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Grandpa's Bad Bug Gallery Transcript
Season 5 Episode 1a
Grandpa's Bad Bug Title Card
Grandpa's Bad Bug
Original Airdate August 19, 1998
VHS release Dr. Tommy Pickles
DVD release Season 5
Previous Episode Pirate Light
Next Episode Lady Luck

"Grandpa's Bad Bug" is an fifth episode from Season 5 of Rugrats.

Characters Present

Summary

Grandpa gets out of doing chores by faking a "bad bug", though the Rugrats think he actually ate one. To take care of this, they find some "good bugs" for Grandpa to eat while he sleeps! - Description from Klasky Csupo

Plot

Tommy, Chuckle, Phil, and Lil are playing in their playpen admiring a firefly while Stu and Didi are reading. Grandpa is getting ready to go out to his late night pinnacle game at the lodge and tells the family "don't wait up".

Stu reminds him that he promised that he would stop going to these all-night events especially after what happened the last time when Grandpa was so tired, they couldn't get him out of bed for a whole week. Grandpa tries to weasel out of it but Stu encourages him to keep his promise and recites the poem that he told him as a child: "If a promise you don't keep, it will haunt you in your sleep and as you lie beneath your quilt, you will have a conscience full of guilt."

Grandpa then promises to be home early, but it is way into the early morning when he gets back, so he tries to sneak in and hits his foot against the coat stand, making him yell and wake the babies up. He then tries to sneak up the stairs but the lights come on and Stu and Didi appear, asking why Grandpa is up so early. Grandpa hesitates to explain and Stu expresses that he is glad his father is up as he and Didi were weeding the garden and now he could help them.

Grandpa however tells a whopping great fib saying that he only got up early was because he got sick from catching a bad bug. Stu and Didi fall for the ruse, but the babies misunderstand Grandpa's fib thinking he has actually eaten a real bug so they decide to get the supposed bug out of him.

Grandpa craftily goes to bed, but the babies decide to lure the bug out by placing old food on Grandpa's face to lure the bug out like ants at a picnic. But all they succeed in doing is make Grandpa swallow the food, making him cough and splutter. Next they mistake Grandpa's tonsils for the bug and try to crush them with a pair of toy pliers making Grandpa scream with pain. Each time he remembers Stu's poem, but he shakes it off as a coincidence.

Finally the Rugrats decide to use some good bugs to fight the bad bug that is making Grandpa sick. They bring a lot and spread them over Grandpa's bed. While still hearing Stu's poem, Grandpa feels one of the bugs on his face and seeing many more of them in his bed scares him out of his wits. He leaps out of bed and runs into the garden where Stu and Didi are still weeding and confesses everything, promising to pull weeds or even plant them.

Meanwhile the Rugrats believe that the bad bug is now gone for good and have saved Grandpa. Lil asks if they can eat the leftover bugs, which they do.

Trivia

  • Grandpa Lou claimed that he used to stay up for fifteen days in a row and liked it. However, one hard-to-beat record for the most time without sleep is 264 hours, or eleven days, which was an extreme. After about a week, a person would hallucinate due to the lack of REM sleep. After less than two weeks, a person would experience brain damage, possibly permanent. It's pretty impossible for him to do this, much less enjoy it. It is possible that he is exaggerating with the number 15.
  • Moral: Breaking a promise and then lying about it can get you into trouble since you didn't admit it.

Goofs

  • When Stu and Didi are in the garden, Didi is wearing a purple sweater but when she is zoomed in on and says" They're so Sweet" her outfit is the same red dress she always wears.
  • At the end of one scene, the babies are in their regular clothes instead of their pajamas.
  • Grandpa says he was once ensign in the corps, although other episodes show him in the army.
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