Chanukah

Season 4 Episode 1
Chanukah
Original Airdate	December 6, 1996
VHS release	A Rugrats Chanukah
DVD release	Season 4 Holiday Celebration
Previous Episode	Passover
Next Episode	Mother's Day

Chanukah is the first episode from Season 4 of Rugrats, and is one of two of the Rugrats Jewish Holiday Specials. The other is Passover.

Characters Present

• Tommy
• Chuckie
• Phil 
• Lil
• Angelica
• Lou
• Stu
• Didi
• Boris
• Minka

Synopsis

The babies learn the story of Chanukah while visiting a synagouge with Boris, putting themselves in action. Meanwhile Boris and his old rival Meanie work out their long-standing fued. - Description from Klasky Csupo

Plot

Grandpa Boris is appearing in a senior's play about the meaning of Chanukah opposite his childhood rival Schlomo. Boris is mad that he is going to be in a play with him, and when seeing Schlomo's picture the babies think that he is the "Meany of Chanukah" and they need to find him and put him to sleep to protect Boris. At the synagogue, Angelica, getting a latke, decides it isn't a total loss, as her mother doesn't allow her to have pancakes for dinner. After she takes one bite, she spits it out in disgust due to it being made from potatoes and throws the rest of it out, only for a man in a dreidel suit to slip on it, losing some doughnuts in a box he is carrying. As Boris feuds with Schlomo and the babies try to put the "meany" down for a nap, Angelica searches for a T.V. in the synagogue to watch her favorite Christmas special, walking over the same dreidel man who slipped on the bitten latke, to his anger. But she is stopped and put in the nursery with Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil, who attacked Schlomo at the start of the play. They all escape and Angelica gets the TV and runs away. she broke the TV with her Corsica cry about Cynthia. and then the Corsica cry really harder. All the while, Stu and Grandpa Lou are driving to the synagogue with the fancy menorah for the play, but they are stuck in the middle of a Christmas parade. Suddenly, the babies and Angelica get scared when they confront Schlomo, but Grandpa Boris comforts them and Schlomo reads a book about the miracle of Chanukah. When Stu finally arrives he wheels the menorah onto the stage and turns it on. But it explodes and the curtains come crashing down, revealing Boris, Schlomo, and the children. Boris and Schlomo then come together and sing a song, and the episode ends.

Trivia

• When Angelica is talking about her show, she calls it "The Cynthia Christmas Extravaganza Special", but the TV announcer calls it "A Very Cynthia Christmas".
• The music in this episode was done by the Zion senior choir, who sing in both the title card and the credits. They also appear in the episode as a women's choir who perform Chanukah songs when there is a intermission during the Chanukah play.
• This special marks the first of the "revival era" episodes.
• The "menorah" that Schlomo puts the oil on is a "Hanukkiah".

The difference between the two is that a menorah is a 7-branch candle holder (the one in the temple scenes is a menorah), and a hanukkiah is a a 9-branch candle holder.

• This is the first episode not to use the regular title card. Instead, in this episode, there is a blue "Chanukah" in a black background with sacred music.
• This episode is the first of the new episodes of Rugrats, made after the original Rugrats show ended production in 1994 with the "Passover" episode airing as the last. Episodes after "Passover" are made by Nick.
• According to the Unofficial Rugrats Online, when Stu and Grandpa end up being in the holiday parade, "Let It Snow" originally played in the background. In 1999, they changed the background music to "Deck The Halls" due to rights issues with the original music.
• The animation in this special is noticeably different from previous and subsequent Rugrats episodes. The mood is shown to be somewhat darker, with realistic shadowing effects and faster movements, very similar to Klasky-Csupo's other Nickelodeon series at the time, Aaahh! Real Monsters. Additionally, for the remainder of the series, Grandpa Boris's eyes are now redesigned, as being shown with sclera around his pupils instead of just being pupils as in prior episodes, and Phil is also now drawn with earlobes.

Quotes

Angelica: I want my Cynthia!

Gallery

The gallery for this episode can be found here