Rugrats/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Innuendo: In the PS 1 Rugrats video game, this trope pops up during the Golf game stage:
  • Nightmare Fuel: See here!
    • In-universe example: the episode when the adults took down Chuckie's crib and replaced it with a bed. The first night Chuckie sleeps on the bed, a monster from under the bed keeps talking to him and telling him that he's going to eat him (not even Tommy heard the voice when he slept over the next night). When Chuckie first investigates, he's frightened, thinking he actually spotted a monster reaching at him, and Chuckie jumps right back into bed, frightened. But as it turns out, the monster was actually [Chuckie's dad] Chaz's sweater with one sleeve poking out, and the darkness concealed the cooler colors, making the sweater look threatening.
  • Base Breaker: Susie. Some adore her, some see her as the worst case of Positive Discrimination ever.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: "This World is Something New to Me" in the first movie.
  • Creator's Pet: Baby Dil. As soon as he was added, potty humor was cranked up.
    • What about Taffy? She was a babysitter introduced late in the series who everybody on the show loved, but almost everybody watching it hated. She mainly existed so that Amanda Bynes could have another Nickelodeon show to be on.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The seconds movie soundtrack is nothing to sneeze at.
  • Designated Villain: In one episode where both Drew and Charlotte tell Angelica they'll buy her a toy if she stays quiet for a half an hour. She genuinely tries to obey them but then the babies decide to exploit this to make a mess, enraging Angelica so much she finally snaps. She ends up getting blamed for the mess the babies made and doesn't get either toy.
  • Ear Worm: "Cynthia, she's a really cool dancer! Cynthia, get it to the groove now!"
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Of the babies themselves, Chuckie and Angelica are by far the most popular—in fact, Angelica was the only one of the Rugrats to make it into TV Guide's 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters countdown. Her father Drew is one as well in recent years, thanks to Barney Bunch videos.
    • Reptar has more fans on facebook then Rugrats itself does.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: When the series ended depends on who you ask. Before the first movie? After? Before the second? After? After the first series? And even the people who like All Grown Up! don't like to mention the third movie.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In the All Grown Up! pilot, the main plot centers on Stu losing his lucky Scorpio medallion. Didi tells him "[He's] not a Scorpio. [He's] a Libra." Yeah, so is every Scorpio born before the year 2011 in the world now.
    • But only if you follow the Eastern Zodiac. The Western Zodiac is still twelve signs.
    • The 1992 episode "The Big House" is about Tommy being put into a daycare similar to a prison and he then attempts to break the rest of the babies out. One of the babies is voiced by Pamela Segal, and the episode was written by Paul Germain. Flash foward to 1997, where the plot of the episode becomes almost the basis for Paul Germain and fellow writer Joe Ansolabehere's new Disney series, where Pamela Segal is one of the major characters.
    • In one episode, Stu gets a head injury that makes him think he's a baby, so he spends the entire episode wearing a diaper and answering to the name "Stuie". This was, of course, several years before another baby named Stewie became a pop culture icon.
  • Incest Yay Shipping: Some people Ship Chuckie and Kimi together. At least they are only step-brother and step-sister. Tommy and Angelica get shipped, but it's more rare.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Chuckie Finster has been paired with Angelica, Lil and Susie (and more) over the years. Though to be fair, in the original series Chuckie has had Ship Tease moments with all 3 of the aforementioned girls.
    • Tommy in All Grown Up! is also paired with just about every female character the show has.
  • Mary Sue: Susie, especially in Grown Up.
  • Memetic Mutation: Most recently, people making chocolate pudding at 4 in the morning because they've lost control of their lives. Some even think of it as a mid-life crisis.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: The Pickles Household's doorbell buzz.
  • Poison Oak Epileptic Trees: Pertaining to Tommy's maternal grandparents, Boris and Minka: They're holocaust survivors.
  • The Problem with Licensed Games: Rugrats: Time Travelers for the Game Boy Color.
    • Rugrats: Scavenger Hunt for the N64 could count as well, for being a Mario Party rip-off with none of the exciting stuff that Mario Party had and instead, had a unnecessary life system based on cookies, the ability to get cards that were pretty much pointless, and overall, got boring really quickly. See here for a Let's Play on the game by two guys that grew up with the series.
  • Purity Sue: Susie's mother Lucy takes the cake with this one. A successful doctor, she benefits from Positive Discrimination and Women Are Wiser as episodes show her to be an incredibly gifted artist and chef who has studied in France. All Grown Up! takes this even further and reveals she was a successful blues singer at age 18.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: There are those whom found Dil to be a lot more likable in All Grown Up! (in which even certain people whom did not like the show would agree to that). This is because while, in the original, he never really had a personality, in the sequel series, he became a weird, conspiracy-and-alien obsessed guy who just happens to like being an oddball.
  • The Scrappy: Kimi to some of the fanbase.
    • Dil also was not seen favorably by a lot of fans. Mostly because Dil was a baby that couldn't do anything, in a series where all the other infants walked around and could talk. Another character that failed to get much love from the fans was Taffy, the generously hyped up character introduced for multiple episodes and then vanishing.
  • Seasonal Rot: After the second movie and Kimi became a regular. Her presence did not ruin the show, however, it was the fact the Baby Talk was dumbed down. They dumbed down baby talk.
    • There are some fans who believe the show started to go bad after the 1997 revival, some after the first movie, some after the second movie, some after All Grown Up!, and the rest who either believe the show was sweet mana from above or jumped the shark from the beginning.
    • Of course, as Kimi's mother is Kira, it may have been Just As Planned.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: The series has been accused of this in later seasons.
    • Parodied in "At the Movies" with the sickeningly sweet Dummi Bears movie.

Grandpa Lou: Oh, this is stupid!

  • Toy Ship: Tommy/Kimi, Chuckie/Lil, Chuckie/Angelica, Tommy/Lil among others.
  • The Woobie: Chuckie certainly has his moments especially during the Mothers Day episode.
    • Try every other episode.
      • Also Angelica and Mr. Friend.
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