User blog:Celrock/When did Rugrats go Downhill and How Would I Have Fixed It?

Okay, so I've read tons of stuff in various places, mostly, on Deviant Art about when people felt Rugrats started suffering from what TV Tropes calls, Seasonal Rot. Some say it was after the revival era in 1997 when the series returned with season 4. Some claim it's after the first movie when Dil started appearing on the show, while others claim it was after Rugrats in Paris, and we get yet another two characters, Kira and Kimi. However, here's what I, one of the world's oldest and most loyal Rugrats fans to date believes. I, personally believe, that the series took a tumble for the worst post the release of the All Growed Up special. While I'll admit, season 1 was a relatively weak season compared to seasons 2 through 7, it was the first season of this show, and seeing that the primis of this show was still a fairly new concept of the time, I can understand why everybody had some difficulties coming up with good plots and so on for season 1, plus, the animation company they used for that season, no offense to them, but they should really go take some animation classes or something. However, the producers probably felt similarly, switching to a different animation firm for the rest of the series, so I'll give them credit there. However, seasons 8 and 9 were by far, the worst two seasons of the series. A lot of the episode plots were just, medioka and not only did I feel like some characters just, sort of faded away, like we started seeing less of grandpa Lou and his new wife Lulu, when we could have seen the gang bond with the newest elderly member of the family more, Spike started to appear much less, after falling for Fifi and them having their first litter of puppies, which even then, I felt like they were just, there, like, what was the point? And then, there's Taffy. Not only did they introduce her way too late in the series, come the final season to give her a lot of character development and interraction with the babies, but while Spiffy, one of the puppies make an appearance in the All Grown Up series, Taffy didn't appear once. I understand she wouldn't be babysitting preteens, but still, it leads to a lot of unanswered questions. Whatever became of Taffy and the Salt Waters within that time? Did they eventually make it big and become famous? By the time the minis were preteens, was Taffy perhaps, a mother herself? I think a really cool episode of All Grown Up would have been one where we got these questions answered, while at the same time, Tommy and the gang are having to babysit her kids, as sort of, well, payback for her babysitting them so many years ago. It would have been a great way to not make her so useless, and another great way to have a callback to Rugrats in the All Grown Up spinoff series, just as we had in a few episodes during the series, like Curse of Reptar and Saving Cynthia to name a couple.

Also, All Growed Up, not only marked the Rugrats 10th. anniversary, but just with how the episode was constructed, it would have made for an excellent series finale for Rugrats. Not only did all of the babies imagine what their lives would be like ten years later, but there were references to earlier episodes of Rugrats, like the Chocolate Cheese Bars commercial on the TV towards the beginning of the episode that was seen in the season 6 episode, Chuckie's Complaint, Angelica singing America the Beautiful, which she also sang just as horribly I might add in the season 4 episode, Vacation, and disappearing into the closet to get away from her, like they've done on other ocasions in prior episodes, the one I remember was them hiding from Susie via the closet to get away from eating her yucky Reptar cereal bars in the season 6 episode, Cooking with Susie. Also, in a way, we also revisited a plot from an even more ancient episode. Yeah folks, remember, What the Big People Do from season 2? When Tommy and Chuckie imagine what it would be like to be adults? Bingo people. I love this episode because it was well put together, and we had that lovely montage of flashbacks during Emica's performance, You're a Friend to Me, with clips from previous Rugrats episodes, and at the tail end post the finish of the time traveling imaginative adventure, a great line to end it sort of on, that cliff hanger type of note, the line from Chuckie, "Is ten years going to be a very long time?"

However, that's just it. While I love All Growed Up, it did revisit the plot of What the Big People Do to a degree, which proves another point. Once you're having to revisit plots from episodes you've previously done, it's obvious you're starting to run out of ideas, suffer from burnout, and so on. Yeah people, time to put the pencils down and either give up, or at least, maybe take another hiatus before returning if you wish to produce more episodes to give the series two more seasons. Plus, if All Growed Up sparked the spinoff series, All Grown Up, then another good reason to call it quits on Rugrats at this point, and put all of your focus on All Grown Up. However, because you were trying to rush to put this spinoff together and produce the final 2 seasons for Rugrats, it's no wonder All Grown Up lacked in quality much of the time, and seasons 8 and 9 of Rugrats felt as if Rugrats was just being dragged through the mud at this point, not that Phil and Lil would mind in the least. Get it? Dragged through the mud? And that's Phil and Lil's favorite thing, so yeah, had to get you to laugh yeah hopefully.

And then, if dragging the series through the mud come seasons 8 and 9 wasn't bad enough, it surely hit rock bottom come the third movie, Rugrats go Wild. I understand this was the first attempt at a crossover movie, but it just, wasn't done right. So yeah, had Rugrats ended with the hour long special, All Growed Up, not only would the series have ended on a relatively high note for the most part, but maybe people wouldn't look back and cringe so much, because of how it continued to drag on post that special. And let's not forget the Tales from the Crib Specials. They're not horrible, but they're not super excellent either. Plus, to this day, neither one of them still has yet to air on television nearly 10-and-a-half to 11-and-a-half years post their direct to video and DVD releases, so, unless you bought them either then, or like I've done within the last couple of years to complete my collection of Rugrats attire on DVD, as I do like some episodes from the final 2 seasons, well, they might as well not exist at that rate. And had seasons 8 and 9 of Rugrats never existed, well, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

So, with this said, had I produced Rugrats, which, I do believe I'm responsible for creating Rugrats in another dimention, hince, why I heavily write for it on Fan Fiction in the known universe, and I'm still a huge fan of it to this day, as well as helping other Fan Fiction writers of Rugrats stories to execute their projects and or continue them, what would I have done differently? First of all, some episodes from season 1 would have played out differently, like Tommy having an actual slumber party with all of his baby friends there, not just Angelica, and in some of the episodes where he adventured alone, like Ruthless Tommy, Baseball, Mama Trauma, Special Delivery, Waiter, there's a Baby in my Soup, and Incident in Isle Seven, he wouldn't have been alone, Chuckie would have most likely been there, and in the Baby in my Soup episode, we would have not only gotten Mr. Mucklehoney's reaction to his ruined food, thanks to Tommy, but the other customers as well. Like the poor person who would have received their pie for dessert with silverware in it. Just, youch! I can only imagine the scream from that customer, when they get beneath the whip cream to receive a knife or something, and the angry complaints from customers to the restaurant owners, etc. Then for seasons 2 through 5, they could more or less, be left alone, only I would change one thing. Rather than Didi's pregnancy being announced to Stu only at the tail end of, The Family Tree at the end of season 5, we would have had this announcement about this been made in a much earlier season, maybe even season 1 or 2, and we could have had some episodes centering around her pregnancy with Dil, and the toddlers getting confused by things happening. Maybe Tommy attending one of those, big brother big sister classes, or not understanding the term, morning sickness amongst other things, just as we saw them mix up other things that went on as the series went along. I could have even seen Didi possibly craving cookies or sweets at a point, and Angelica growing super jealous that her aunt was finishing off the cookie jar without getting in trouble for it. And with this extra bonus ongoing subplot, it would have only made the anticipation of the first movie, an even bigger thing to look forward to, over the time skip we got originally. Not only that, but while we saw Stu informed of Didi's pregnancy on the cruise, we never saw the reaction of everybody else back home to the news. I would have loved to have seen this. My thoughts is that Tommy would have been excited, while Angelica would have been disappointed and disgusted over another dumb baby coming into the picture.

So now, let's fast forward to the first movie. It was fine the way it was, so, leave it alone. Dil is born, they get lost in the forest, yotty yotta yotta. Moving along, let's get ahead to season 6. Okay, so Dil's new, small, just an infant. Fine, we're showing him the world. Tommy learns about hand-me-downs, while at the same time, Dil is introduced to music, learns to put his toes in his mouth, and Stu and Didi start keeping a baby book. Fine, this all makes sense during the first few months of the newborn's development. Hello though, this show is suppose to be from a baby's point of view. It would have been nice if we the audience got to hear more of Dil's thoughts at points, as I think it might have made for some good laughs, just as the babies would get mixed up over things the adults were doing, they had a hard time with Dil because he couldn't communicate, making it hard to really understand him all that well, but if we the audience got to hear his thoughts as he struggled with the frustrations of infantilehood, which, you must admit, that year from birth to age one, babies go through a lot of major changes within that time that are probably just as much of a surprise to them as they are to everybody else around them, and yet, we didn't see this. And I only better understand this after observing my nephew when he was just a baby-baby, and seeing how much he changed within a week's time, thinking, Dil didn't do this much, and I'm right, he didn't. Had I produced the series though, this would have been executed much differently, giving Dil a lot more character development during seasons 6 and 7 of the series. Also, as far as Taffy, Spiffy and Pepper are concerned, here's how I feel this would have been executed.

Okay, so while everybody blamed Stu for losing the kids in The Rugrats Movie, let's face facts here people. Do you know who is really responsible? Grandpa Lou. Yep that's right. He fell asleep one too many times, and now, the babies are lost in the forest. And while he did help in the rescue mission, Stu did most of the work. Had I been Didi especially, I might have been on edge with my husband for a bit there post this ordeal, but Lou would have been kicked out early on during season 6, due to trust issues with watching after the kids after such a major catastrofy like this. This would have introduced Lulu even earlier in the series, not right before they went to Paris, and ultimately, because Taffy is Lulu's great niece, she would have been hired as their babysitter during season 6, allowing her to be developed even more. No I don't think she would have gone with them to Paris, and we could have seen Lou and Lulu blossom as a romantic couple over the course of season 6, leading up to their wedding at the start of Rugrats in Paris, over what we got, another time skip, but yes, we would have been able to develop Taffy more so as a character, thanks to her coming into the picture earlier than she did.

Then, it's off to Paris. Wouldn't change that movie, as it was done just fine. I also felt that season 7 wasn't half bad, with Chuckie getting use to having a new mom and a little sister. Though I did feel like Kimi sort of took over as leader, pushing Tommy into the shadows a bit. I would have liked to have seen some episodes where Tommy and Kimi competed to gain leadership, like for example, Bigger Than Life might have been even more interesting, with Tommy and Kimi competing to come up with the best imaginative adventures, as while it's one of my favorites, and I liked seeing Chuckie and Kimi compete in this ordeal, it would have been interesting to see how two similar personality type characters might have dealt with this, as I'll admit, Tommy is often influenced by others, while it was obvious in this episode that despite having a similar personality to Tommy's, Kimi is more of a spir of the moment type of character, coming up with ideas on her own, without really being influenced by the ideas of others as much. Also, Be My Valentine would have taken place post Rugrats in Paris, as the babies get Spike and Fifi together, and that's when we learn that Fifi is pregnant, when they notice she's not quite acting like herself, foreshadowing the later events of, what would be Bow Wow Wedding Vows.

Yes, just because originally, seasons 8 and 9 could have not existed, with my interpretation, they would have been made much better. We'd still have the All Growed Up special, but that's just it. Now that everybody currently in the cast has imagined themselves as being older, come seasons 8 and 9, aside from Spike and Fifi having puppies, and where Angelica attending preschool is concerned, that's something else I forgot to mention earlier. Remember that season 4 episode, Educating Angelica? Hello people, that's when she should have started preschool, not this whole, Pre-School Daze episode that aired 4 seasons later. So we would have seen Angelica go to school much earlier in the series, along with Susie, and sorry, but Harold was such a dimwitted character, let's just, not have him at all. I actually preferred Angelica's love interest in Dean, and her rivalry with Timmy McNulty much more so than the annoying Harold Frumkin, thus, furthering developing these relationships would have taken place instead. And come seasons 8 and 9, not only would Spike and Fifi become parents, and the babies would help train the puppies and take care of them, just as Tommy's been doing with Dil, and we'd see Dil develop more rapidly like a real infant does, seeing Pepper and Spiffy grow and change during this time, but each character would celebrate another birthday, as in, Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil at this point, as we didn't even cover Chuckie, Phil and Lil's birthdays on the series originally, and after Angelica's Birthday in season 3, she'd be seen as 4-years-old the rest of the time, not 3 like what was implied after the fact originally, and come seasons 8 and 9, Chuckie would start adding more words to his vocabulary other than, "No," to the adults, Kimi would even start a little bit with speaking to the adults, as she was seen saying, "Uh huh," on ocasion during a few season 7 episodes, the other babies would start to grow more hair and teeth, get potty trained, and so on. Dil would even start saying more, sitting up on his own, crawling more, and eventually, actually standing up by the end of season 9, making viewers wonder if he'd indeed, take his first steps.

Also, those Tales from the Crib specials would have aired during one of the final seasons, rather than being extra stories thrown in post Rugrats go Wild, and where Rugrats go Wild is concerned, while we saw Tommy love Reptar over the course of the series, we'd see him develop an interest in Nigel Thornberry shortly after his second birthday, and when the adults hear he's coming to town shortly before Dil's first birthday to give a special at the local zoo, they decide to take the kids, and, not sure of how the rest of the plot would have played out, but mayhem would occur, no doubt. However, just as Chuckie started talking in Paris, and we'd see this grow more extensively over the course of the remainder of the series, come Rugrats go Wild, by this point, the rest of the babies would have also said their first words to the adults, Tommy, Phil and Lil that is, and at a point when they're in danger, all except for Dil, guess who takes his first steps and rescues his brother and friends? That's right, Dil! And come to think of it, Tommy would actually turn two right before they went to Paris, so Rugrats go Wild would actually take place closer to his third birthday, with the series ending with Dil about to turn one and Tommy turning three, while the series obviously began, with Tommy turning one.

And where All Grown Up is concerned, we'd not only see the original Rugrats as preteens, but several characters that we saw during the original series would return as preteens as well. I also forgot to mention that I feel Dayscare would have been a much better episode, had Chuckie and Kimi got to go to Golden Apple Daycare, meeting Wise Guy, Builder, Doh Boy, Cry Baby, and Big Justin, having a revisiting of these characters from season 2, over what we got originally. And yes, come their preteen years, the McNulty brothers, Dean, John Claud, Belinda, the kids at the Golden Apple Daycare, Hecter, and everybody else they met during their toddler years, yep, even Josh, Big Binky, Emma, and Megan, would all appear along with the original characters in upper elementary school and middle school with the gang, making for some interesting adventures, as they go through teenage issues together. Heck, I could see while Angelica is big on fashion and trying to be popular, Josh is still a manipulative bully, getting into drugs and trying to get Timmy McNulty, along with the other kids at school and the original Rugrats gang to try them too. And maybe Tommy and Balenda date at a point, while Chuckie is stuck in some love triangle with Emma and Megan, while Emma is who he chooses, Megan is the stereotypical player, falling for Chuckie, but also two timing him, or three timing him, well, I think you know what I mean here.

And oh yeah, while Passover and Chanukah were executed just fine, Kwanzaa, was not. That was by far, the weakest holiday special to date out of all of them, and had I been producing the series, we would have focused more on the actual holiday over the whole, Susie's not great let's look at a photo album to disprove these disappointing thoughts. Yeah, while you can learn a great deal about Passover and Chanukah from those episodes, I can't say the same about Kwanzaa in that episode, so that, would have been changed, big time.

And that's how I would have changed Rugrats from being a piece of seasonal rot, to a miraculous piece of work from all perspectives of a baby and toddler's life, from beginning to end. In other words, had it been done in the way I put it, by the time Rugrats go Wild came out, viewers and fans alike would have been sorry to see the series end, rather than glad to see it go, because of what a disappointing flop it was.

And well, that's all I have to say. What do you all think? Do you agree that All Growed Up should have ended the series? And do you like what I came up with here in how I would have changed the series to make it more spectacular as a result? Feel free to comment down below if you'd like, and have a nice day.