Babies in Toyland (Episode)

"Babies in Toyland" is an hour-long Season 9 episode of Rugrats.

Characters Present

 * Tommy
 * Dil
 * Chuckie
 * Phil
 * Lil
 * Kimi
 * Angelica
 * Stu
 * Didi
 * Chas
 * Kira
 * Howard
 * Betty
 * Drew
 * Charlotte
 * Lou
 * Lulu
 * Santa Claus
 * Hermie the Elf
 * Susie (mentioned)
 * Spiffy
 * Crying Boy
 * Walkie Talkie Elf
 * Carolers
 * Howling Baby
 * Prancy
 * Parents

Plot
The special opens on Christmas Eve at the Pickles' residence (presumably at least one year after "The Santa Experience"), where some carolers are singing outside, much to the confusion of Tommy and his friends. Eventually, Angelica and her parents show up, having rented a limo; they and the other families are going to Christmasland, a Yuletide-themed park that Stu has designed, located in front of Charlotte's company headquarters. Angelica approaches the babies, who explain that they're trying to think of something special to do for Dil's first Christmas. Being the brat she is, Angelica says that presents are the only things that make Christmas special, and Santa Claus, who they're going to see at Christmasland tonight, gives out the best ones.

Later, the Rugrats' families all arrive at the Christmasland park. Angelica insists to the babies that she's going to see Santa first, believing that she's been good all year and deserves the best presents. She then further puts pressure on the babies by telling them that Dil will never get to celebrate Christmas again if he doesn't get anything good this year. As Angelica goes looking for Santa Claus, Stu shows the other parents the control room and the security cameras monitoring all the pavilions in the park, including an animatronic Nutcracker show and a life-size Nativity display with a petting zoo. Stu also reveals that each pavilion has its own snow-making machine. The parents then head off to the artificial 19th century pioneer cabin, except for Grandpa Lou, who stays behind to watch the kids (and naturally falls asleep almost immediately).

Angelica spies one of the "elves", named Hermie, heading for the employee break room and figures that's where Santa is hiding. Making her cousins and their friends stay behind, Angelica barges into the break room and meets the man hired to play Santa, rattling off her Christmas wish list to him. The Santa actor, who's pretty reluctant to listen to her demands, gives her a plush reindeer toy. This does not please Angelica, whose ungrateful attitude only irritates the Santa actor further. Eventually, the actor grows so sick of Angelica's obnoxiousness that he throws the hat off and quits the job. The babies, seeing "Santa" quit, are devastated at this, with Tommy believing now his little brother has no chance of getting to celebrate Christmas again. However, Kimi then points out that when "Santa" left, he didn't take his bag of toys with him, so perhaps their Christmas presents are still around. Angelica, listening in on the babies' conversation, figures that Santa's workshop must be around here as well, and figures that she can get the toys she wants there. She then tricks the babies into believing that the North Pole is in the opposite direction they were about to go, before going to the workshop herself, bringing along her reindeer plush, whom she names "Prancy".

Meanwhile, the Rugrats' parents are all listening to the animatronic pioneers singing in the cabin. But unbeknownst to them, one of the rubber bands in the control panel Stu designed (obviously having not learned his lesson from the giant Reptar robot he built for EuroReptarland) slips loose, causing the snow-making machines outside the cabin to unleash a blizzard's worth of snow, trapping the adults inside. The parents fret over the fact that they may be stuck inside this cabin for days and are separated from their kids, and Charlotte complains that she's missing her company's Christmas party because of this. However, Lou's wife Lulu tells them that they should try to make the best of this situation, and they start decorating the cabin interior for a Christmas party of their own.

The babies, in the meantime, do not get very far in trying to find Santa's workshop when Chuckie comes upon a giant walnut and they find themselves face-to-face with the giant animatronic Nutcracker. Thinking he doesn't look to happy to see them, the babies back away, only to bump into the robotic Mouse King and his henchmice. Kimi charges into battle against the mice, with Chuckie trying to protect her, eventually knocking a jingly bell off of one of the mice in the process, while Dil grabs the tail on one of the mice and gets his stroller pulled by said mouse. During this, Phil and Lilgrab a shoe and a ribbon from the dancing cardboard ballerina. Eventually, the mice start firing cannonballs, so the babies use Dil's stroller to slide down the hill (which, from their perspective, looks a lot steeper than it actually is) out of the Nutcracker area. As they slide downhill, they briefly cross paths with Angelica again, and Dil snags a hat that she herself had gotten her hands on earlier.

Meanwhile, Lou wakes up from his nap and notices the kids have gone missing, though when he sees a cup of hot cocoa that Tommy left behind for him, he assumes that Lulu came back to get the kids. As he goes to catch up with the others, he then comes upon Hermey dealing with a line of impatient kids and their parents waiting to see Santa. Lou, seeing the problem, volunteers to play Santa for the kids himself.

Angelica, on her way to Santa's workshop, drives away some Christmas carolers with her off-key singing, and takes all the free cookies that some other carolers were giving out. She soon reaches the building that appears to be Santa's workshop, but the door is locked ("I hope the toys work better than these doors!"). She then breaks down the door and, from her perspective, sees a fully-fledged toy workshop. One of the elves, Hermey (who now appears to be a real elf) appears before her and asks what she's doing here. Angelica says she's here to get the presents she's expecting and claims that she's been good all year. Hermey, however, checks the nice list and says her name isn't on it, saying she shouldn't have scared off the carolers, taken the cookies, or lied to her friends. Angelica then sees that Prancy has seemingly turned into a real talking reindeer, who is feeling really hurt by how much Angelica insulted him earlier. Hermey and Prancy then take part in a musical number, telling Angelica that she should "treat each day like Christmas". This finally puts the true Christmas spirit in Angelica, and she promises to change her ways. She then sees that Hermey has suddenly disappeared (indicating that the previous sequence was all in her mind), but she takes his lesson to heart.

The babies, meanwhile, crash into a snowman after escaping the Nutcracker show. As they try to figure out if they're still going the right way, a goat comes up to them, having wandered out of the petting zoo in the Bethlehem section of the park. Kimi and the twins figure that this goat is lost, and they decide to bring him back to his home, thinking maybe he's a pet of Santa's. The babies bring the goat to the petting zoo to reunite him with his family, and notice that this place doesn't look like the North Pole. The babies then walk into the nearby Nativity display and notice the baby Jesus in the manger. Feeling sorry for the baby, the Rugrats each give him a gift - Chuckie, Kimi, and the twins all give him the respective things they picked up in the Nutcracker show, and Tommy and Dil give him the hat that Dil got from Angelica earlier. This display of affection causes the Jesus figure, who previously had a neutral expression, to now have a smile on his face. Lou then drives up in in a horse-drawn sleigh to pick up the kids, having gotten word that they were heading towards the Bethlehem pavilion.

Lou then pulls up in front of the snowed-in cabin, hearing Lulu playing the piano inside, and starts digging the snow away. As he does, the babies lament the fact that they never did find Santa's presents for them, but Chuckie says they had a good time trying to find Santa's workshop anyway, and he's learned that maybe that's the kind of thing that makes Christmas special. Angelica then shows up with a bag of gifts that she found inside "Santa's workshop" and presents them to the babies - a new snowsuit for Chuckie, a glockenspiel for Kimi, a new pair of shoes for Phil, a magic princess wand for Lil, and a toy camera for Tommy (perhaps foreshadowing his future ambition for film-making in All Grown Up!). She also gives Prancy to Dil. Afterward, Lou brings the kids inside to reunite with their parents, who have come to enjoy the time they spent together in the cabin (with Charlotte admitting that she hadn't really wanted to go to her company's party anyway). The special ends on the families singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" as the camera pans up into the sky to show the real Santa Claus flying in his sleigh.

Trivia

 * This episode re-aired on Nickelodeon on Friday, December 14th, 2012 and Sunday, December 23rd, 2012.
 * Rugrats is the first Nicktoon to have a Christmas special trilogy.
 * This episode has absolutely no references to anything from "The Santa Experience", except for the ending when the real Santa flies overhead in his sleigh.
 * This is the third and final hour-length episode of the original Rugrats series, after "Runaway Reptar" and "All Growed Up".
 * This was the first direct-to-video Rugrats episode to be simultaneously released on VHS and DVD. Ironically, its first release on DVD was as a bonus feature on the Nick Jr. Holiday DVD.
 * There's a running gag in the episode where the adults sing Deck the Halls, only to cut away after "Tis the season to be jolly" and pick back up at "Troll the ancient Yuletide carol". This is likely because the verse in between being "Don we now our gay apparel" was deemed inappropriate.
 * Hermie the Elf was voiced by Paul Reubens, best known for his role as Pee Wee Herman.
 * Jim Belushi is the brother of the late John Belushi, who was a former cast member of NBC's Saturday Night Live (1975-1980), and one of the Blues Brothers. Jim had also played a mall Santa Claus in the 1996 movie Jingle All the Way.
 * This episode has 3 official episode numbers -- "158" is for part 1, "159" is for part 2, and "991" is for the special as a whole.
 * This is another episode where Angelica said "Uh-Oh." The last four episodes were "Driving Miss Angelica", "Dust Bunnies", "Cuffed", and "Angelica Nose Best".
 * Kimi got a xylophone from Santa but she calls it a soprano glockenspiel.
 * On the box of the Christmas video, it mentions that Christmasland "could finally put Pickles Industries.com on the map." This is the first and only time Stu's business is referred to as a website.
 * Tommy got his first camera in this episode (though in All Grown Up!, it is revealed he first used it at age 32 months).
 * Speaking of All Grown Up!, the Santa actor in this episode reappeared as a mall Santa in "The Finster Who Stole Christmas".
 * Susie is mentioned, but does not appear in this episode.
 * When Angelica is about to ask Charlotte "What if Santa gives all the good stuff away?", her mouth doesn't move when she says "Mommy?" as we see the overview of the adults leaving the building and Angelica holding Charlotte's hand.
 * Moral: Treat every day like Christmas. Christmas is about giving, not just receiving.
 * The episode's title is an obvious riff on Babes in Toyland, originally released as operetta in 1903 and later adapted several times as a film, first in 1934.