Rugrats: Everything You Didn't Know

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings you the secret history and little known fascinating facts about your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more. We're two guys with too much free time on our hands. My name is Jordan run Talk and I'm Alex Hegel And like a lot of people in our age group, Jordan's I think one of the big foundational influences on our lives and sensibilities was the amazing stretch of animation from the late eighties and early nineties Nicktoons. Yeah, today we're gonna be talking about one of those crown jewels in that era, which is Rugrats. Now, I gotta say I was more of a Doug guy. We'll get into that. We'll talk more about the Beatles and Stones of nineties animated cartoons. Now, where does Rend and Snippy fit into this analogy? Is Captain Beefheart. Everyone knows this, don't don't come on. Doug, rug Rats and Ren and Snippy all premiered on the same day, August eleven. They turned thirty years old last year, which means that Tommy Pickles would now be sixty five yeah, yeah, it is truly boggling. I mean, there was a real heyday and I think South Park and Family Guy kind of came in and detonated a lot of that style of humor and also production. I mean, once you started doing this stuff computer like, the hand drawn look of this kind of went away. So in a way, a lot of these wound up being you know, the era that we're talking about is kind of a swan song for the form in general. Yeah, I mean it definitely could tell some of the early episodes of really period pieces in a funny way. Anyway, not to over intellectualized Rugrats, which we will continue to do over the next half hour, but rest assured that's not all we'll do. We'll also talk about how the character of Chucky was inspired by a new wave rock legend, how the voice of Tommy Pickles once recorded her voice overs in between contractions before giving birth, and also how the show's creators got their start on the biggest animation series in history before splitting amid a flurry of lawsuits. Without further ado, here is everything you never knew about rug Rats. So Rugrats actually has its genesis and the granddaddy of animated hits from this era, which is of course the Simpsons. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. Rug Rats was the brandchild of the class Key Chupo animation studio. You may remember that from at the end of the every episode they would have some like weird c and say type device say that as part of the credits. I never knew what it was. It looked like a bunch of jumbles. Yeah, it looked like some kind of look like something from the ring. It was one person for the longest time, Yeah, totally, but it was the name of a husband and wife team, Arlene class Key and Gabor Chupo. Yes, Hungarian gentleman. Uh. They actually have a very extensive back history in their animation studio. They did the titles for twenty one Jump Street, Any Murphy's Raw Quantum Leap in living color, and they went on to do the Osborne that is a ride. But the biggest thing they were involved with, as you said, were The Simpsons. In the late eighties, the animation studio was hired by James L. Brooks to work on the Tracy Allman Show, overseeing little sketches in her show that later became The Simpsons, and one of class Key Chopo's animators a gentleman by the name of Gregory Pellous Georgie. You do all the When I was in high school, it took eight years of French. My friend teacher would make me at the end of class for if there was time read for her amusement, because my pronunciation was so bad. So I mean just the general series wide blanket apology for all these names. I butcher. But anyway, he was the man responsible for all the Simpsons characters having yellow skin, and for Marge Simpson having blue hair, and also the character of Dr Nick You know hi everybody. Um. He was apparently based on Choopo, at least his uh facially in the way he looks. If you google him you see him side by side, they do look very similar, although the the voice actor for the character, Hank Gazaria, said he was actually doing a bad imitation of Ricky Ricardo. But um. Class Ki Tupo left The Simpsons during the third season in due to disagreements with Gracie Films, the production company that oversaw The Simpsons, which is fine because they had their hands full with the rug Rats. Yeah, it's interesting, and we'll get into this a little later. But um, rob Rats. Despite being this loved and going on to becoming a really successful property, it actually was not a super big hit for its early stage, to the point where not only were the class Key Tupo team working on it concurrently with The Simpsons, so they were literally bouncing back and forth. But we'll talk about this later. It did not pay enough for some of the voice actors to live on So backtracking a little bit, the inspiration for the show was while Arlene and Gabble were working on The Simpsons, class Key was preg in and she just had this very simple idea of if babies could speak, what would they say? You know, like why do they walk around and stick their hands into the toilet and so on and so forth. This idea was explored further in the in the nineties cinematic classic Baby Geniuses. By the way, um an unheralded influence on all that came after it. Uh So they took it to Nickelodeon, and um, you know Nickelodeon at this point is they're an up start. You know they are, really, especially with stuff like imagine Ren and Stimpy being produced at the same time as Rugrats, like as scatological and insane, truly insane, is rend and stimpy is alongside this very family friendly thing. But that's just an indication of all the stuff that Nickelodeon was throwing at the wall trying to see if it would stick. So to that end, class Key's pitch was that, you know, cartoons have devolved into toy advertisements, which is true because one of the paril another interesting parallel in this animation space at the time is you started seeing all of these cartoons based on really violent nineties properties that were invented as an excuse to sell toys, like you have a Rambo robo cop they turned aliens into a toy line. Um, there was a Rambo cartoon. Yeah, um swamp thing which was coming off of like R rated films had a cartoon show, which again created to sell toys. The granddaddy of that is of course Transformers, which was like reverse engineered to sell toys. So anyway, all of which is to say they wanted a creator driven more a less commercial approach to children's shows. Nickelodeon's only note to them was no realistic drawings. Because chupos Co creator Peter Chung, the two of them deliberately one of the design of the babies to be strange instead of cute, which is such a interesting note and it definitely shows up in the finished product, you know, compared to something like The Simpsons. Why are there's a very rigorous style guide in place for how animators have to approach drawing characters. Every baby looks different, their heads are different sizes. Yeah, it's very very uh, you can see the finger prints on it. And Peter Chung is another big nineties animator, you know, he went on to create a on Flux, which is a huge animation property in the nineties as well. And originally they had wanted a different title for the show. Yeah, they we're gonna call it one something. After that, there was a very big show at the time called thirty something, and it was a playoff of that was just pretty hilarious. But they ended up going with the term rug rats, which was a Navy term that the folks in the Navy used for for little kids and because they would, you know, crawl around on the rug like rats. And there I guess there were a couple of people the network that were concerned that people would think the show would be about rats, but they ended up Going Along with It and rug Rats one the day. So the character inspiration for the the now iconic cast um Tommy Pickles is actually the ostensibly main character is one of the more debated points. UM. Paul Germaine, who is another co creator on the show, and Classky both Arlene Claskey both claimed to have created Tommy after their own real life sons, Um, but they both do acknowledge that it was named after Paul Germaine's son, Tommy, who was a year old when this was was being created. Um, Tommy pickles first name was actually Ali uh and pick Initially what that was I mean, before they went with Tommy was supposed to be Ali. Yeah, that would have changed the whole It would have been like it would have been like Dennis the Menace or something. It feels so old school with Ali. Yeah, Pickles just came out of nowhere. That's not an Easter egg. It's not a reference for anything. Um. And weirdly enough, one of the show's writers, Steve Vitson, said his that Tommy's outgoing, adventurous, exploratory personality was partially modeled after John Wayne. Are you Here's like a baby's gotta do? What baby has gotta do it. Yeah, I wonder if there's an episode where he calls anyone Pilgrim. It would be really bizarre. So. Um, we haven't talked about Mark Mother's Bob from Devo yet, who obviously does one of the all time great animation theme songs, one of the all time great theme songs period, really got the gig for no other reason than they were fans of Devote. But Chucky Finster is um partially based on Mother's Bogs appearance and also Chucky from Child's Play. I can see that, which is a truly bizarre and unsettling juxtaposition. Now I'm just imagining Chucky from Child's Play during the Devo version of whipp It or do you doing the Devot during the Divo version of Satisfaction? I guess they should say anyway, that's a weird image. Rolling right along Angelica. Angelica is a big hot button issue which we will cover later. Um. Paul Germain based on based Angelica on a bully from his own childhood, apparently exercising some kind of Devon's here. Um, she is physically based on the daughter of one of the writers, which is kind of weird, Like why would you do that to someone's child anyway? But this is an interesting fact. Angelica is the obvious villain of the show, but before she was cast in that role by Jermaine Chucky was going to be the show's bully, which very weird impossible to imagine. And lastly, one of the other big um iconic characters from the show is Cynthia, which is the beat to ship do all that Angelica carries everywhere, which is no surprise for anyone who's had been around kids or whatever. Like you carry around things that are destroyed as little totems for you and if you try to clean them there will be held up. Yes, exactly, And that was created by Craig Bartlett, also another Simpsons guy, um the brother in law of Matt Granning apparently and went on to create Hey Arnold and weirdly enough, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. I'm not sure what the impetus for the this was, but he was asked about Rugrats and he said his favorite character was Cynthia. Yeah, really want another context for for why. I guess there was a mandate that all journalists had to ask Steven Tyler about nineties animated children's TV shows. It's like the Red beforehand. Just hey, we weren't done just asking about Ruggrad put in the Rugrat square. So while we're talking about Steven Tyler, let's get into the cast of rock Rats. So we got the characters in place. Now we have the cast. Tommy was voiced by E. G. Daily. You may remember her as Dottie pee Wee, Herman's girlfriend in Peewee's Big Adventure and briefly a girlfriend of Brad Pitt. I did not know that. There's there's some truly astounding, like getty photos of them at like film premiers and stuff. Really adorable couple. Wow. I know she was married to um to Rick Solomon, who is the guy I think he was with Pama Anderson for a while, but I know he's the guy that leaked the Paris Paris, Yes, the Paris Hilton sex tape. So and went on to become a professional poker player. That's he won like millions, right so real real charmer right there. But but back to eg Daily, now, she she didn't doo. I don't think she did really any vocal work before before being encouraged to audition for Rugrats, and she almost didn't attend because she was having carpet fitted in her apartment that day and didn't want to leave the worker's unsupervised. But her agent was like, no, you should probably okay for the carpet. Yeah, exactly my favorite EG Daily Stories. Apparently she she was a hard worker. She was such a hard worker that she recorded her voice over for Tommy while she was having contractions and about to give birth. True dedication. I wish I knew which episode it was. Yeah, they don't say that, but she is apparently like one of her master vocal takes for that character has her like taking like it's cut up because in between their contractions and I guess she like even asked the engineer to like time it too, so she knew when it was Like again a Matt talk about controlling your instrument. So e g. Daily Total Boss. Classic voice of a classic cartoon character, Chaz Finster, Chucky's dad and Drew Pickles are voiced by the same guy, Grandpa Boris and Grandpa Boris, You're absolutely right. Their voiced by Michael Bell, who is um actor Steve Guttenberg's godfather and apparently Steve Guttenberg's inspiration for getting into acting. So we owe Michael Bell so much, very much to Michael Bell. Chucky was voiced by Christine Kavanaugh, a a voice over legend she tragically died in on My Birthday December. She voiced Chucky as well as Babe the Pig in the first Babe movie and Dexter in Dexter's Laboratory as a true triple crown. Oh it was incredible. And when she retired from acting in two thousand two, for the later episodes of Rugrats, I didn't know this, they got Nancy Cartwright, who was famous for voicing Bart Simpson. She took over Chucky and this brings us to and Jellica one of the great bullies in entertainment history. Really just cartoon. Oh yeah. She was voiced by Cheryl Chase. Cheryl Chase was actually a secretary for Renn and Stimpy creator John Ka when she was discovered, and she was only working on Rugrats four hours a week on Friday. She called it her waitress job because it didn't pay enough for her to live on and uh and she's apparently you know, despite her character really really really sweet and real life to the point where she was having a problem playing someone so mean and one of the writers had to sell it to her as Angelica was the j R. Ewing of the show. JR. Ewing was the the the villain on the TV show Dallas in the eighties Lightning Round. For the rest of these, Yeah, we got Cat Susy I believe as I say her name as phil and Lill. She was Lola Bunny in Space jam Uh. David Doyle was Grandpa Lou. David Doyle was also Bosley on Charlie's Angels, which I not realize. Uh. Tress McNeil was Charlotte Pickles, Angelica's mom. She did Babs Bunny on Tiny Tuns. Another one Principal Skinner's mother Agnes on The Simpsons, another one Dot Warner on The Animaniacs, another one Arnold's grandmother on Hey Arnold, and the voice of Mom on Futurama. My God, What a run. And finally the last one. I really want to get this in here. I had no idea. Debbie Reynolds played Lulu Pickles, who was Grandpa Lose uh second wife. She joined as a cast member in two thousand. I had no idea that, no clue. So before we move on, Heigel, I believe you have a very special mini presentation for us. I'm gonna go for this, Um, you go for it. Other than the Simpsons, there's another bizarre connective thread to uh Rugrats voice actors, which is there were two movies in the nineteen eighties, during the nineteen eight slasher rubber monster Horriboom called Chud, which is an acronym for cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers. And then there was a sequel to that film called Chudd two Budd the Chud Um and he's adjusting his glasses by the way, folks, you can't see this right now, but the jud and so, aside from featuring Home Alone actors uh John Heard and Daniel Stern and John Goodman in early Roles Um the Chudd films, the Chudd cinematic universe, if you will, features three rug Rats actors, So not only Michael Bell, but Sam McMurray and Jack Riley who voiced Stu Pickles. So in theory, rug Rats and Chud are in the same cinematic universe. Thank you, that was excellent, But those are not the only names that we have. The only prestigious names that we have on the rug Rats casting roster. Yeah, so we have, um, Kim ConTroll came in and did Mel Finster, who is Chucky's voice mother. We're gonna get into the The Chucky Mother Just Day episode which Wolf but um, yeah, so that's Kim Control. Uh. And then we have everybody's favorite Batman, the only Batman, Adam West voice um Captain Blasto, which is one of their great little intellectual property rips. We're going to get into Reptar later, but yeah, Captain Blasto, um is it isn't early just he's like a Captain Planet figure. And you know, they got Adam, they got Batman to come into it. And then, in a much less subtle rip, they brought an Alex Trebec to host um super Stumpers, a fictitious game show where he plays a character named Alan Quebec. He. I mean, he was probably in his contract. We need to have one Canada reference in there somewhere. I feel like every episode of Jeopardy featured like some one Canada question and nobody would get it right and he would look with utter contempting look at them all The answer is Prince Edward Island. Uh. And then, speaking of game show stuff, pat Say Jack real Fortune legend Uh, one of only two celebrities to appear in the original rug Rats as himself. The other football commentator Chick Fern, football commentator Chick Hern Table for one, the table for one, chick Heer, and we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more too much information in just a moment. Let's get into the where it all. Let's get into ground zero for rug Grats. Let's talk about the pilot. There is an unaired pilot for rug Rats entitled Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing, and it consisted of Tommy trying to figure out what a toilet was. And it's interesting because this episode only featured Tommy, Phil and Lill. Chucky and Angelica weren't created until later. Um. They created Chucky as a foil for Tommy, basically Tommy's just in Trepherd explorer. And they made Chucky, as you know, the scaredy cat. And Angelica is obviously the villain because every show needs a villain. As you said earlier, she was co creator Paul Germaine's idea which would sow the seeds of descent in the Ruggrats creative team and lead to years of animosity and legal wrangling. Just a little foreshadowing there, but the show debut on August, and this is more or less more or less the official birthday of Nicktoons, at premiered in a block alongside the two other inaugural nicktoons, doug and Ren and Stimpy. Technically, Ruggrats was the second nicktoon, doug Ard first and uh Rend and Stippy. After the episodes for the series, I didn't realize this took a year to complete before they were even delivered to Nickelodeon for final approval. So the work that went into these is really pretty astonishing. Yeah, especially when you can trast to with I don't want to keep bringing him south Park, but when you think of south Park, takes a week to write an animate it's mind boggling. Um, but not exactly an instant hit. Um. You alluded to that earlier. It's crazy. So Rugrats, as as Jordan's just said, Air's in August, they stopped production in after six episodes across three seasons. The final episode of this initial stretch went was aired in May, so they didn't even really get three full years out of this first stretch um from six. The only new episodes that went to air were a Rugrats Passover and a rug Rats Honeko, which we'll get into in a second. So what happens is the show goes into hiatus, essentially protracted hiatus, and they start syndicating the initial run of the episodes, and that's really when it's popularity explodes. You know, they were running it all the time on all the time on Nickelodeon, and Nick re On written Nick Rewind, and essentially it explodes in that time period twenty six million viewers per week um Nickelodeon's first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, and to this day the only Nick Tune with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Now, while we're talking about those Hankka and Passover episodes, they have actually sort of descended into ascended, I should say, into animation legend as being these like really groundbreaking episodes for showing Jewish heritage on television, really breaking it into mainstream animation audiences. I think I would be it would be hard pressed to think of unless we're talking about like the Krusty like Rabbi episodes of the Simpsons I think this was all before this um anyway, mostly got a really positive reception from critics fans. The Passover episode that aired in April became the highest rated show in Nickelodeon's history. But there were complaints from the Anti Defamation League and a few other people that Grandpa Boris and Grandpa Minca to send a little bit into stereotypes. This is despite the fact that a large proportion of the people who worked on the show were Jewish, and we're basing the writing and depiction of the characters on their own relatives. And this Anti Defamation League thing isn't about the actual animated show. This is something that gets repeated in listic goals and so forth on online coverage of the show. But this is actually based on a comic strip that was based on the show. So this comic strip runs in The Washington Post and Grandpa Boris recites a Jewish morning prayer in a synagogue, and the Anti Defamation League says, well, his design, the character design is a little anti Semitic, and that the Kaddish, the prayer of mourning shouldn't be in a comic strip, period, And everyone involved apologized. The Washington Most editor apologized, UM, and that was kind of the end of it. But that wasn't the only controversy that rug Rats dont was doing this time. UM. In two thousand two, Class be Chupa were sued by Toho, the owners of Godzilla, over the design of Reptar, which there is absolutely no way they couldn't have seen that coming. It's like the Captain Blastow thing, like, come on, it's obviously Godzilla. Well yeah, but I mean, I don't know a large specific type of animal. It's like, how how much you can't can you copyright? Just like a very big walking lizard. I guess the answer is yes, did they sure did. By the way, do you know who voiced Reptar in the Rugrats movie? I sure don't. Buster rhymes ugats movies. Buster, I don't really know what he said, what what like he actually did to voice it. Never much about that. But it's interesting because this lawsuit actually happens in two thousand two, so this is like a full ten years after it appears. And one of this sort of armchair analysis, which we're doing right now, you're in a literal armchair. UM. One of the ideas is that Tohoe finally figured out how much money they were making off of all this of the right because they started making repped our toys, then repped our bars, and repped our cereal and like not yeah, not even just toys food. Yeah, And so probably this trickled over into Japan and Toho went wait a second. But that is hardly the only uh, behind the scenes drama that befell Rugrats. Yes, Rugrats had a much bigger problem than the A d L And Godzilla. There was a growing conflict between Arlene Classky and Paul Jermaine over the direction of the show. These were co creators, and it was basically personified the Angelica, the character that Paul had created that class Key hated. She was vocal about how mean and terrible she thought Angelica was, and as the show developed, Germaine you know, wanted to explore emotions and encouraged more adult oriented rug Rats scripts, like there was one that explained the source of Angelica's bratt nous was because of you know, her really self absorbed parents. Her mom's the CEO, it's always on the phone, and her dad is just kind of like real real push over with spoils here. Um so her her meanness is sort of exposed for what it is, which is neediness. Uh, and Angelica becomes a much more complex character. Class Key really just one of the it to be sort of a more whimsical show, more fantastical show, one of the kids to be kids. And she thought that these episodes that Jermaine was overseeing were too dark and the babies were acting to adult, which I don't want to I don't want to come for her or anything, because she created one of the most beloved properties of all time. But it's funny in retrospect because some of these episodes that you could conceivably call to adult for a child show are some of the most beloved ones. Like we talked, we've made oblique reference to the Chucky Mother's Day episode. Chucky's dad, Chas Finster is uh, which I know, Chuckie's dad, Chad Finster, he's a he's a widower, and you know, for a children's show where all of these parents are constant presences in their children's lives, like they do an entire Mother's Day episode about how God, I'm getting choked up here about how you know Chucky's died, and that's that is dark stuff. For a mainstream show, And there was one where Angelica was told that she was going to have a sibling, and she doesn't react well to it, as a lot of little kids do when they're told that. You know, they were an only child and now they're told that they've got a sibling on the way. And I mean dark for two reasons. One, I mean that that's that's a heavy thing to tackle for a kid's show anyway. And then the actual way they do it was where this nightmarish baby comes in that yeah, and I think tries to eat her. I believe, Yeah, it's it's it's pretty bad. So those shows where more more came from Paul Germaine, and uh, class Key really was not a fan of those, And unfortunately Gabor Chupo, who was class Key's husband, was sort of stuck in the middle and mediated between class Key and Germaine for this for this episodes obligatory spinal tap reference, she was he was the lukewarm water, yes exactly Unfortunately for for for their Marridge he often sided with Jermaine because he liked his writing style and it's probably uh not a coincidence that they divorced in the writing staff also was more on Germaine's side too, and they they took to basically openly mocking Arlen class Key by creating this character Dr Lipshits and fans of Rocks remember Dr Lipshitz was sort of like the the the Doctor Spock like child rearing expert who who d D Pickles worships and he's kind of a quack. He's like, you know, nobody knows more about children raising kids than then Dr Lipshits, And that was supposedly seen as like a you know, a shot at class Key who like nobody knows more about kids in r Lean, like the kids should do this, kids should do that, And so that was, um, it's funny now when you see that character, I mean they were, they're really mismaking fun of her. So when the show went into syndication, after the initial order of sixty five episodes was was complete, Jermaine and most of the writing staff left the series and they defected to uh to Disney, where they created recess for ABC's One Saturday Morning. And we could get into this later on, but obviously when One Saturday Morning launches, um, you know, Disney essentially poached Doug That's right, relaunches that becomes the flagship over there. So really the Board of Children's Animation in the nineties pretty cutthroat place. Oh yeah, So Jermaine left and its evolved into all sorts of legal acrimony. They were prevented from talking about their Rugrats exit by a gag order as part of their settlement from Classy Chopo and the Kelodeons. We should freedom of information request that see if we can find out what what the what? Like the depositions. Oh my god, can you imagine just with the chupo during the doctor Nick voice, like my wife, she was not happy. Sorry, that's awful. Cut that. So yeah, the series kind of went, in my opinion, downhill after Jermaine left. The tone and look of the series changes dramatically, and in my opinions, for the worst. Like the scripts toned out on the darker elements and kind of played up the more fantastical stuff, and they broke out of the house more. They went into like in space and all these other areas. I don't know something about. I like the original episodes because it was so self contained and so about how the ordinary every day of the home to a child looks insane and crazy. And it's like you said about the look of the animation, it just looks more care worn and more individual. And I think, like you said, some of this comes into they have more money. Now, there's more eyes on it. When Nickelodeon brought it back, I mean, this was it was one of the biggest shows in cable. So when they when they renewed it in uh I think it was six is when they started, they renewed it for new episodes. Yeah, they obviously had a lot more money to hire a better, you know, better colorist firm. I think what do they call that when they are not an animator, but the people who actually do the fine the kind of finish it up grunts. We'll go with grunts, sorry animators. And having said all that, we'll be right back with more too much information right after this. But then so obviously we have to talk about the other thing that came out of the show's enormous popularity and the relaunch, which is the movie that is right. Rugrats was the first Nicktoon to get its own film, the Rugrats Movie and Night It became the first non Disney animated film to gross a hundred million dollars domestically and no less a film titan than Steven Spielberg, director of Hook, which we will talk about shortly, Uh called Rugrats one of the greatest animated franchises of all time, declaring it a sort of TV Peanuts of our time. What a pool quote. But of course Nickelodeon never wanted to let sleeping dogs lie and not make money, decided to build on the success of this movie movie with a couple of possibly advised moves. Yeah. The first spinoff was All Grown Up, which initially started as a TV special in two thousand one called rug Rats All Growed Up. And it was what was there was a backdoor pilot where they make these TV specials that they air basically a gauge interest and if there's a big response, and they take that as a pilot and build a whole series around it. Now, All Growed Up was a tenth anniversary special which showed the rug Rats babies as tweens, and it was wildly popular. I think it was the most viewed Nickelodeon episode ever at that point. So of course the show immediately went to series. There were two other spinoffs that that didn't really make it one rejected pilot followed Susie Susie Carmichael and her family was called Meet the car Michaels, and it would follow Susie's family as they moved to Atlanta and help her grandmother run the family restaurant. It's like when they made the Cheers spin off the Tortelis or Frasier. Well, sure Frasier is a successful one, but they was. I don't remember the Tartell. They tried, no one does. They tried to um spin off Carla Tortelli's ex husband, Nick, who's played by Dan Hedeia character actor. Amazing, amazing, amazing, um and uh, it was just drowned under a wave of of Italian American stereotype complaints. So it was not long for this world. So so that was one that I think only made the pilot. There was another called Preschool Days, which would focus on Angelica and Susie at school. A couple episodes were made and they were released as like a DVD special feature, and they're done in this really bizarre computer animated style that really it's kind of off putting. I mean, this would have been in the in the era of like Beast Wars and reboot, like when just when like computer animation was kind of starting to come into its own, and some executive presumably it was like, hey, we should get us some of that, because I don't think Nickelodeon had many computer general animated style in that property. But you remember like Beast Wars, like Jerky and Bad that was reboot. They were both done by the same studio. I don't have a segway for any of that. Um. So, as with a lot of things that get mismanaged or middle managed into hell. Um, all of this sort of meddling and trying to build on the success of the of the of the property sort of foreshadow the show's decline. UM. The original series ended up wrapping up in two thousand four, but until SpongeBob SquarePants supplanted it, it was the longest running Nicktoons ever, um thirteen years. Right. Yeah, you mentioned earlier that Tommy would be thirty one in August, which means Sue would be sixty four this year. I think he was born in d d is about a year younger, so about the same age, and Grandpa Lou would be dead. He would have gone to the Great Emation Studio. In this guy there is a sort of happy ending to all us. So there was a new reboot for Regrets that premiered earlier, and the series actually picked up where the original Paul Germaine series left off, with only the original characters. So Tommy's little brother deal wasn't there, and we didn't talk about dal that's right. Yeah, it's probably for the best. Yeah, no one, Yeah, he's dead to us. Um And actually Paul Germaine came back, so it's the original uh creative trio of Class B two Boe Germain uh. And they're all almost completely except for Christine Kavanaugh voiced by their original voices. So it's a fairly happy ending there. But we can't leave well enough alone and leave off on a happy ending, so probably go. I want to ask you about the most wild um internet theory. Yeah, we're about the rug rats. Please take us there. This isn't a one size fits all segment, but we are hoping to wear people who don't want to have their childhood completely shattered before their eyes. You can just turn off now, thanks for listening. Thanks have a good one. Um. So, this is not a one size fits all bit, but we are hoping to when there are fan theories about certain properties that we're discussing. We're hoping to spotlight them, and it just happens that this one is a real doozy. Um. There's a popular fan theory circulating on the internet that essentially posits Angelica as the only rug rat who is real. Every other character in the show are figments of her imagination because she is a neglected child and has created this ensemble cast of characters to help make her through her lonely, lonely days without getting into the truly truly grotesque, grotesque, dark grim I mean, this is this is like, uh, this is like if Harmony Corene had scripted grog Rats. It gets into some dark, dark stuff. So if you're interested in that, just google it, but maybe don't. And so this is funny too because it's one of the rare fan theories that has been addressed by the creator. Arlene Klasky was asked about this at a convention and she shot it down rightfully, so because as we said, it is dark slightly more whimsical. Um, there is an interesting theory that posits Tommy Pickles is a timelord like this one. Yeah, this one's a little more fun. You know, the babies go to outer space's part of a dream sequence, Yeah, part of it. They don't actually go to outer space. Um, but I don't think that the creators. Did they nod to this with the Easter Egg? Yeah? They I mean there's Grandpa Lose in the background and he appears as a what do they call day like daylight? Yes, I'm gonna say, I mean that's the spinoff that they should have done tommy time. Yeah, I would like that in a heartbeat. Yeah, now can we get this. We'll send us to Nickelodeon and try to try to send us the viacom or of her own regrets now and try to get that mad Um. I think that's all I got on on Rugrats. Yeah, I mean it's it is truly one of the going back and reading about this, I was really shocked that, like there was so much behind the scenes stuff because it is really one of the most pure things that exists. I do, I surely do. Um. Yeah, So reading about this, I was really shocked by some of the behind the scenes stuff because the finished product is so pure and so it is not problematic at all, and our modern lens, it's aged so wonderfully and it it really remains something that is, you know, very distinct and very wonderful, even as it's all grown up. Well you know how I goal we're all grown up too. No no pan to snow globe exactly. It was all a dream. Well, everyone, thank you so much for listening as we unpacked the Well I'm Crazy History as a different Thekelodeon show The Well I'm Crazy History of rug Rats. We'll catch you next time. We'll see you. Too Much Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Heigel, with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Bunk Orchestra. 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