Tommy's First Birthday

"Tommy's First Birthday" is the first official episode of Rugrats, after the show's pilot episode "Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing", and the first episode of Season 1.

Characters Present

 * Tommy
 * Chuckie
 * Lil
 * Phil
 * Angelica
 * Didi
 * Stu
 * Lou
 * Drew
 * Boris
 * Minka
 * Betty
 * Howard
 * Spike

Summary
''Stu and Didi strive to make Tommy's first birthday a memorable one. They did, but under the wrong circumstances. Meanwhile Tommy wants to eat dog food so he can be just like Spike, eventually selling the other Rugrats on the idea.''

- Description from Klasky Csupo

Plot
One morning, Tommy Pickles is woken up by his parents, who wish him a happy birthday: his very first, in fact. Once he's changed and dressed in his special birthday outfit (which consists of a Mario-like red T-shirt with overalls instead of what will be the series normal of light blue T-shirt and diaper), Didi takes him downstairs for breakfast before his party begins.

Didi and Stu feel thoroughly prepared for this special occasion by consulting Lipschitz and creating a birthday checklist. The adults don't notice that Tommy is watching a dog food commercial on TV. Feeling inspired by the ad, Tommy breaks out of his highchair and crawls over to his dog Spike's food bowl (full of canned dog food). At the last minute, Grandpa Lou catches Tommy and tells him he doesn't want dog food - he wants his baby food breakfast. But when Lou looks at Tommy's baby food, he admits that dog food does look more appetizing by comparison!

The day rolls on and Betty and Howard DeVille arrive for the party with their twins, Phil and Lil, and Chuckie Finster, the neighbors’ son. When the babies are all gathered in the playpen, Tommy tells them about the dog food commercial, and his belief that if they eat dog food, they'll turn into dogs. The other babies find this appealing and decide they want to be dogs, too. But before they can leave the playpen, the grownups put party hats on the babies and snap pictures, though the babies aren't thrilled by either one of these things.

Soon, Stu's older brother, Drew, arrives with his daughter Angelica (who, not unlike Tommy, is wearing a special birthday party dress for the occasion). Angelica gleefully poses for pictures with the babies, though roughly. Tommy tells Angelica about the dog food; she enjoys the idea of biting the mailman, and agrees to go along with Tommy's plan to get dog food. But before they can do anything, Didi's parents arrive, and it's time to open presents. Angelica is greedy and wants Tommy's presents for herself. Stu made Tommy's present himself: a remote control flying saucer he calls the Hoverama. Didi and Grandpa Lou both doubt that even a grownup can fly it, but Stu insists Tommy can figure it out.

The doorbell rings, signaling the arrival of the puppet stand and puppets the Pickles' booked for the party. But there are no professional puppeteers to go with the stand, leaving Stu and Drew to perform themselves (and Didi worrying that her son's first birthday won't be perfect). They decide to perform the climax of Little Red Riding Hood, but they quickly begin to argue over how the lines go. Lou tries to tell them to cut it out (with a puppet of his own), however it doesn't work and Stu and Drew continue to bicker. Meanwhile, Grandpa Boris, Didi's father, complains about the cake she baked. Didi baked a carrot cake, but Boris says a chocolate cake is more suitable.

With the adults distracted, first Tommy, then the rest of the gang, go to the kitchen, but find Spike's bowl licked clean. They find another can on the counter, but have difficulties getting it down on their own. They use Stu's present to help, but wreck the kitchen and the cake in the process! Fortunately, Lou opens the can of dog food for Spike. Spike isn't interested in eating right now, so the babies eagerly help themselves...and quickly spit it out (except for Lil)!

Nothing happens at first, but then Tommy says he feels something, and starts to bark and crawl around. Phil and Lil say they have fleas, Chuckie hopes he can grow fur, and Angelica hopes the mailman comes soon. All of them start acting like dogs, which attracts the notice of the adults. They feel happy seeing this moment, because even though the day was far from perfect, they're all having a good time. A picture of this is taken, which is forever included on the pages of the Pickles family photo album documenting Tommy's first birthday.

Trivia

 * This episode debuted on the same date as the other two original ' shows, ' and . Doug was the first to air, then Rugrats, and then Ren & Stimpy.
 * This is the first half-an-hour episode of the series.
 * In this episode, Tommy is wearing a red shirt, though almost all of the time, he wears a blue shirt further in the series.
 * When Tommy turns on the television, the Nickelodeon logo is visible in the corner of all channels he views.
 * This is the first episode where E.G. Daily voices Tommy Pickles.
 * This is presumably the first time characters other than the Pickles see Spike, considering the fact they believe him to be Tommy after eating dog food.
 * Tommy was named after co-creator Paul Germain's son, who turned one year old when he was writing this episode.
 * This episode the first appearances of Chuckie, Angelica, Angelica's dad and Stu's older brother, Drew, Didi's parents and Tommy's maternal grandparents, Boris and Minka, and Phil and Lil's parents, Howard and Betty. However, it is not the first appearances for some other main characters such as Tommy, Lil, Phil, Didi, Stu, Lou, and Spike, who all appeared previously in the unaired pilot.
 * On the receipt for the Puppet Stage and the Puppets, Stu and Didi's address is seen: 1258 N. Highland. From 1988 to 1995, this was the address of ''.
 * This episode shows the entire original cast of Rugrats except for Chas Finster, who wasn't introduced until the next episode "Barbecue Story". Charlotte and the Carmichaels weren't created until Season 2 of the series.
 * From this episode until "Moving Away", episodes of the series would typically air at 2:00 PM EST on Sunday afternoons.
 * Behind Boris and Minka in the doorway is a green solid object that is not grass, because it fills the whole space up.
 * The title card and Stu's first line, "Good morning, Champ," are cut out from digital copies of the episode. The title card is, however, left intact on Paramount+.
 * This is one of the few episodes where Angelica works together and teams up with the babies.

Goofs

 * When the Rugrats are acting like dogs, Angelica's party dress is briefly replaced by her casual outfit.
 * In the first act, Stu's party hat is magenta-colored with yellow spots. But for much of the second act, his party hat is colored purple with orange spots, though once in a while it reverts back to its original magenta-and-yellow color (such as when Stu removes his hat in disappointment among realizing he forgot to put batteries in his invention's remote control, and when he asks Didi "We're out of batteries?").
 * When Didi opens the door for Boris and Minka, we see her right hand raised, frozen and waving. Her left hand rubs the area below her chin and is easily twice as small as the right hand.
 * Towards the end of the episode, right after the babies eat the dog food, you see Lil lick her lips, while Phil and the rest of the babies spit it out. Yet in the following scene, Phil says the dog food tasted good, while Lil and the rest of the babies didn't like it.
 * When Angelica grabs Tommy and Chuckie to take the picture, her arms are extra long.
 * There are a lot of extra shelves and bookcases in the Pickles' kitchen that do not appear again.
 * Lil sounds like Phil when she says, “And howl at the moon?”