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Mutt's in a Name Gallery Transcript
Season 9 Episode 10a
Mutt´s In A Name Title Card (HQ)
Mutt's in a Name
Original Airdate November 22, 2002
DVD release The Best of Season 9
Season 9
Complete Series
Previous Episode Lil's Phil of Trash
Next Episode Hurricane Alice

"Mutt's in a Name" is a Season 9 episode of Rugrats.

Characters[]

Character Introduced[]

Plot[]

It starts with Puppy being sad and not wanting to do anything, the babies trying to cheer her up by giving her newspaper and balls to chew, Kira doing a jigsaw puzzle and Chas trying to determine a proper name for Puppy. He thinks of "Charles," but that's his name. Chuckie tries to give her his name and rename himself Fred, but Tommy says "No, they must look for one." His is on his shirt and Chuckie's is on his name plate so they look on all the plates, but none have a name on them. Chuckie says they can't just wait for his dad to find a name as it takes him ages to find his shoes, so they get a whole lot of stuff and Chas finds his shoes but not Puppy's name. Then the parents say "Here, Puppy, time for a walk" but she doesn't even answer to Puppy, which causes Chas to think she's having an identity crisis. The vet Dr. Mutterly comes with a dog book and tries to get Puppy to run and bark by demonstrating these things himself. Then he digs for her bone and the babies think he's digging for a name, so they all dig and Dr. Mutterly leaves. Puppy coughs up a jigsaw piece and is now back to normal, and Charles names her Pepper/Sparky as she is full of pep/spark.

Trivia[]

  • This episode debuted in the US as part of U-Pick Live. But, while Klasky Csupo announced that "Sparky" would be the new name for the dog, Nick US felt that viewers should have a hand at naming the dog. Viewers were given three choices -- in addition to "Sparky", the others were "Chippy" and "Pepper". The winning name was "Pepper", but since "Sparky" was already used in the final product, the name "Pepper" was overdubbed, along with the reason why Chas named the dog "Pepper" -- the puppy was playing in a pepper patch, and the dog has full of pep. But, whether or not "Pepper" would be used in repeats remains to be seen. However, things get even more complicated -- international versions of this episode use the original name, "Sparky", with the reason being that the dog is full of spark, and Chas was looking for a name that would spark an idea. It still remains to be seen whether or not one name will be used, or the other, or if the dog's name will still be geographically divided.
  • It should be known that "Puppy" was a name given by the Rugrats and known only by them; the grown-ups never knew that the dog had that name.
  • When coming up with a name for Puppy (before deciding on "Pepper"), Kimi suggests naming Puppy after someone else, revealing that she herself was named after her grandmother.
  • Chas and Kira are the only parents to appear.
  • The episode title is a play on the phrase "What's in a name?", which is credited to William Shakespeare in his play Romeo and Juliet.
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