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"Beauty Contest" is the first segment of the fifth episode of Season 1, and the fifth Rugrats segment overall.
Characters Present[]
Summary[]
Stu and Lou enter Tommy in a beauty pageant for baby girls when they learn that the Grand Prize is the Kingfisher 9000 (a top-of-the-line sport fishing boat). But will a dress and a wig fool Tommy's toughest competition...Angelica?
- - Description from Klasky Csupo
Plot[]
In the living room, Grandpa Lou is reading the paper while Tommy is playing on a rocking horse. While reading the paper, Grandpa sees an ad for the Little Miss Lovely Contest, a beauty pageant for female babies and toddlers. More importantly, he sees the prizes: for the winning girl, a boatload of toys. The winning father receives the Kingfisher 9000, a brand-new top-of-the-line sporting boat. Grandpa Lou loves the boat and instantly thinks of the idea of entering Tommy. He rushes downstairs to tell Stu his plan. At first, Stu refuses to cross-dress his son to enter the contest, but Grandpa Lou convinces him after showing him the prize they could win. We see Tommy still upstairs fall off his rocking horse, and onto the living room floor. We then see Grandpa and Stu grab Tommy and take him down to the basement.
Stu and Grandpa Lou are then seen deciding on what outfit to dress Tommy in. Grandpa starts by putting a blonde wig with a purple bow on Tommy. Stu also finds a matching green party dress, also with a purple bow. But Lou thinks it's too gaudy and instead recommends a yellow and blue pant suit. Stu also wants to try a brown retro 60s flip wig. Lou then opens a fishing magazine to show Stu an advertisement for a yellow wigwag with a spoon, the best lure for big eyed carp. They begin to think of all the things they could do with their new boat, before being interrupted by the doorbell. Betty has arrived for the afternoon, along with Phil and Lil.
Stu and Lou leave for the contest and dress Tommy up in the car. Stu puts the dress on the front seat while Grandpa Lou powders Tommy's face with pink foundation that covers the entire camera.
Back stage at the beauty pageant, Tommy is completely dressed as a girl and is seen next to another little girl holding his dress up, inspecting what is under it. Tommy is wearing white frilly panties under the dress and is embarrassed when the girl looks, so he finally lets his dress down while giving a blush. Tommy is also dressed in frilly white socks that match his panties and cute little girl's shoes with bows on them which matches his dress. Tommy has been entered as "Tonya Pickles". But Tommy isn't the only Pickles at the Little Miss Lovely pageant: Drew is there, having entered Angelica as well. Luckily, Angelica doesn’t recognize Tommy but threaten him. Then it's her turn next.
Moments before Angelica starts, Didi sits down next to Drew in the audience. Drew thanks Didi for coming here at the last minute. Didi explains that Lou and Stu took Tommy out for the afternoon to run some errands, so she decided to treat herself.
On stage, Angelica is very popular with the judges. Stu is horrified to see her there, because it means Drew is there, too. Grandpa Lou doesn't care; although he was horrified at first, he really wants to win the boat. Just as the pageant is to move onto the final contestant, Angelica yells for them to wait a minute, because she still has to sing her song. It turns out Drew tried to teach Angelica how to sing My Country, 'Tis of Thee, but not only does Angelica get most of the lyrics wrong, she has no singing ability whatsoever. The judges' scores drop, and Drew cries as the song ends.
At this point, Stu wants nothing more than to just call the whole thing off and get Tommy out of there, but Lou refuses. Tommy ends up going on stage and, though he may be too young to be taught how to perform songs and dances, it works out in his favor as the judges find him to be adorable just by being himself- tripping over the cords and swinging around. Tommy's leg is caught by the microphone stand cord and he stumbles over, revealing his frilly panties to the audience. The audience and judges delight in the sight of it all and give an aww to the cuteness of it, all giving very high scores. One judge comments that "Tonya" is the sweetest little girl that he has ever seen. Didi thinks "Tonya" looks familiar but doesn't realize what's going on until they announce the winner of Little Miss Lovely to be "Tonya Pickles".
Grandpa Lou drags Stu on stage to collect their prize, but they are interrupted by Didi, who has also gone onto the stage. Didi, furious, whips off Tommy's wig in front of the whole audience. The audience and judges are horrified, and Angelica is crowned winner instead (as she had the highest score prior to singing).
Didi and Stu take Tommy home. Didi is so furious with Grandpa Lou that she refuses to drive him, declaring he can walk home and think about what he's done. They are passed by Drew and Angelica (who silently taunts Tommy) and they are pulling a Kingfisher 9000 filled with toys and with Grandpa Lou sitting in the front of the boat, much to Stu and Didi's dismay.
Trivia[]
- This is the fifth time Chuckie doesn't appear.
- When Phil "cries", he sounds like Lil. It's likely Phil was imitating Lil's crying as part of switching places with Lil. They're both voiced by the same person.
- This is the second time we see Tommy wearing shoes; the first was in the episode "Waiter, There's a Baby in My Soup", the third was "Baseball", the fourth was in "Stu-Maker's Elves". The later episode "Heat Wave", is the first time he wears socks and shoes with his normal clothes.
- This episode and its sister episode "Baseball" stopped airing reruns on NickRewind for unknown reasons.
- Angelica sings off-key and butchers the lyrics of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" also known as "America".
- Stu's line "Nobody's gonna cross dress my boy and enter him in some beauty contest!" was cut from the Paramount+ print of this episode.
- Morals:
- Cheaters don't win. They get disqualified. It's unfair to those who didn't cheat. Cheating is wrong, even if there's a prize you really want to win. If you do lose a contest and you really wanted to win the prize, just ask the person in charge of the contest where they purchased the prize the winner won so you can go out and buy your own of the same prize after the contest is over.
- Don't pretend to be someone you are not especially someone of another race or sex. Don't cross-dress someone or yourself in an attempt to fool other people.
- Lying will always get you in trouble. One lie covers up every previous lie known as a web of lies.
Episode Connections[]
- The Kingfisher 9000 is shown being washed (and argued about) by Stu and Drew in "The Seven Voyages of Cynthia" and mentioned in "Party Animals".
Goofs[]
- When Lou first looks at the prize section for the beauty contest, the "Dads! Win!!!" text is red, but when he shows it to Stu, it's black.
- When Lou shows Stu the newspaper for the prize, his head disappears.
- Stu's shirt collar disappears for a few frames while driving home.
- When Tommy explains what a wig is, the floor turns orange. This also happens when Tommy says he wishes he didn't have to enter the contest.