she's been about his diet over all these years, before revealing that she's actually talking to Spike. Tommy walks into the kitchen and sneaks Spike some bacon. As Angelica wonders how her aunt puts up with all the kids, Stu enters the kitchen dressed in disco regalia.
Stu shows off a medallion bearing the symbol for Scorpio, revealing it to have been a gift from Lou. It's his good-luck charm, and he plans to wear it to a dance competition the following day. A honk from outside reveals that the school bus (driven by Grandpa Lou) has arrived.
On the ride to school, Angelica tells her friend Samantha that she plans to wear a necklace identical to Emica's to the concert - a necklace that just so happens to be identical to Stu's Scorpio medallion. She offers to put in a good word for Chuckie (who's developed a crush on Samantha) to her if Tommy helps her get the necklace.
That night, Tommy uses a dog treat to make a fake medallion, but it ends up being eaten by Spike the following morning. When they can't find the real one, they conclude that he ate it as well, forcing them to come clean to Stu and Didi, who ground Tommy as a result. Susie (who wasn't able to get a ticket) is hired to babysit him while the others go to the concert.
As the group reminisces about old times in the sandbox, they find the medallion, but Stu and Did have already left. Tommy tells Dil and his friends to get the medallion to his dad, but they convince him to come with them. Susie catches them, but is on board with the plan.
At the concert, Samantha is convinced that Angelica lied to her about not just the necklace, but also about having been to Paris and not being related to Tommy, who Angelica has claimed to have no connection to. When Angelica catches sight of Tommy with the necklace, he refuses to give it to her, saying that if Samantha can't see how great Chuckie is, then she's not a good fit for him anyway. This prompts Samantha to remember having given Chuckie lip balm for his braces (which she has experience with). Angelica also admits the truth about the necklace and her relation to Tommy. She gives her ticket to Susie before leaving with Tommy to get the necklace to Stu, who is having a hard time at the dance competition. Once it's returned to him, he starts busting a move.
Back in front of the concert, Grandpa Lou shows up with an extra ticket (originally meant for Lulu, who is currently traveling), allowing Angelica to get in. Once inside, Emica invites Tommy (and a pleading Angelica) onto the stage to sing with her. After a montage of past episodes, Tommy and Angelica fight over the microphone...
...and we cut back to the group as babies. Tommy and Angelica's fight over the karaoke machine ends up breaking it. When she realizes that Dil has also drooled on it, she gets even madder. Tommy promises that in ten years, Angelica won't boss them around anymore, but Chuckie wonders if ten years is going to be a long time.
This special provides examples of:
- Ad-Break Double-Take: When Tommy activates the handmade time machine to send the babies to the future by the time Angelica reaches ten, the closet distorts into a swirling vortex as Angelica's voice echoes out and the view goes to black; when we return from commercial break, Angelica reaches ten again which also echoes before the preteen Angelica is revealed.
- Bait-and-Switch: When the future Didi is first introduced, we see a photo of Lou as she is heard talking about being over 90 years old and concerned for his health; when the camera pans over, it's revealed she is actually talking to Spike.
- Counting to Three: When the babies hide in the closet with the karaoke machine, Angelica gives them to the count of ten to bring it back, but she begins saying random numbers in an improper order, giving them time to make a time machine so they get transported to the future by the time she finally gets to ten.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Excluding the bookended scenes with the babies, the whole special is set over a period of two full days.
- Hypno Pendulum: Tommy uses the fake medallion as this to help Dil sleep when he's too tired.
- MacGuffin: Lou's Scorpio medallion, which he uses as a good luck charm to help him dance in the Dinosaurs of Disco contest, and what Angelica needs to wear to the Emica concert. Tommy initially planned on disguising one of Spike's treats as a lookalike for Stu to use while Angelica gets the real one, but it falls through when Spike eats the fake medallion and hides the real one in Tommy's sandbox.
- Malaproper: Early on, Angelica mispronounces "karaoke" as "tapioke".
- Mondegreen Gag: Early on, Angelica sings a mangled version of "America the Beautiful" to the babies.Oh beautiful, for spaceship eyes,
For Hamburg waves of rain,
For Purple Mountain's travesty,
Above the fruited rain.
Angelica, Angelica,
Bob shared his grapes with me,
So crown thy good with motherhood
From me to shining me! - Noodle Incident:
- When Dil has Angelica's Emica CD and refuses to give it up, Angelica tells him "Maybe I should tell Aunt Didi about the lizard in the shoe box." Dil then says "Not funny! Not funny one bit!" and surrenders the CD.
- A few minutes later, Dil notes that he's never seen his father in his disco attire before. Angelica snarks that it was because he was dropped on his head as a baby.
Phil: (to Lil) Dil's fine. We only dropped him once. - Poorly Disguised Pilot: This special serves as one to what would become All Grown Up! two years later. It wasn't intended as such, but the special's popularity attracted enough interest for a series to be ordered.
- Replaced with Replica: When Angelica asks to wear Stu's Scorpio medallion to the Emica concert, Tommy replaces it with a lookalike made out of one of Spike's dog treats wrapped in gold foil. When Dil points out Angelica would recognize the medallion as fake if she smells it, Tommy plans to give Angelica the real one while Stu gets the fake. His plan ultimately falls apart when Spike smells the fake medallion and eats it whole.
- You Are Grounded!: Stu and Didi ground Tommy for taking Stu's medallion, having believed that Spike ate it.
