Chuckie vs. The Potty

"Chuckie vs. the Potty" is the first segment of the second episode of Season 2, and the fifteenth episode overall of Rugrats.

Characters Present

 * Tommy
 * Chuckie
 * Lil
 * Phil
 * Angelica
 * Chas
 * Didi
 * Stu
 * Lou
 * Charlotte (mentioned)

Synopsis
''When Chuckie spends a weekend over at the Pickles’ house, he tells Tommy that his dad is trying to potty train him. Overhearing this, Angelica begins to tease Chuckie and tries to get him to wet himself by turning the water on and off. Will Chuckie have the last laugh and conquer his fear of the potty?''


 * - Description from Klasky Csupo

Plot
The episode begins with Tommy pulling toilet paper off the roll, creating a large pile on the bathroom floor. Didi catches Tommy and gently scolds him as she brings him back to the play pen. Almost immediately after setting him down the doorbell rings, and Didi goes to answer it. It's Chas, with Chuckie in one arm, and a training potty in the other. Chas is frustrated as he walks into the house, explaining that Chuckie is resisting potty training to the point where Chas is worried it'll never happen. Didi reassures Chas that Chuckie will be potty trained eventually, and promises to take good care of him while Chas is away as Chuckie and the potty are set down in the play pen. Chas says goodbye to Chuckie, telling him to be good and to use the potty (as well as telling him not to eat earthworms, breathe toxic fumes, or drink radioactive waste).

Tommy, Phil and Lil are curious about the potty, and wonder what it is. Chuckie, just as agonized as his father, explains that he's supposed to use the potty "instead of my diaper." The other babies come up with suggestions of how to avoid using the potty, but Chuckie has already tried everything they say. Angelica walks over and makes fun of Chuckie due to his refusal to be potty trained, saying that it's because he's to afraid to go without diapers. Angelica then says the babies don't know anything, because "Everybody who's anybody is potty trained." Chuckie insists that he just doesn't want to use the potty, and declares "Nobody is gonna stop me! Not my mom, not my dad, not the present of Beenited Stakes!" However, Chuckie stops mid-sentence and starts to cry, saying that he has to go.

Didi hears Chuckie crying and, guessing correctly that he must feel like he needs to go right now, grabs Chuckie and rushes him to the bathroom while yelling for Stu to hurry after her. Stu grabs the potty and brings it to the bathroom (after a nervous mix-up in which he sets the potty down in the hallway). Curious about what is going to happen next, the babies follow Chuckie and the adults to the bathroom while Didi and Stu rush to get everything ready. When everything is set up and Chuckie is seated on the potty, Didi and Stu consult the potty training book to find out what to do next. They find that they are to wait patiently for Chuckie to go, and then give him enough praise so he'll continue to use the potty. Hours pass as they watch Chuckie, play cards, read, and finally fall asleep from boredom while Chuckie continues to sit on the potty.

Finally, Tommy, Phil and Lil enter the bathroom and ask Chuckie if everything is OK. Chuckie replies that he wishes everything could stay the same forever. Phil and Lil tell Chuckie that since the grown-ups are so insistent about potty training, he ought to just go along with it. Chuckie tells the twins that they can go ahead and do that themselves when it's their turn to be potty trained, but they deny that could happen. After that, Chuckie hops off the potty and says that he must not have to go after all...and then immediately pees on the bathroom floor.

The scene changes to Didi cleaning the bathroom floor and talking to Stu. She doesn't understand how this accident could have happened, as Chuckie was standing right next to the potty. Stu says it's not a big deal, saying that a lot of kids weren't potty trained at two. When Didi asks who, Stu admits himself, much to Didi's astonishment. At that moment Lou shows up and says that Stu wasn't potty trained until well after two, much to Stu's embarrassment.

Cutting back to the babies, Tommy admits potty training is a lot harder than it sounds. Phil and Lil ask Chuckie how he knows when he needs to go, and what does it feel like. Chuckie responds that that's the hardest part, explaining that when he thinks he has to go, he actually doesn't need to. But when he doesn't think he needs to go, he really does need to go.

Angelica, eavesdropping, decides that Chuckie needs a little "help", by doing the exact same thing as what her mother did to her. She starts to turn the kitchen faucet on and off. Chuckie hears the water running, and feels that he needs to go, but as soon as the water stops, his urge vanishes. Angelica continues to play with the faucet, causing Chuckie to run back and forth in confusion until he cries. Angelica laughs at Chuckie, then tells him that potty training is what everybody has to do when they get old, or that "you won't never go to school, or drive a car, or join the Army, or none of that fun stuff!" Still Chuckie refuses, declaring that he's "never going to use that potty again.".

That night, Chuckie has a nightmare in which he is locked up in a jail cell as a prisoner on death row. Phil and Lil appear as guards, telling Chuckie that it's "time to go," and that "the chair is waitin' for ya's." Chuckie tells them that he's too young to go, but they ignore Chuckie and remove him from his cell. As they walk along, they pass numerous cells filled with grown men wearing nothing but diapers who leer and snicker at Chuckie as he passes. Eventually, they reach Tommy, dressed as an Irish Priest, who asks Chuckie if he has any last requests. Chuckie begs to not be made to "go", but Tommy tells him to be brave for the little people, cutting to a shot of a very tiny Stu, Chas and Didi on their knees like babies, silently watching. Chuckie reluctantly says he'll try, but as soon as they bring him to the "the chair", a giant toilet at the top of the stairs, Chuckie changes his mind and tries to escape. Phil and Lil force Chuckie onto the toilet and when he begs for mercy, Angelica, dressed as an executioner, laughs at him and says "Everybody's gotta go someday!" before taking off her mask and flushing Chuckie down the toilet.

Chuckie wakes up, and feels a very urgent need to go. Miraculously, Chuckie gets out of the crib on his own, rushes to the bathroom and sits on the potty just in time to successfully pee into the potty. Stu is awakened by the noise and sleepily walks to the bathroom, where he was thrilled to witnesses Chuckie going successful and calls for Didi. Didi rushes to the bathroom, where Stu explains what Chuckie just did gladly.

Didi and Stu praise Chuckie for going to the bathroom on his own, but the celebration is cut short, as a crying and humiliated Angelica shows up on the scene, telling them that she "had an accident", (therefore receiving her comeuppance for teasing Chuckie). Didi and Stu carry a still crying Angelica off to clean her up, allowing for Tommy to walk over into the bathroom after he watches the entire scene even with Angelica's predicament and congratulate Chuckie for using the potty by happily declaring that he's an "anybody" now and the episode ends.

Trivia

 * This is the first episode Angelica cried.
 * This is the first episode focusing on Chuckie.
 * After Chuckie uses the potty in this episode, he is capable of using the toilet bowl in further episodes. Thus, in the future, he became the second of band, after Angelica, who is able to use the adult toilet.
 * This is one of several episodes in which Angelica wears her pajamas. Other episodes with her in PJs include "Angelica Nose Best", "Slumber Party", "Vacation", "The Santa Experience", "Angelica Breaks a Leg", "Pickles vs Pickles", "Angelica's Worst Nightmare", "No More Cookies", "Visitors From Outer Space," and "Murmur on the Ornery Express".
 * In Nick's episode guide, it mistakenly says that Chas tried potty training.
 * This is the only episode in which Angelica wets herself.
 * Chuckie mentions that his potty training is "worse than the time my mom put me on the bottle", despite it being later revealed that she died shortly after he was born. This could be explained, however; since she was terminally ill, she presumably put him on the bottle because she knew she was nearing her end.
 * On the Decade in Diapers: Volume 2 VHS and Decade in Diapers DVD, the director's credit is inexplicably edited out. This is fixed on the Season 2 DVD set.
 * Angelica mentioned when going to switch on and off on the faucet to make Chuckie want to go, that her mother went and did the same thing to her, thus giving her the inspiration.
 * Karma: By the end of the episode, Angelica is the one who has "a little accident". However, it's not full-blown karma as bedwetting is nobody's fault. It's sort of half-way karma as she had been naughty and for teasing Chuckie about his potty training.
 * This episode, along with episodes focusing on Chuckie, would be played on The 90's Are All That': on January 2, 2015, as a tribute marathon for Christine Cavanaugh.
 * Chuckie says he has to go potty in other episodes including "Raising Dil", "Accidents Happen", "Potty Training Spike", "A Dose of Dil", "Curse of the Werewuff" and "Cuffed". He also worries he will have to go in the episode "Babies in Toyland".
 * Phil and Lil suggest using napkins as a diaper, then pooping in his toy box to hide it, while Tommy suggests he stops pooping altogether.
 * Grandpa Lou says that he and Trixie nearly didn't get Stu into the boy scouts, but that is probably made-up.
 * Chuckie has a "no more diapers" book.
 * The sentence Chuckie didn't finish was "Not my mom, not my dad, not even the present of the Bee-nited Stakes, because I ...!"
 * There is a book that is similar to this episode that also involves Chuckie's potty training called The Rugrats' Potty Book: A Baby's Got to Go!.
 * Charlotte is first mentioned in this episode by Angelica, although she is not seen until "The Santa Experience".
 * When Chuckie runs away from the toilet in his dream, he runs to the right of Phil and Lil, but just as he's about to pass them, he appears in between them.
 * When Chuckie says "Not the chair! Not the chair!" during his nightmare, it is similar to what Angelica said at the end of "The Trial".
 * The toilet in Chuckie's dream resembles a one-piece toilet but has a pull-chain flusher typically used for high-tank toilets. This is due to the toilet being gigantic in size.
 * In "Top 100 Greatest Nicktoon Episodes", it was ranked #93.
 * This is the first time Chuckie pees himself. This would later be implied in "The Slide" and "Curse of the Werewuff", and shown in "Accidents Happen".
 * Moral: Don’t be afraid to try something new.

Goofs

 * After Chuckie gets flushed down the toilet in his dream, he is first facing backwards where he came in, but then in the next couple of shots is facing forward, and then in the last shot is facing backwards once again. The space inside the tube is narrow enough that it would be impossible to turn around.
 * This is yet another of the early episodes where Chuckie had a full set of teeth, but mysteriously lost all but his front incisors at some point.
 * In Chuckie's dream scene, when Phil and Lil come to take him to "the chair", just as Lil finishes the line "The chair is waitin for yas", Phil's body shifts slightly, but his eyes seem to stay in place. This seems to be a small animation error.