Rugrats
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Rugrats All Grown Up! Rugrats Pre-School Daze |
| Abbreviation(s): | |
| Creator: | Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó and Paul Germain |
| Date(s): | August 11, 1991 – August 1, 2004 (R) April 12, 2003 – August 17, 2008 (AGU) July 25 – July 28, 2005 (RPSD) |
| Medium: | animated TV series, animated films |
| Country of Origin: | United States |
| External Links: | Wikipedia, IMDB |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Rugrats is an Nickelodeon animated television series. The show focuses on a group of toddlers, most prominently Tommy, Chuckie, twins Phil and Lil, and Angelica, and their day-to-day lives, usually involving common life experiences that become adventures in the babies' imaginations. Adults in the series are almost always unaware of what the children are up to.
After the end of the series television run, two direct-to-DVD movies were released under the name Rugrats: Tales from the Crib. The first episode, Snow White, was released on September 5, 2005.[1] The second, Three Jacks and a Beanstalk, was released on September 5, 2006.[2] These episodes should not be confused with a VHS collection of Rugrats episodes, also named Tales from the Crib, released in 1993 and re-released in 1996 with expanded contents.[3]
Two sequels, All Grown Up! and Rugrats Pre-School Daze, were released. All Grown Up! had the same characters but they were aged up to teens. Rugrats Pre-School Daze focused on Angelica and her friend Susie as preschool students and only lasted four episodes making it the shortest-lived Nickelodeon show.
Fandom
The Rugrats online fandom took off in the mid to late 1990s as the Internet and personal computing became more commonplace. Nickelodeon launched its official website in October 1995, and various fansites existed alongside it. A fandom still exists to this day for nostalgic adults.
Nick.com
Nickelodeon’s website featured content such as games and online forums. Games were released mostly to promote the franchise’s three movies (The Rugrats Movie, Rugrats in Paris, and Rugrats Go Wild) as well as events like the All Growed Up special.
Online forums, or message boards, hosted by Nick.com could be accessed by registered users. Anyone under the age of 18 was eligible to register and participate in discussions in the forums, which hosted Boards for each of Nick’s children’s properties. Trivia quizzes were a popular form of post on the Rugrats message board.
Fansites
Alongside Nick.com existed multiple unofficial fansites, some of which accepted fanworks. The Unofficial Rugrat Online was a popular fansite that contained a wealth of content, including over 100 fanfics at the time of its last update. It also accepted fanart.
Unofficial Rugrat Online had a unique approach to the fanfiction it hosted. The site did not require registration, and fanworks were emailed directly to the owner of the site, along with the name under which the author wished them to be published. The owner of the site exercised the power to reject submissions and often edited them before publication. It was common practice to send incomplete stories, which would be marked with an asterisk indicating that anyone could submit a continuation of the story. The site also did not allow for commenting or interaction beyond the collaborative work of finishing a fic.
Tenth Anniversary
In 2001, Rugrats celebrated its 10th year on air, making it the longest-running Nicktoon at the time. (The title currently belongs to SpongeBob SquarePants.) In honor of the occasion, Nickelodeon polled fans on their top ten favorite Rugrats episodes. The winners were released in the two-volume VHS set Decade in Diapers.
The Rugrats All Growed Up special, which served as a pilot episode for the All Grown Up! series, was also released for the anniversary. It depicted the characters 10 years older than in the original show. Prior to the release of this special, Nick.com introduced digital Rugrats trading cards. These could be purchased with nickpoints, which users could earn by completing daily tasks or by visiting a page where they had been “hidden.” Nick also established a forum where users could trade or sell (for nickpoints) cards they had acquired. Each trading card featured information about a different character, as well as a picture that would animate and make a sound when clicked. Special gold cards featured All Growed Up! characters.
Memetic Mutation
Recently, Rugrats has gained a huge meme following thanks to the quirky characters and funny moments. The show's most popular and iconic meme involves Stu making chocolate pudding at 4am thanks to Angelica's demands, and when questioned by Didi he simply says he's lost control of his life. This meme resonates with a lot of adults and college students, and is treated as a metaphor for a midlife crisis among the former group.
Other memes include an image macro of Tommy squinting and wearing a cowboy hat.
Shipping
Despite the primary cast being babies, certain episodes hint at puppy love crushes, with Chuckie even having a little girlfriend in one episode and Angelica having a brief mini-romance with a neighborhood boy. The "All Grown Up" spinoff got to play more with these themes, with the characters now being pre-teens and old enough to be exploring such feelings.
Popular Ships
- Chuckie Finster/Angelica Pickles
- Lil DeVille/Tommy Pickles
- Lil DeVille/Chuckie Finster
- Chuckie Finster/Susie Carmichael
- Tommy Pickles/Chuckie Finster
- Tommy Pickles/Kimi Finster
Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Archives & Fannish Links
- Rugrats/All Grown Up works at FFN
- Rugrats and All Grown Up! works at AO3
- The Unofficial Rugrats Online
- Rugrats fic recs at TVTropes
- Tumblr rugrats and all grown up!