Tricycle Thief

"Tricycle Thief" is a Season 3 episode of Rugrats.

Characters Present

 * Tommy
 * Chuckie
 * Phil
 * Lil
 * Angelica
 * Stu
 * Susie
 * Randy
 * Drew (mentioned)
 * Cynthia

Synopsis
Susie thinks Angelica has stolen her new tricycle, so the Rugrats weigh options on whether she did or not.

- Description from Klasky Csupo

Summary
The kids think Angelica stole Susie's new tricycle.

Recap
Tommy, Susie, and their fathers, Randy and Stu, are at the tricycle section of the toy store. Susie picks out the one she wanted, with a blue seat, a basket, a bell, a pinwheel, a horn, and a removable reflector. Later on, she shows off her trike to her friends in the Carmichaels' backyard. Angelica later comes over to inspect the trike, saying it looks stupid. Randy walks over to the yard with a can of red paint, asking Susie to move her tricycle over to the porch.

Before Susie can move a muscle, Angelica rides off with her trike, bumps a rock, and lands in a mud puddle. The others run after her. Susie notices that Angelica broke her reflector, and tells her that she will never ride it again. Lil points out that Angelica looks like a big mud pie. While the kids laugh, Angelica walks back to the house, seething. Before going further, Angelica says something, but all that is heard is "Sorry, Susie..." because of all the laughter.

The next day, in the backyard, Susie is playing with her blocks, while Tommy and the gang comes over. Susie notices that Chuckie is holding a balloon, and when asked where he got it, he answers "the dentist". Tommy wants to try riding on Susie's trike again. The two walk over to the shed, open it, and notice the tricycle is gone. Susie thinks that it was stolen. Angelica comes over with what looks like Susie's tricycle. Like hers, it has a basket, a bell, a pinwheel, and a horn.

Susie concludes that Angelica stole her trike. Angelica denies it by saying that it was given to her by her dad (though she neither knows where nor when he bought it), but Susie does not believe her. Chuckie wants Susie to let her go, but Susie didn't want to let her off that easily, by taking Cynthia from the basket and tying her to Chuckie's balloon string.

Before the balloon can go all the way up to the sky, Tommy tells the others that he thinks Angelica is telling the truth. Susie laughs at this, and does not believe Tommy, and says that Angelica lies all the time, such as telling Tommy that his "baby sister" was coming in the mail, telling the twins their daddy's hair was a wig, and telling Chuckie the guy in the oatmeal box moved in next door. Susie said that Angelica probably took it to get back at her. Angelica denies this as well. Chuckie points out that Angelica said something. A flashback begins.

The events of what happened earlier in the episode start off with Angelica running off with Susie's tricycle. It is revealed that Chuckie decided to watch from the bush while the other kids ran after Angelica. While Angelica walked back to the house, seething, Chuckie heard her say "You're gonna be sorry, Susie".

Susie notes that it was a final nail in the "coffee" when Tommy notices the reflector on Angelica's trike, unbroken, unlike the one on Susie's. But Susie thinks it does not prove anything, claiming that Angelica threw the broken one away, and stole another reflector from another trike. Susie wants Chuckie to let go of the balloon again, but again, Tommy stops him. He notices that Susie's hands have wet, red paint on them from when Susie opened the shed.

Tommy thinks that Angelica's hands are clean, meaning she did not do it. The others look at Angelica's hands, and they are red, like Susie's. Angelica says it is finger paint. Shocked, Tommy believes Susie. Susie again tells Chuckie to let go of the balloon. Angelica stops Chuckie because she is no tricycle thief. Susie tells Angelica it was too late to talk. She tells Chuckie that it is time, she yells "Do it!" and Chuckie finally lets the balloon go. Angelica shouts "CYNTHIA!!!" and lands on the ground, and then looks at Cynthia. She is up in the sky, and Angelica starts volleyball sobbing, surrendering and wants to be sent to jail. Chuckie feels ashamed, but Susie said that Angelica was the one to let go of the balloon.

Angelica explains that she felt sorry for them, and says, once and for all, that she didn't steal Susie's trike, and knows that it could be sitting under the porch. The others look at the porch, and see the trike there. Now they know that Angelica was telling the truth all along and she did not steal the trike. Susie then asks Angelica why she has red paint on her hands.

Angelica tells Susie that she was finger-painting, and shows her a painting, complete with a Valentine heart, of how sorry she felt when she broke Susie's reflector. The guilty Susie apologizes, but Angelica, enraged over losing her beloved Cynthia, refuses to forgive her. Cynthia suddenly falls back into her hand. To make up for accepting Susie's apology, Angelica challenges her to a race to the back fence. With that the babies learn a lesson: "Don't let Susie borrow your balloon." It is then revealed that Chuckie's balloon popped thanks to an airplane flying nearby.

Trivia

 * Angelica says that she had lost Cynthia once, a reference to "The Seven Voyages of Cynthia".
 * This episode was included as a bonus episode on the Phil and Lil Double Trouble VHS (not listed on the box) when the tape was re-issued.
 * This is the first time Angelica tells the truth and nobody believes her, which is no surprise seeing as she always told lies. They should have believed her since the evidence proves that not only she didn't steal Susie's tricycle, but also that it was never stolen in the first place since her dad Randy moved it under the deck. Angelica had an identical one to Susie's that was sky blue with an orange reflector.
 * Susie saying that Angelica once told Tommy that his sister was coming in the mail could be a reference to "Special Delivery". However, Angelica did not appear in that episode (and neither did Susie, since her family didn't live in the neighborhood at the time).
 * This episode could possibly be a reference to the 1948 film Bicycle Thieves a French film directed by Vittorio De Sica.
 * Susie's tricycle can be seen under the stairs to the deck before it's revealed Angelica didn't steal it.
 * Moral: Don’t accuse people of doing something that they actually didn’t do or never happened in the first place.