Touchdown Tommy

Season 1 Episode 11a
Touchdown Tommy
Original Airdate	March 29, 1992
VHS release	A Baby's Gotta Do What a Baby's Gotta Do
DVD release	Season 1
Previous Episode	Incident in Aisle Seven
Next Episode	The Trial

Touchdown Tommy is the first segment of the eleventh episode of Season 1, and the eleventh episode overall of Rugrats.

Characters Present

• Tommy Pickles
• Chuckie Finster
• Angelica Pickles
• Phil DeVille
• Lil DeVillel
• Betty DeVille
• Didi
• Spike
• Stuart Pickles
• Lou
• Drew Pickles
• Howard DeVille
• Chas Finster
• Fluffy (debut; cameo) 

Synopsis

After being inspired by their dads watching a football game, Tommy and the other Rugrats use the living room for a little grid-iron fun of their own... keeping Angelica from stealing their chocolate milk.

- Description from Klasky Csupo.

Plot

Stu, Drew, Lou, and Howard (with a reluctant Chaz, who would rather watch chess) plan to watch the Ultra Bowl, the ultimate event in football, with a split decision on which team should win. The problem is that Didi doesn't trust Stu and the others to watch the game after she overreacts from Tommy bumping his head on the coffee table and then his theme cry appears. Stu, however, quickly creates a baby helmet for Tommy that convinces her the babies will be fine while she and Betty go shopping.

The men arrive (with snacks and a massive TV) and the women leave. Before the game starts Stu puts his makeshift helmets on all the babies plus Angelica. The other men soon tell Lou to give the kids their bottles shortly after the game begins. Lou hands out bottles to Chuckie, Phil and Lil (Angelica refuses, saying that bottles are for babies and she's not a baby). Lou gives Tommy his bottle, saying that his is special compared to the others. Tommy reveals his grandpa's favoritism when he happily exclaims that he got chocolate milk, while the others got plain milk instead. Everybody else is jealous, especially Angelica (even though she just refused a bottle).

Angelica chases Tommy. The chase is shown in the manner of a football game, with the babies throwing the bottle to each other to keep it away from Angelica, not realizing the chocolate milk is spilling out at the same time. While this goes on, commentary from the game matches with the game of keep away. Angelica eventually manages to grab the bottle, but forcefully shoots it out of the bottle when she grabs it. Angelica wails that the bottle is empty just as Didi and Betty return. Didi is furious about the chocolate milk all over the living room, and that the men failed to notice what was going on right behind them. Chaz adopts an "I-told-you-so" attitude when he says they would have been better off watching chess tournaments.

Transcript

The transcript can be found here

Trivia

• Third episode in which Chaz appears, but the first episode in which he talks on screen, having only said his son's name once in his first appearance.
• The Ultra Bowl is a reference to the Super Bowl.
• Chick Hearn was the commentator of the game. In real life, he was best known for being the play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.
• The jerseys that the fathers are wearing of the teams playing in the game, are of two actual official teams. The solid white, with red and blue stripes on the side, with an Oil Derrick logo in the center jersey, closely resemble those of a defunct NFL football team, which at that time was called the Houston Oilers. The team is now called the Tennessee Titans. This other jersey which is solid navy blue with small white stripes, belongs to the Dallas Cowboys. These observations can further be supported when the commentator of the game, reveals the location of the stadium is played in the "Lone Star State", which is Texas.
• This is another one of the few episodes where Angelica is wearing a diaper under her skirt when she lays down from feeling dizzy.
• This is the first appearance of Fluffy, Angelica's pet cat.
• This was used as a bonus level in the Rugrats: Search for Reptar video game, where the same tactic is used.
• This is the first episode where somebody gets in trouble by saying the culprit's two names as opposed to the three names. It's where Didi comes back from shopping and finds the house in a disarray. She yells "Angelica Pickles! What in the world is going on here?!"
• This is the first appearance of Tommy's theme cry effect.
• The old Rugrats Nickelodeon site lists this episode as Touch-Down Tommy.

Goofs

• It's impossible for a bottle of chocolate milk to cover the whole living room.
• When the dads are shown on the couch, look closely and you'll see that there are chocolate stains on the wall (from Tommy's bottle). But Tommy hasn't gotten his bottle yet. Oops that wasn't supposed to happen.
• Stu is holding some helmets when he says, "And best of all, each kid gets one". But in the next shot, Chuckie, Phil, Lil and Angelica are already wearing helmets while the dads leave to go to the TV.
• Spike is shown at the end of the episode licking the chocolate milk. However, chocolate is poisonous to dogs, and could injure or kill them.

Quotes

Didi: "Oh, no! Stu, look at that gigantic bruise!"
Stu: "Didi, he probably just bumped his head trying to get that balloon!"
Didi: "Stu, are you blaming Tommy's concussion on the balloon?"
Stu: "Concussion?!"
Didi: "It's not the balloon's fault, Stu."

---

Lou: "In my day, we played real football!"
Stu: "Come on, Pop, real football?"
Lou: "Yep! Back in Minnesota state, they called me the galloping... uh, the galloping..."
Drew: "Geezer?"
Stu: "Geezer!"
(Stu, Drew, Howard, and Chas all laugh)

---

(Lou gives the babies their bottles)
Lou: Okay, sprouts! Milk break! Here you go, Phil, and here's one for Lil, and this one's for ol' Chuckie! And here's one for my little princess."
Angelica: "Bottles are for babies, Grandpa. I'm not a baby!"
Lou: "Huh. I plumb forgot!" (To Tommy) "Fixed up something special for you, Scout!"

---

(Angelica finally gets Tommy's bottle, only to find it's empty)
Angelica: It's empty! Waaah!

Gallery

The title card.

"Whoa! Time out, Didi! I haven't had pork rinds in years!"

Didi screams after Tommy bumps his head on the table a second time

Didi kisses Stu

"Yes!"

"What's it for, anyway?"
"Yeah, what's it for?"

"Hi, Pop."

"Pork rinds!"

"Hey, Charles, great! You brought the big-screen remote!"

"Oooh! In surround-a-thon stereo!"

"I don't know, Stu. Maybe this football game isn't such a good idea."

"Wouldn't you rather watch the chess playoffs on the culture channel?"

"Whoa!"
"That's the cat's meow!"

"Best of all, each kid gets one!"

"Yes!"

"I'm Chick Hearn, coming to you live from the Loan Star State,"

"With my good friend, Hank Duff!"

"Come on, Houston!"
"Go get em', Dallas!"

"Actually, both teams have their strong points."

"Nice second effort there, Chick."

"Second who?"

"Three!"

"He's trapped in the backfield!"

"Boy, what's going on down there, Chick?"

"He came out of nowhere, Chick!"

"And believe me,"

Nagurksi made an all-pro move on this one, Chick. Let's take another look."

"Huh?"

"Uh-oh."

The entire living room is a mess thanks to the babies being left unsupervised

"What are the kids covered with?"

"And what are those horrible stains all over my living room?"

"I told you we should have watched the Chess Tournament!"

The end