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"Murmur on the Ornery Express" is a Season 8 episode of Rugrats.
Characters Present[]
- Tommy
- Dil
- Chuckie
- Phil
- Lil
- Kimi
- Angelica
- Stu
- Didi
- Chas
- Kira
- Howard
- Betty
- Drew
- Charlotte
- Lou
- Lulu
- Boris
- Minka
- Jonathan
Characters Introduced[]
Synopsis[]
Boris and Minka bring the Rugrats and their families on a scenic train trip to Little Biendeltown, a re-creation of "the Old Country". When Minka's necklace and Chuckie's Wawa Bear go missing en route, will the babies solve the mystery of who the train robber is? - Description from Klasky Csupo
Plot[]
The Rugrats are all hanging out at Tommy's house. In the kitchen, Minka (Didi's mom) is reading a brochure about a scenic train ride that goes to "Little Biendeltown." Minka explains that she and Boris (Didi's dad) are going to make it their second honeymoon. Minka encourages Didi and the other adults to come with them (not wanting to have only Boris to talk to for the entire ride). Didi's a little unsure at first, but figures that it would be really fun and goes to inform the kids. Chuckie's a little unsure about the trip, but Tommy assures him that he and the others (along with the grownups) will all be there and also points out that Chuckie could bring his teddy bear, Wawa, with him on the trip.
The day of the trip, all the Rugrats and their parents (along with Didi's parents and Stu's dad, Lou, and stepmom, Lulu) are all set and ready to go for the trip. Just as it seems like Chuckie's going to give the trip a chance, he gets freaked out by the train's whistle as it's leaving the station. Later on, while in the dining car, the kids are having ice cream and the adults are all either eating, drinking or talking. Angelica meets a young rich boy named Brett, who she develops a crush on, and Lulu ends up running into an old boyfriend of hers named Dwayne Tickerbacker (whom Lou becomes jealous of after learning of his history with Lulu). Chas also reads about a notorious train robber in the newspaper, but Stu figures that a criminal like the train robber Chas read about wouldn't rob something like the Biendeltown Express. While the kids are eating their ice cream, Tommy sees a "shadow guy" (a silhouetted tall dark stranger dressed in a trench coat and fedora hat) in the window of the dining car's door; he's about to tell Chuckie, but when he sees that Chuckie's having a lot of fun on the trip, he chooses not to say anything.
Later on, while back in their compartment, the kids get freaked out when the train goes through a tunnel. In the dark, Chuckie loses Wawa and Minka loses her necklace -- when Minka sees her necklace is gone, Boris figures that she probably just left it at home without realizing it. But Betty assures everyone that she saw Minka wearing her necklace before the train went through the tunnel and Chas suspects that the train-robber he had read about in the newspaper is the culprit. Betty brings the conductor back to where she and the others are; he informs her and the rest of her group that he'll call the police about what happened, and they'll meet them at their first stop in the morning.
That night, Howard's on babysitting duty. Chuckie's having trouble sleeping and at one point, he sees the same shadow guy that Tommy saw earlier when he and his friends were having ice cream, holding a shape resembling Wawa. He informs the others of it, but Kimi and the twins' figure that Chuckie was probably just dreaming. But Tommy assures them that Chuckie wasn't dreaming and reveals that he saw the shadow guy earlier. Tommy then leads the other kids out of the car to follow the shadow guy and rescue Wawa. Tommy uses Howard's belt to get them out and the kids eventually make it to the emergency brake but not realizing that it stops the train and is only for emergency use (and thinking that it'll open the door), they pull it, stopping the train. This makes all the adult (including the Rugrats' parents and grandparents) wake up. The conductor comes by and assures everyone that everything's okay; some babies just got the emergency brake. Hearing this, the kids' moms go to get them and put them back to bed.
Back in bed, Chuckie starts crying about potentially never seeing Wawa again, but Tommy assures him and the others that he will help him get Wawa back if it's the last thing he never does. In the morning, at the train's first stop, a pair of detectives come by and start asking everyone questions about any potentially suspicious activity they may have witnessed. When Dwayne comes by to serve everyone some coffee (which Betty accepts), Lou tells the detective that he's never liked the looks of Dwayne. Later on, Lou's on babysitting duty but he ends up falling asleep like he usually does. Then, the kids see the shadow guy and what looks like Wawa in his hand. The kids, of course, go after him; while this is going on, Didi comes by to check on the kids, but Lou cries out "sleepin'", which Didi takes this to mean that the kids are napping. Meanwhile, Stu and Drew decide to stand on the observation deck at the rear of the train for some fun, until the train speeds up from the babies fooling in the locomotive's cab (in search of the "shadow guy") and the increase in speed causes the observation car's door to blow shut and lock out the brothers. Angelica goes to hang out with her crush, Brett, in the kid-car and lets her aunt Didi and Kira know this. Didi goes to check on Lou and screams in fear and frustration upon seeing that the kids aren't there. Stu and Drew start to shimmy down the sides outside the passenger cars in hope of finding an open window.
Tommy, Chuckie, Kimi, Phil and Lil eventually reach the baggage car. After Chuckie accidentally knocks over a stack of luggage, this alerts the adults, who rush to the car to see what's going on, just as Stu and Drew find an open window and re-enter the interior of the train. The adults eventually reach the baggage car and they and the kids discover that the "shadow guy" is Charlotte's assistant, Jonathan, who Charlotte forced to come on the train so she could get work done. It also turns out that the "Wawa" that Chuckie and the others saw was just Jonathan's cellphone.
Back in their suite, Tommy questions what happened to Wawa if Jonathan didn't take him, and after doing some more searching, Tommy finds Angelica's doll, Cynthia, underneath the seats. When Lil questions why Cynthia would be underneath the seats, Tommy deduces that when the train went through that first tunnel, Angelica must've grabbed Wawa by mistake while Cynthia had fallen under the car's seats. After escaping from Lou again after he falls asleep, the kids go to Angelica in the kid-car and exchange Cynthia for Wawa. Angelica screams in confusion and disgust after she pulls out Wawa and is relieved after getting Cynthia back.
Meanwhile, one of the detectives is doing some more searching in the baggage car and finds Minka's necklace and figures out who the train robber is: as it turns out, Dwayne's the train robber. He's promptly arrested and led away by the police detectives, Minka gets her necklace back and the gang finally gets to enjoy their trip. After enjoying their time in Little Biendeltown, the gang goes back onto their train; during this, Angelica discovers that Brett lives in Little Biendeltown and isn't rejoining her on the train. Angelica's sad at first but then gets angry upon realizing her being nice to the other kids to impress Brett was ultimately for nothing.
As the train heads back home, Chuckie's looking forward to having a fun, relaxing trip, but then the train goes through another tunnel and he and the other kids freak out, ending the episode.
Trivia[]
- This episode is a parody of the Agatha Christie novel Murder on the Orient Express.
- This is the first episode that reunites The Simpsons actors Dan Castellaneta and Nancy Cartwright; on that show, some of the characters that Dan voices include Homer Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Barney Gumble, Sideshow Mel, Itchy, and Abe Simpson while Nancy voices Bart Simpson, Nelson Muntz, and Ralph Wiggum, among others. This is Castellaneta's third appearance on the show, after "Pickles vs. Pickles" and his first episode as Jonathan, "Jonathan Babysits".
- Susie and her family don't come on the trip with the others -- it's possible that they were unable to come due to having other commitments (or something like that).
- This is the seventeenth half-an-hour episode of the series after "Tommy's First Birthday", "The Santa Experience", "Passover", "Chanukah", "Mother's Day", "Vacation", "The Turkey Who Came to Dinner", "The Family Tree", "No Place Like Home", "Be My Valentine", "Discover America", "Finsterella", "A Rugrats Kwanzaa", "Preschool Daze", "Curse of the Werewuff", and "Bow Wow Wedding Vows".
- It's shown that Stu seems to have a fear of trains in this episode. He even seemed a little scared of the toy train that Chuckie was playing with at the beginning of the episode. This fear may have developed from nearly being run over by the train from North of the Border (a Canadian-themed amusement park) in the episode "Where's Grandpa?".
- Tommy acts as if this were the first time he had ever been on a real train. While it was indeed the first time for Dil, Phil, Lil, Chuckie and Kimi, both Tommy and Angelica had previously ridden on a train in "Family Reunion" on their way to the Pickles family reunion.
- Tommy may not have remembered it due to his very young age, and the train in that episode was a regular commuter train that was most likely pulled by a modern diesel locomotive (though it isn't seen in the episode), compared to the scenic classic-style train pulled by a steam locomotive seen in this episode.
- Tom Bosley appeared before in an earlier Rugrats episode -- last time, he was Billy "Strike" Maxwell in "King Ten Pin".
- This episode also features a pair of geysers that, when they erupt simultaneously (every 96 days), forms a heart formation with their blasts of hot water.
- The engine on the train has a logo that says "TT", though nothing is mentioned about what it stands for.
- Stu and Drew are at the back of the line when they come in the window, but are at the front of it, when they storm in the storage.
- This is the fourth time "Huh?" is heard; the previous ones being "Chanukah", "The Word of The Day", and The Rugrats Movie.
- After the first period of darkness, both Wawa and the necklace are gone. However, only the babies knew of Wawa disappearing; the adults did not. Thus, it is unknown why Didi said "They were stolen?!"
- When Chuckie looks up at the train, the engine turns into a monster locomotive.
- The engine on the train is a 4-6-4 or a Pacific type of steam locomotive. Locomotives of this wheel arrangement were used most common on American railroads during the 1800s and 1830s until 1928.
- The locomotive also bears some resemblance to the New York Central Hudson class.
- As the Rugrats enter the cab of the engine, they play inside with the coal, touch the controls to open the furnace, and close it by touching the switches, until the engine whistles, speeds up, and rattles as if it might fall apart.
- The sound of the train's whistle is inconsistent in this episode. When pulling into the station (and when the whistle scares Chuckie a while into the ride), the whistle sounds almost synthesized and ghostly. Other times, it alternates between a traditional steam locomotive whistle and what sounds like a modern commuter train's horn.
- Despite being a Season 8 episode, this episode appears on the Season 9 DVD.
Quotes[]
Tommy: Don't worry, Chuckie! A real train is just like your toy train! It just has to be bigger so the grownups can play with them!
Video Clips[]
Charlotte Pickles is a Boss 😎 Rugrats 🍼 Nickelodeon Animation
Rugrats - I'll make a man out of you