Stu Gets a Job

"Stu Gets a Job" is a Season 3 episode of Rugrats.

Characters Present

 * Stu
 * Didi
 * Tommy
 * Chuckie
 * Phil
 * Lil
 * Drew
 * Lou

Summary
When Stu takes on a new job to supplement the family budget in between inventions, Tommy sets various traps around the house to keep his father at home. However, Stu mistakenly attributes these traps to sibling rivalry with Drew.

Plot
One summer weekday, Stu is at home, unshaved and in his bathrobe, and is sitting in the family’s reclining armchair in the TV area, whilst watching Dummi Bears on TV with his son, Tommy, on his lap and consuming a bag of potato chips and a can of cola; the TV area is also a mess with toys scattered out of place and empty bags and boxes of food all over the floor. As the 2 Dummi Bears on the TV start to sing their trademarked song, “Sing the Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Song”, Stu’s wife, Didi, comes into the scene and turns the TV off with the remote control; Stu protests by telling his wife they were watching that and says she thought was at work.” Didi reminds her husband that school’s out for the summer and she - being a school teacher - had not been at work for 3 weeks; Stu, not wanting to look forgetful, says that he knew that.” Didi, with a scolding look on her face, then takes a brief look around the messy TV area and tells her husband that they need to talk; Stu protests that The Rockford Files’ is on in 4 minutes”, and he gets up and follows Didi into the living room with Tommy in his arms. Didi tells her husband that he hasn't designed a new toy in months, and while not explicitly mentioning it out loud, she’s obviously concerned that her husband hasn’t been pulling his weight; Stu however has been putting most of his time into a an invention he calls the “Bubblerama 3000” - a hyperboloid shaped bubble blowing machine that sits on the floor, is about the height of a 7 year old child, and has a pink body, a blue base with a pink floor pedal that turns the machine on and a cord that plugs into an electrical outlet, and blue cylinder shaped bellows on top - and he states to his wife that their troubles will be over once he perfects it. Stu explains to his wife that it produces the largest, non-toxic soap bubble, and he adds in that “if [it] doesn’t put ‘Pickles Toys’ on the map, nothing will.” Stu then steps on the machine’s pedal to turn it on and demonstrate it, and Didi walks over for a close look; but so sooner does the machine start to blow a large bubble when it pops in everyone’s faces and soaks them, and Stu adds in that there’s unfortunately still a few “kinks” he needs to work out.

Didi walks over to the nearby desk, and as she begins to wring out her hair, she tells her husband: “I’ve been going over our bills Stu, and I thought maybe if you got a job outside the house, we could…” But before Didi can finish, Stu cuts her off replies that an inventor of his stature can’t be worked about “petty financial details” and that his mind has to be free to create; Didi replies: “Oh - well when does an inventor of your stature intended to finish this bubble thing?” Stu rebuttals “Did Mozart’s wife ask him how long it would take to finish his Requiem?”; but Didi replies that Mozart died without finishing his Requiem” and Stu says “Ok, bad example.” Didi then walks over with a newspaper and points out that Stu has a background in sales, and she points out a “want ad” in the paper that she circled, which states that a company called Consolidated Lard is looking for telephone representatives; Stu replies “Consolidated Lard?” We then fast forward to later on, and from an overhead view overlooking the Pickles’ house, we see Stu pulling into the driveway; we then cut into the kitchen and see Didi at the kitchen table, feeding Tommy and his best friend, Chuckie, who are both in height chairs. Stu walks into the kitchen and says to his wife, with a drained look in his face: “Well, I’m an official wage slave, Deed.” Didi, with a brightened look on her face, replies “Stu, that’s great!”; and she then turns to her son and tells him (whilst standing up and putting her right hand on her son’s left shoulder): and tells him that from now on his father got a job.” Didi then walks into the foyer, where her husband is putting his trademarked dark-green dress coat away in the closet by the front door, and she tells her husband that shes very proud of him and gives him a kiss in his left cheek; Stu, still feeling drained, then proceeds to go upstairs and tells his wife sarcastically: “Uh-yeah. Tomorrow morning, Stu Pickles will be ‘cold calling’ customers about the wonders of ‘rendered fat’; I guess life couldn’t get much sweeter.”

Back in the kitchen, Chuckie turns to his friend with a sorry look on his face and tells him “Did you hear that Tommy!? Your Daddy got a job!”; Tommy rebuttals “Huh?” Chuckie says that instead of his father staying home and playing with him’, he has to go work everyday.” Tommy replies, not showing a particle of worry, his father wouldn’t do that. He always stays home and plays with him”; Chuckie says that he doesn’t do that anymore; because he has a job now, just like his father.” Tommy, still confident that his own father wouldn’t stop playing with him for something else, tells his best friend: “Chuckie listen: Maybe your Dad goes to a job all day, maybe other peoples’ daddies go to jobs all day; but not my daddy, he says right here at home with me.” We then cut to the next morning, where Stu is about to pull out of the driveway and head off to his new job; just before he drives off, he waves goodbye to his wife and son, who are standing off to the side and watching him go, and he tells his son: “Bye Tommy, daddy’s off to the ‘lard mines’.” Tommy however is heartbroken to see his father leaving for work, and we then cut to a little later on, where a heartbroken Tommy is in the playpen with his friends, Chuckie, Phil and Lil, and he complains his friends: “Why did he have to get a job anyway? Why can’t he just stay at home and play with me?” Phil figures “Maybe he has better toys there”; Lil adds in “Or new friends” and Chuckie adds in “Or a swimming pool filled with green Jello®!” Everyone stares back at Chuckie’s suggestion, finding it to be a little too flamboyant; Chuckie replies: “Well, he might.” Phil turns to Tommy and tells him: “Sorry Tommy, I guess the tooth hurts sometimes”. Tommy then puts on a determined face and tells his friends that they have to figure out a way to keep his father from going to “that job place” the following day; Phil figures that Tommy’s father will stay home if Tommy shares his toys with him, and Lil adds in “like when we play with your Reptar doll”. Tommy feels this is a great idea, and they round up as much of Tommy’s toys as they can all carry and they bring it upstairs into Stu and Didi’s room; as they walk in, Tommy tells Phil “over here Phil”. Once all are inside (the camera doesn’t follow the babies inside, and we thus don’t see exactly what the babies do with all the toys), Chuckie shouts “Watch out Lil!” and we promptly hear a crash; we then see all 4 babies walk out (and fortunately, none of them are injured in whatever just happened).

We then fast forward to later that night and we see Stu pull into the driveway; we cut into the kitchen where Stu’s father, Lou, and his brother, Drew, are sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee, and Stu walks in with a drained look on his face. Drew says hello to his little brother, but he then smells an odor he disagrees with and asks out loud what it is; Stu puts a brief case he was carrying on the table, opens it, and explains that the smell is “Hickory Smoked Lard” that the brief case is filled with - Stu adds in that “there’s more where that came from” and offers it to his father and brother. Drew declines it while a curious Lou squeezes some in his left hand; as Stu fills a glass of water to drink and drinks it, Drew walks over and suggests: “Well incidentally, now that you’re pulling a paycheck again, I was wondering if you might pay the money I loaned you for that Barbecue Grill.” Stu, not in the mood for such a request after just getting home from his new job, replies: “What!? I paid you back last summer!” Drew, who doesn’t agree he was really paid back, rebuttals: “Huh, what fun you did.” Stu then walks out, stating out loud to no one in particular: “Boy! The minute you start to make good, the vultures just move right on in!” The next morning, Stu is woken up for work by his electronic alarm clock; he reaches over to hit it’s button to shut it off, but one of Tommy’s toys - a cymbal banging monkey - has been placed next to it by the babies, and Stu accidentally hits it instead and turns it on. Stu is startled (to the point where he immediately sits up) by the loud noise the cymbal banging monkey makes, and he shuts it and his alarm off. Stu then walks over to the window to spring the window shade and let the light in, but Stu gets another unpleasant surprise as one of Tommy’s teddy bears has been tied to the pull-down string on the bottom of the shade by the babies; and that’s only the start. Stu then walks over to the closet to get dressed; but as soon as he opens the door, an avalanche of Tommy’s toys that the babies somehow managed to plant on the top shelf fall into an unsuspecting Stu. We cut to a little later on downstairs in the kitchen, where Didi is feeding Tommy at the Kitchen table, and Lou is also at the table reading a newspaper. Stu walks in, wearing his trademarked suit and tie, though with a couple of Tommy’s toys still stuck on him and feeling a bit irritated from the unexpected inconveniences of Tommy’s toys; Didi bids him ‘good morning’ and asks him is he’s all set for work. Stu replies, as he removes other items that are stuck to him: “All set? I’m lucky to be alive: When I opened my closet this morning, an avalanche of toys fell on me!” Lou asks his son why he put the toys into his closet in the first place, and Stu replies: “Pop, I didn’t put them there; someone else did. But who?” Stu doesn’t think that it was his own son and his friends; but after a moment of pondering, he figures that it was Drew who put the toys there. Stu figures out loud that Drew’s motive for doing so is to get even with him for supposedly not paying him back the money for the barbecue grill (Stu also remains confident that he did in fact pay him back already), and Stu (with a sinister look on his face) decides to pay Drew out by calling up a pizza place (whilst holding his nose to disguise his voice) and ordering 50 large Pepperoni and Mushroom Pizzas in Drew’s name!

Tommy’s efforts - while they unintentionally cause trouble his father and, indirectly, his uncle - are of course of no avail in keeping his father from going to work; and we fast forward to later on, where Tommy and his 3 friends (who are once again visiting for the day) are in the playpen, and Tommy shares the news with them: “It didn’t work guys; sharing the toys didn’t make him stay home.” Lil, with a sorry look on her face, says “Sorry Tommy”; and her brother, who also has a sorry look in his face, adds in “It won’t be that bad.” Chuckie also adds: “You’ll get used to never having him around anymore”; Tommy however isn’t immediately cheered up by his friends’ kind remarks, and he openly wishes they all can think of another way to make his father stay home. Chuckie, after thinking for a brief moment, points out to his friends that his own father sometimes stays home whenever bad things happen to him; Tommy asks Chuckie to give some examples, and Chuckie mentions a time his father got his tie stuck in that garbage-disposal and a time his father accidentally locked himself in the bathroom. Tommy, feeling these sorts of things could also keep his father home, is reinvigorated with cheer and renewed determination, and he excitingly tells his friend: “Chuckie, you’ve done it again!” Tommy then thinks of a new plan and stands up a toy chalkboard on a bed of toy blocks to help explain it to his friends; Tommy has his friends all sit down in front of the chalkboard and he starts explaining his plan by asking: “Ok guys, now what’s the first thing your daddy does in the morning?” Chuckie answers “Throws a noisy clock against the wall?” and Tommy replies “No, after that.” Phil answers “Polishes my mommy’s shoes?” and Tommy replies “After that.” Lil answers “Takes a shower?” and Tommy confirms “Exactly! He takes a Shower” and also draws an unintelligible mark on the chalkboard’s upper right corner. Tommy then asks: “And then what does he do?” Chuckie answers “He goes BRRBRRBRRBRRBRR [and he also shakes his head] really loud” and Tommy replies “After that.” Lil answers “He sticks his finger in his ear [and she also sticks her left index finger in her left ear whilst answering]?” and Tommy replies “After that.” Phil answers “He gets dressed?” and Tommy confirms “Exactly!” Tommy, whilst drawing another unintelligible mark under the first mark on the chalkboard, goes on: “And after he get’s dressed, what does he do?” Phil answers: “He eats breakfast?” Tommy then asks “What does he have for breakfast?” and Lil replies “Hot dogs.” Tommy goes on “But what does he drink?”, and Chuckie, after thinking for a brief moment, replies “Coffee?”. Tommy confirms “EXACTLY!”, draws another unintelligible mark to the left of the previous 2 marks on the chalkboard, and begins to explain his plan whilst drawing more unintelligible marks on the chalkboard. At this point, it isn’t clear what exactly they’re all going to do, but Tommy assigns Phil to rig the shower whilst handing him a bottle of honey that’s shaped like a bear and happens to be in his playpen for some reason, he assigns Lil to rig Stu’s wardrobe, and he assigns Chuckie to rig the coffee maker; Tommy, in determination says to everyone “Now let’s get out there and show him what we’re made of!” and everyone stands up and cheers “YEAH!”

We then cut to to an overhead angle of the house later that night and again see Stu pull into the driveway; as Stu gets out of his car, he picks up large can of his company’s lard, and he carries this into the house with him. As Stu comes in and walks into the kitchen, he complains to his wife Didi (who’s no where nearby) out loud: “Deed, you’re not gonna believe this: They’re expecting me to memorize 22 different types of lard”; but his complaining his cut short when he finds an unexpected visitor in his kitchen: His older brother, Drew. Drew says hello to his little brother and Stu asks what he’s doing at his house; he replies that he’s picking up a cookbook - and holds up said cookbook, “Cooking with Tom Foo” - stating that he wants to try a Chinese recipe from the book. Stu replies: “Cookbook, heh! Maybe you outta think about returning the last book you borrowed from me.” Drew rebuttals: “Gee, I hope you’re not talking about that coloring book Stu” and Stu points out “You ate the cover!” Drew replies “I was five!” and Stu rebuttals “Well you’re the one who’s bringing up ancient history” and he walks out of the kitchen. We then fast forward to the next morning, and Stu is woken up by his alarm; there’s nothing unusual here like there was the previous morning, but Stu begins to run into trouble whilst taking a shower. As Stu washes himself, he doesn’t yet notice that his shampoo was replaced by the bottle of honey from earlier and squirts it on his hair; as Stu begins to lather the substance into his hair, he notices that it’s sticky, takes a closer look at the bottle, and realizes too late that it’s honey (Stu: “Honey?”). And that’s just the start: We cut to a little later on as Stu walks out of the bathroom and up to his dresser to begin getting dressed; but Stu is in for an even bigger surprise as he finds all the drawers to be completely empty (Stu: “Who took all my clothes?”)! Tommy, being careful not to be seen, peeks into his parents’ bedroom and smiles as he feels quite certain his father will stay home in light of the trouble he and his friends made for him; Stu however doesn’t think that it was his own son and his friends, and sets his suspicion on his brother, Drew (Stu: “I can’t believe Drew would think so low.”). Stu, feeling quite aggravated, then tries to find something to wear in his closet; but when he opens the closet’s doors, he finds it to be almost completely bare! We see that the babies were amazingly able to squirrel away almost every single one of Stu’s clothes someplace and leave him with but one lone thing to wear: His Disco Suit.

Stu, feeling even more aggravated, walks into the kitchen dotting said Disco Suit whilst brushing it off; his father, Lou, who’s reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, is slightly puzzled by what he sees, but he chooses not to ask about it and simply says “Morning son, looking sharp.” Lou also comments that his son’s hair smells nice, and a mildly mortified Stu replies “Thanks Pop.” Stu notices some hot coffee in the coffee machine’s carafe, and pours himself a mug, unaware that he’s about to get another unpleasant surprise, with his son peaking into the kitchen and watching from out of sight; as Stu pours himself some coffee (which strangely seems a bit think and chunky), he asks his father: “Pop, you haven’t seen Drew around here lately, have you? His ‘cute’, little practical jokes have gone far enough.” Lou simply replies with a mumble, and Stu proceeds to drink his coffee; suddenly however, Stu spits it out because of the taste and loudly comments: “This coffee tastes like mud!” Stu then takes a closer look at the coffee; and noticing rocks, twigs, a small leaf and even an earth worm are in it, he finds that it’s not really coffee at all and really is mud: “Eww! It is mud.” Tommy smiles with a sneaky look on his face, confident that his plan is working; but while Tommy’s tricks do inconvenience and aggravate his father quite a bit, it’s of course not enough to keep him home, and it only leads Stu to pay Drew out again (still not aware that he’s innocent): This time - again, holding his nose to disguise his voice - he calls to have his brother’s car towed, claiming it’s parked at his brother’s house illegally. After hanging up, Stu laughs sinisterly to himself, feeling quite pleased with what he just did; he then tells his father “Well, I’m late for work; gotta run” and leaves for work, and his son Tommy, seeing that his plan failed, puts on a disappointed and heartbroken face and walks away. Shortly after Stu shuts the front door, Didi comes into the kitchen, carrying all of Stu’s missing clothes, which she found in Tommy’s playpen, and she asks her father-in-law: “What on earth were all these clothes doing in Tommy’s playpen?” We cut to later on where Tommy and his friend Chuckie (Phil and Lil are absent this time) are playing with a ball, and Tommy tells his friend: “I don’t know what to do Chuckie, it’s like there’s no stopping him.” Chuckie walks over and he lightly and calmly attempts to explain to Tommy that people who have jobs must go to them every day, and that there’s thus nothing he can do to keep his father home to play; and he attempts to further emphasize the futility of Tommy’s wishes by stating “The only way you could stop him would be to.. to, trap him in a net.” Tommy however takes Chuckie’s statement as a suggestion rather than an emphasis; his face brightens and he replies “Chuckie, that’s it!” Chuckie asks “What’s it?” and Tommy states “My grandpa has a fishing net we could use.” Chuckie tries to correct his friend, but Tommy cuts Chuckie off and has him follow; in exasperation, Chuckie quietly states to himself: “When am I going to learn to keep my big mouth shut?”

Next morning, as Stu is again woken up by his alarm, he carefully tries not to run into any more tricks and traps; he takes a good around his room and under his bed for anything unusual, though he doesn’t see anything. He then springs the window shade open whilst standing to the side and bracing himself in case something’s attached to it like the day before, and he finds in relief there’s nothing there this time; he then walks over to his closet and opens the door, and he finds that all of his clothes are there and nothing is out of place. Stu sighs in relief, and we cut to later in to find Stu, in his regular clothes again, enjoying breakfast with Didi and Tommy; Stu comments to Didi that things are going smoothly and that Drew must have learned his lesson - Didi asks that Stu is talking about. Suddenly however, the Pickles’ trademark door buzzer sounds, and Didi goes to answer the door; she finds that it’s Drew, who angrily asks where Stu is - apparently, he figured out that Stu was behind the 50 pizzas and his car getting towed. Drew walks into the kitchen and demands his brother that they talk; Stu replies “Fine by me” and Drew pulls up a chair next to him. Drew starts by pointing out: “I couldn’t get to the office yesterday because someone had my car towed!” Stu replies: “And I suppose I wore my Disco Suit to work the other day just for ‘kicks’, huh?” Drew, who of course had nothing to do with that, rebuttals: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I bet you know something about the 50 pizzas I got the other day!” An irritated Stu states “I thought you came here to apologize”, and an infuriated though misunderstanding Drew replies “''Apologize!? You’re the one who should apologize!” A mutually misunderstanding Stu rebuttals “Me''!? What an idea! I guess we have nothing to discuss!” and both brothers turn their backs to each-other. Just then however, Didi comes into the scene with something for Drew: A check that Stu wrote to his brother last summer for $120 that he apparently (and perhaps absent-mindedly) was using as a bookmark all this time. Drew kindly thanks Didi for the check and then turns to his brother with an aggressive glare on his face; Stu, with a mortified look on his face - realizing that he in fact did forgot to pay his brother back last summer - nervously tells his brother that he has to go to work and walks out and toward the front door, unaware that he’s about to walk into yet another unpleasant surprise.

Stu doesn’t see that his son planted a four wheeled duck toy with a string tied around it in the middle of the floor for him to step on, and Stu steps on the toy, looses his balance, and is carried toward a closet door. The other end of said string is attached to a glass that’s part of an impressive Rube Goldberg machine that Tommy and Chuckie impressively managed to build to automatically open said closet door, just as the glass gets caught in an indoor planter pot the string was wrapped around and stops the toy duck dead, sending Stu though the air and causing him to land on his behind in front of the opening closet door, where Lou’s fishing net falls into onto Stu; and thus, Tommy actually does manage to trap his own father in a net. As Drew and Didi (with Tommy in her arms) rush over to see if Stu is ok, Stu asks out loud “Wha- What is this!?” and Drew replies “Looks like a net Stu.” This of course wouldn’t keep Stu from going to work either; but as Stu gets himself free, the net gives him an idea for his bubble machine: “Wait a minute. That’s it. THAT’S IT!” Stu takes the net over to his bubble machine and attaches it to it’s top; he explains to everyone that the net is just what he needed for his Pickles’ “Bubblerama 3000”, and he also comments to Drew (thinking that it was he who set up the trap) “Pretty crude gag, bro; but hey, thanks for the inspiration, I owe ya’!” As Stu plugs in his invention in to test it, Drew tries to tell him that he had nothing to do with the trap; but Stu cuts his brother off before he can finish and tells him to “Check it out!” as he starts his invention. Stu’s bubble machine begins to blow a large bubble like last time; but with the net in place, instead of bursting and soaking everyone, the bubble fills the net, and the net splits the bubble into “A Million Small Ones!” exactly as Stu imagined it would. Stu perfected invention fills the entire living room with tiny bubbles (one of which pops on a mesmerized Tommy’s nose) and everyone starts to catch them and dance in them.

Stu realizes that he’s much happier and more potentially successful as an inventor rather than a telephone representative, and he instructs Didi: “Call ‘Consolidated Lard’ and tell them I quit! I’m staying home to work on my bubble machine and play with my kid [and he takes his son from Didi and begins to dance with him among the bubbles]!” Didi doesn’t seem to protest her husband’s big decision as she’s supposedly confident that Stu’s invention is bound to be a great success and earn the family a substantial amount of money; and Tommy is of course ecstatic as a baby could ever get as, ironically, trapping Stu in a net actually did get him to stay home after all. The episode then ends as Stu’s invention continues to fill the living room with bubbles and everyone continues to catch them and dance in them.

Trivia

 * Stu's disco suit was sold in the episode "Garage Sale", but it reappears in this episode. However, it's possible the events of this episode took place before the former.
 * This is one of the few episodes where Drew appears without Charlotte  and Angelica.
 * Tommy is shown to be adept at coming up with plans and building Rube Goldberg machines, a trait which he likely inherited from his father.
 * The book that Stu used his check as a bookmark in is a Stephen King book. Stephen King is a famous horror novelist.
 * Moral: Never give up your dreams.

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