Elizabeth "Betty" Giselle [citation needed]-DeVille (born March 21, 1959) is Phil and Lil's mother and also the wife of Howard. She is very nice, but also tends to speak in a strong voice. Though outwardly opposites, she and Didi are very good friends. She comes off as a tough and energetic woman, always giving a friendly-but-painful back slap, and fawns over her twins. She loves a good cup of coffee and is always quick with a witty comment. She loves sports (as she used to be a pro-wrestler) and always wears a blue headband. Betty was originally voiced by Kath Soucie, who also voices her twins, Phil and Lil.
Description
Betty is loud, energetic, tough, and athletic, but friendly and likable; a foil to her husband Howard, who is more quiet and soft spoken.
Betty considers herself a feminist, and wears a purple sweater with the symbol for "female" on it. In All Grown Up!, she works with Chas at the Java Lava Coffee House, and also helps Principal Pangborn with Phil and Lil’s school soccer team.
Despite their personality differences, Betty deeply loves Howard and their children. Betty met Howard when she was in third grade in 1967. She used to poke him with her index finger because she was too shy to admit that she liked him. Many years later, Howard and Betty started dating and married in 1987, right after Stu and Didi's wedding, and they renewed their vows in 2001 in "Runaround Susie".
Looks
Betty has peach skin, brown hair and pink lips. She wears green earrings, a purple-and-orange shirt with the female symbol on it, blue jeans (Some episodes she wears blue track pants with dark blue side stripes instead), orange socks, blue and green sneakers and a blue headband. She has a very large build.
In All Grown Up!, she keeps her headband and wears a sea green blouse, purple stirrup pants, a gold bracelet, and blue and white sneakers.
Appearances
Betty has appeared in many episodes of Rugrats and All Grown Up!. Her first appearance was in "Tommy's First Birthday". She goes on to make even more recurring appearances in the spin-off series All Grown Up!, running the coffee house with Chas.
Trivia
- Betty often gives nicknames. She calls Didi "Deed", Chuckie either "the Chuckster" or "Little Chuckster", and the babies as a group "pups".
- In the episode "Mother's Day", it is revealed that she used to breastfeed Phil and Lil when they were under a year old, though, being that it aired on Nick, it could not explicitly be shown (i.e. her shirt wasn't lifted) nor explicitly referenced verbally. Lil describes it as "when mommy fed us the old way".
- In the All Grown Up! episode "TP+KF", she is shown to be a Halloween prankster, and disapproves of not having fun.
- Betty was born in 1959, but she's older than Didi by nine months.
- Betty drives a blue 2-door 4x4 SUV in later episodes (after Rugrats in Paris: The Movie; seen in "A Rugrats Kwanzaa") and continues to drive this vehicle in All Grown Up!. It is a generic but has styling cues from a 1986-1991 Chevrolet K5 Blazer, a 1986-1990 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer, a 1987-1991 Ford Bronco, and a 1991-1993 Dodge Ramcharger. In All Grown Up!, it resembles a 1969-1972 Chevrolet K5 Blazer, but has modern features like an alarm system.
- According to her daughter in "Rat Traps", "Lil" was the only name besides "Bill" or "Jill" that Betty could think of that rhymed with "Phil."
- Betty regularly helps Chas at the Java Lava.
- She is the assistant coach for the Jim Jr. Junior High soccer team.
- According to "Angelica's In Love", Betty and her husband Howard first met when she was in third grade. She used to prod Howard with her index finger in their classroom, and it took him abut 20 years for him to realize that she always loved him but didn't have the guts to say it. (Since Howard was born in 1958 and Betty in 1959, this implies that Howard was held back once, assuming that their classroom was not a third-and-fourth-grade classroom).
- In "Chicken Pops", Betty reveals that, when she was a child, her mother exposed her and the rest of her family to all kinds of diseases.
- Betty is one of the few parents that hasn't been seen as a child alongside Howard and Kira.
- The Unfair Pair is the only episode where she along with Howard and her kids Phil and Lil appears without Tommy.
- The only incarnation of the franchise where she doesn't appear is Rugrats Pre-School Daze.
- She reveals in The Rugrats Movie (1998 film) that when she was pregnant with the twins, she consulted Lipschitz, but he mistakenly thought that she was not pregnant but instead had intestinal gas.
- "All's Well That Pretends Well" reveals that she prefers using her hand to check kids for fevers to using thermometers.
- Betty, Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Susie, Angelica, Dil, Kimi, Didi, Harold, Stu, Drew, Lou, Charlotte, Howard, Kira, Chas, Boris, Minka, Randy, Lucy, Edwin, Buster, Alyssa, Fluffy, Spike, Fifi, Spiffy, Reptar and Cynthia are the only characters to appear in All Grown Up.
References