What made Rugrats so popular?

Anonus

By the mid '90s it had kind of slid into the slot held by The Ren & Stimpy Show as Nickelodeon's signature property, prompting Nickelodeon to revive it as a shadow of its former self.

Did anybody enjoy anything that came of the series after the 1991-94 run? As best as I can tell the only good thing that came of it was "Chuckie Chan."

Imipolex G

Tatterhood

people fuckin love babies

Princess Alice

I watched the revived episodes as a kid, but even then I felt they weren't as good as the original run...

Odradek

Anonus said:

By the mid '90s it had kind of slid into the slot held by The Ren & Stimpy Show as Nickelodeon's signature property, prompting Nickelodeon to revive it as a shadow of its former self.

Did anybody enjoy anything that came of the series after the 1991-94 run? As best as I can tell the only good thing that came of it was "Chuckie Chan."

There were a few good episodes post-movie iirc(the dust bunny one, the desert one, the one where they think the house is a plane) but by the end it was pretty lame.

Viani

it was family-safe. cheap to make episodes of.

the owner had lots of money. It was wholesome jewish entertainment.

Reptar toy sales.

Nostalgia from parents.

Anonus

well it was one of the only TV shows I know of with a Hanukkah episode (which Pepper Ann also kinda had)

Imipolex G

was it Jewish?

Anonus

Viani said:

it was family-safe. cheap to make episodes of.

the owner had lots of money. It was wholesome jewish entertainment.

Reptar toy sales.

Nostalgia from parents.

20 years ago, not now

Anonus

Imipolex G said:

was it Jewish?

Tommy Pickles (and later Dil) were Jewish by their mother

Odradek

Anonus said:

well it was one of the only TV shows I know of with a Hanukkah episode (which Pepper Ann also kinda had)

They also had a Passover episode

Anonus

That too

Imipolex G

oh

Sredni Vashtar

Odradek said:

Anonus said:

By the mid '90s it had kind of slid into the slot held by The Ren & Stimpy Show as Nickelodeon's signature property, prompting Nickelodeon to revive it as a shadow of its former self.

Did anybody enjoy anything that came of the series after the 1991-94 run? As best as I can tell the only good thing that came of it was "Chuckie Chan."

There were a few good episodes post-movie iirc(the dust bunny one, the desert one, the one where they think the house is a plane) but by the end it was pretty lame.

Yeah.

Tre

To try to answer the question posed by the thread title: the universal appeal of the initial premise.

Like, whether you're a kid or an adult you probably have wondered at some point, "hm, what's my baby brother/tiny son thinking? he can't speak yet but there's gotta be something going on in that brain, huh?"

it's a concept that just makes sense, and the fact that it came during the infancy (pun!) of the network's original animation push meant that they were going to want to try to go for a bigger audience than the older kid and weird stoner niche that liked Ren and Stimpy

Anonus

don't forget the "Ed Benedict is God" niche

Bee

I never really got the appeal of the show myself (and I basically wanted to just throw Angelica across the room every time she was on screen good GOD she was an asshole).  Maybe because it dipped too often into gross-out humor and I already hated Nickelodeon for that.

Anonus

I don't know if it did that so much until the 1996-2004 run

Sredni Vashtar

It also nailed the kind of weird leaps of imagination you have as a child early on, and wasn't afraid to get really weird and frightening when it felt emotionally appropriate.

Anonus said:

don't forget the "Ed Benedict is God" niche

?????

Anonus

You know how John K worships him and how he modeled Stimpy on his designs

Anonus

Maybe I used the wrong person as an example but R&S did cater to that sort of niche

Sredni Vashtar

I don't actually know who he is and I'm not sure most people who watched Ren & Stimpy did either.

Anonus

Sredni Vashtar said:

I don't actually know who he is and I'm not sure most people who watched Ren & Stimpy did either.

A character designer who worked at M-G-M and Hanna-Barbera. He redesigned Droopy, and designed most of H-B's signature characters.

Sredni Vashtar

Oh. I have heard of him.

I still seriously doubt it. Most people don't watch things solely for the designs. The rest of the show needs to click with them. Plus, how many people would have known this outside of a tiny number of hardcore animation enthusiasts before the Internet got big?

Anonus

I guess I just assume us cartoon geeks are a bigger audience than we are sometimes

glennmagusharvey

I wasn't a Rugrats fan.  I didn't hate it but I just generally lacked interest.  I knew it as a Nickelodeon cartoon that was a thing when I was a sort of older-ish child but aside from knowing that I mostly ignored it.

Only way it's really notable in my head is that virt wrote the soundtrack for Rugrats: I Gotta Go Party, a GBA game.