| Beauty Contest | Gallery | Transcript |
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| Season 1 Episode 5a | |
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| Beauty Contest | |
| Original Airdate | September 15, 1991 |
| DVD release | Season 1 |
| Previous Episode | Little Dude |
| Next Episode | Baseball |
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 pagent 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 competiton...Angelica?
- - Description from Klasky Csupo.
Plot
Grandpa Lou sees an ad for the Little Miss Lovely beauty pageant for female babies and toddlers. More importantly, he sees the grand prize for the adults is the Kingfisher 9000, a brand new top-of-the-line sporting boat. Grandpa Lou loves fishing (or at least, watching fishing shows on TV) and rushes downstairs to tell Stu about the contest. Grandpa Lou convinces Stu to cross-dress Tommy for the afternoon so they can win the boat. Stu and Grandpa Lou are seen deciding on what outfit to dress Tommy in choosing between a retro 60's flip wig, a pant suit, or a blonde wig with a blue party dress. Ultimately however, they try the blonde wig on Tommy and model the dress by him next to a mirror and end up choosing the blonde wig and party dress.
Stu and Lou leave for the contest and dress him 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. 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 lacey 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 lacey white socks and cute little girl's shoes with bows on them which matches his outfit. Tommy has been entered as "Tanya Pickles". But Tommy isn't the only Pickles at the Little Miss Lovely pageant: Drew is there, having entered Angelica as well! Angelica pushes Tommy and says she recognizes her, but Tommy denies it (using a falsetto). The opportunity for Angelica to bully Tommy ends, however, because it's her turn next.
Moments before Angelica starts, Didi sits down next to Drew in the audience, because he invites her to join them for some reason. 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, but Grandpa Lou doesn't care (although he was horrified too). 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.
Now it's Tommy's turn. Tommy is too young to be taught how to perform songs and dances, but 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 stumbles over which reveals his lacey panties to the audience. The audience and judges delight in the sight of it all and give an awwww to the cuteness of it all giving very high scores. One judge commenting that "Tanya" is the sweetest little girl that he has ever seen. Didi thinks "Tanya" looks familiar, but doesn't realize what's going on until they announce the winner of Little Miss Lovely to be "Tanya Pickles".
A reluctant Stu (due to Drew's presence) and Grandpa Lou arrive on stage to collect their prize, but 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 bring him home, declaring he can walk home and think about what he's done. They are passed by Drew and Angelica (who silently taunts Tommy), and are pulling a Kingfisher 9000 filled with toys and with Grandpa Lou sitting in the front, much to Stu and Didi's dismay.
Trivia
- Fifth time Chuckie doesn't appear.
- The Kingfisher 9000 is shown being washed by Stu and Drew (and arguing about it) in The Seven Voyages of Cynthia, and mentioned in Party Animals.
- When Phil "cried", he sounded like Lil. It's likely Phil was imitating Lil's crying as part of switching places with Lil.
- This is the second time we see Tommy wearing shoes, the first was in episode Waiter, There's a Baby in My Soup, the third was in episode Stu-Maker's Elves, but in the later episode Heat Wave, it was the first time he wore socks, and shoes with his normal clothes.
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.