Chuckie Gets Skunked

Season 2 Episode 16b
Chuckie Gets Skunked
Original Airdate	December 20, 1992
DVD release	Season 2
Previous Episode	Chuckie Loses His Glasses
Next Episode	Rebel Without a Teddy Bear

Chuckie Gets Skunked is the second segment of the sixteenth episode of season 2, and the fifty-sixth Rugrats segment overall.

Characters Present

• Pickles Family
  • Stu, Lou, Didi, Tommy and Spike.
• Finster Family
  • Chas and Chuckie Finster.
• DeVille Family
  • Phil and Lil DeVille.
• Kropotkin Family
  • Boris and Minka Kropotkin.

Synopsis

When a skunk sprays his nasty odor all over Chuckie, the adults are up in arms at trying to get rid of the smell. Can the Rugrats find a way to help him?

- Description from Klasky Csupo

Plot

Chas Finster and Lou and Stu Pickles are out in the Pickles backyard late one night, trying to flush out a skunk that's been living in the yard---but the three men end up running away from the skunk when they actually find it. Tommy and Chuckie were watching their dads (and Tommy's grandpa) while they were looking for the skunk, and they end up seeing it, but they don't known what it is and Tommy initially thinks it's a cat. When Lou, Stu and Chas come into the house and tell Didi about what happened, Didi doesn't get why they're so intent on catching the skunk, saying, "It's got as much of right to live here as we do." Lou insists that the skunk's "a menace." Tommy and Chuckie were listening to the adults, and they realize what a skunk really is. They go outside to try and look for the skunk so they can play with it, but Chuckie ends up getting sprayed by the skunk.

The next day, Tommy's telling Phil and Lil about what happened to Chuckie. Just then, Chas and Chuckie come by and Didi tells Chas to put Chuckie on the living room couch. While the adults go to the kitchen, Tommy and the twins come up to Chuckie, but Tommy's repulsed by Chuckie's skunk smell---although the twins seem to like it. Chuckie sadly tells his friends that because of the skunk smell, nobody---not even himself---wants to be around him, and he doesn't know if he'll ever get "un-skunked." Meanwhile, Stu, Didi and Lou are suggesting various ways to help Chuckie get rid of his skunk smell like tomato juice, tomato paste, and good a scrubbing with soap and water but Chas said none of them worked (the tomato juice stained the tub, the tomato paste clogged up the drain, and he scrubbed Chuckie with soap and water six times, but then Chuckie's skin started to come off) and it didn't make the smell go away AT ALL.

Lou suggests a method: dig a hole in the backyard and fill it with water to make mud, and use a makeshift mud-bath to help Chuckie get rid of the skunk-smell. After getting Chuckie covered in mud, the mud hardens and breaks, but the smell is still there. Stu comes up with another idea: he douses Chuckie with some of Didi's various perfumes, but it doesn't really get rid of the smell (as Chas describes it, "Now he just smells like a skunk getting ready for a hot date").

Didi's parents, Boris and Minka, later come over with a pot of Russian borscht for dinner and they notice Chuckie's skunk smell. Didi and the other adults explain what happened, and Minka says there's an old Russian remedy that can help Chuckie get rid of his skunk smell. While the adults leave the kitchen, Tommy sees the borscht his Grandma Minka made, and suggests that Chuckie get in the borscht to get rid of his skunk smell. Chuckie gets in the pot of soup, he and the others start playing in it just as Didi and her mom come back into the kitchen and see what the kids are doing. Chuckie goes in the fan.

As the adults get the kids out of the borscht, Chas notices that Chuckie doesn't smell like a skunk, realizing that the borscht is what finally got rid of Chuckie's skunk smell. Stu and Chas decide to go get some pizzas for dinner and Lou and Boris go clean up the kids---but before doing so, Lou tries a spoonful of Minka's borscht and thinks that it actually tastes better.

Outside, Stu and Chas are glad to have finally gotten rid of Chuckie's skunk smell---but then they run into the skunk that had sprayed Chuckie at the beginning of the episode. Stu and Chas go, "Uh oh," and then they both scream---presumably because the skunk sprayed them!

Transcript

The transcript can be found here

Trivia

• One of the perfumes that Stu used to try and get rid of Chuckie's skunk smell was called Eau de Joie---presumably a French perfume. According to Didi, that particular perfume is $150 per fluid ounce.
  • The average bottle of perfume is usually only about two or three fluid ounces, so that would make the average bottle of Eau de Joie perfume cost about $300 to $450 a bottle.
• Didi reveals that Boris came from a very well-to-do family back in Russia.
• When Didi told Stu and Chas that her parents were bringing over a pot of borscht for dinner, Lou said "I just love that cold beet soup", revealing that he likes borscht.
• Tomato Juice and Laudry Detergant are just two deodorizing  remedies recommended for people or animals that get sprayed by skunks

Quotes

Boris: Kids are supposed to smell! It's the way of the world!

[Lou is giving Chuckie a mud bath to try to remove the smell]
Didi: How long do we leave him in there?
Lou: Oh three days oughta be fine, maybe a week to be on the safe side.
Chas: A week!?
Lou: Alright, alright! How about twenty minutes?