A Step at a Time

A Step at a Time	Gallery	Transcript

Season 8 Episode 11a
A Step at a Time
Original Airdate	January 10, 2003
DVD release	Season 8
Previous Episode	Sweet Dreams
Next Episode	Angelica's Assistant

"A Step At A Time" is a Season 8 episode of Rugrats.

Characters Present

• Tommy
• Dil
• Chuckie
• Phil
• Lil
• Kimi
• Angelica
• Stu
• Didi
• Chas
• Betty
• Charlotte

Plot

While playing with a Follow-Me-Reptar toy, Tommy feels bad that Dil can't play with them since he can't walk. He and the other Rugrats try to get Dil to walk, but have quite a bit of trouble with it. During one of their attempts to get Dil to walk, Stu's talking on the kitchen phone to Didi and he looks out the kitchen window and sees Dil seemingly walking (he was actually being held up by Phil and Lil).

When Betty, Charlotte and Chas are told what Stu saw, they don't think Dil was actually walking and tell Stu that Dil's still way too young to actually start walking (with Betty pointing out that he won't start walking for at least a year). The adults start reminiscing about when their own children first started walking. While the babies and Dil (and later Angelica) start reminiscing about the times they first started walking:

• Angelica tells the babies that she started walking after she first saw another baby with his mom holding a cookie in his hand. She got out of her stroller and walked over to get it, although her mom thinks it was because Angelcia wanted to hug her. After Charlotte picked Angelica up, Angelica took the cookie from the other baby and ate it.
  • After hearing that, the babies try getting Dil to walk for a carrot that Chuckie had leftover from a snack he had earlier, but Dil doesn't want it.
• Phil and Lil started walking after they had apparently gotten into a fight, but their mom thought that they were helping each other to walk.
  • Hearing that, Lil pretends to be Dil's twin sister to try and get him to start walking, but it doesn't work.
• Chuckie didn't actually walk the first time, he ran. He was in the front yard with his dad, and he got scared when he saw this giant Clown-head on top of an ice cream truck that was coming towards his house, but Chas thought it was because he just wanted an ice cream treat.
  • Hearing that, the Rugrats (mainly Angelica) decide to scare Dil into walking, but Tommy stops them and tells them that Dil won't start walking until he's good and ready, and Dil's shown to be happy that Tommy's standing up for him.

While this was going on, Stu was setting up motion-activated video cameras that would start recording when Dil started walking. Didi ends up rushing home and knocking over the cameras. In the end, the adults realize that Dil really is too young to start walking. As the babies are walking into Tommy's house, Chuckie points out that they never found out what made Tommy walk for the first time.

• It's revealed that Chuckie's the whole reason Tommy started walking in the first place:
  • Tommy remembers that Chuckie had come over to his house with his dad (this was after Chuckie started walking), and remembers that he really wanted to play with Chuckie, so he pulled himself up using the back of the couch in the living room and start walking.

Chuckie's touched by the fact that he was the reason Tommy started walking. After Chas calls Chuckie and Kimi that they're leaving, Dil sees Tommy walking with his friends and tries getting up to start walking the way Tommy did the first time, but he's unable to do so. Tommy comes over to Dil and tells him that it's okay that he's not walking yet and that he can still play with Dil, which makes Dil happy.

Trivia

• Betty had a point when she told Stu that Dil wouldn't be walking for at least a year. On average, babies typically don't start walking around on their own until they're at least a year old.
• It's never revealed what made Kimi walk for the first time.
• During Chuckie's flashback, seeing how Melinda was not present, it is possible that the flashback took place shortly after Melinda passed away, while she was in the hospital, she was in the house, or she may have been in the backyard in her garden.
  • Kira's the only member of the Finster family who doesn't appear in this episode. If she had, she most likely would've told the others how Kimi walked for the first time.

Goofs

• Phil sounded like Lil when he said, "Cause he can't walk."
• Chuckie was first scared of clowns in "Circus Angelicus", and was of the same age of two at the time.
• Angelica actually first walked as a baby in "No More Cookies", thanks to the cookies that tempted her. Unless in this episode, it was her second time she walked and was the only memorable thing to Charlotte.
• In "Moving Away", Tommy and Chuckie where shown to first became friends at the age they are now in the episode though it could be considered non-canon as it is mentioned in other episodes (e.g. "Showdown at Teeter-Totter Gulch").

Gallery

The gallery for this episode can be found here.