History YMMV / Rugrats

* SacredCow: While the show's following is not as active as other [=NickToons=] fanbases, you'd be hard-pressed finding a person who doesn't like the show.

* SacredCow: While the show's following is not as active as other NickToons fanbases, you'd be hard-pressed finding a person who doesn't like the show.

** Angelica is the biggest case of this. When the show was still airing on T.V, [[EnsembleDarkhorse Angelica was actually considered one of the]] ''[[EnsembleDarkhorse best]]'' [[EnsembleDarkhorse characters in the series by most fans and critics]]. Not only was she was one of the reasons the show was so popular, she was the show's only character to make it into TV Guide's ''50 Greatest Cartoon Characters'' countdown. However, by the late 2000s, public opinion turned against her for being too mean to the babies and a sociopath of sorts [[note]](But to be fair, this was at the point of where ''Rugrats'' had long faded into obscurity to the point of where admitting that you enjoyed the show, it was considered laughable. When the show started having a resurgence in popularity in 2011, so did Angelica's character to the point of where people not only started having a more favorable opinion of her like they did in the '90s and early 2000s, but she has a large part of the show's fanbase that loves her to where they consider her the real star of the show and has been RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap)[[/note]] Another interesting fact is that until around the time the first movie came out, Arlene Klasky didn't like her either, as she found Angelica to be too cruel and [[KarmaHoudini not punished for her actions enough]]. Angelica was also not in her and Gabor Csupo's original plans for the series, but was Paul Germain's idea, as he'd based the character off of a girl who'd bullied him in his childhood. ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'' even wrote an article about this, focusing on how Angelica tore apart the K-C staff, until ''WesternAnimation/TheRugratsMovie'' came out, where Klasky recanted her opinions on the character and said she "loved" Angelica, since by that point her [[CharacterDevelopment character had been softened up considerably.]]

* PopularityPolynomial: Around 2002-03, the show steadily declined in popularity. ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' were quickly overshadowing it to become Nickelodeon's most popular shows even though ''Rugrats'' was still considered Nick's flagship show at that point. Following the critical and commercial failure of ''WesternAnimation/RugratsGoWild'', the series ended with little fanfare in 2004, and subsequently faded into obscurity for the rest of 2000's, with only a handful of new material seeing release throughout the rest of the decade. By the early 2010's, ''Rugrats'' got more attention again as the generation that grew up on it entered adulthood. As a result, the show has returned to Nickelodeon's schedule in small intervals, new merchandise has been produced throughout the decade (though this time around it gets lumped into general "old school Nick" marketing [[WesternAnimation/HeyArnold with other]] [[WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow shows from the era]]) and even a reboot was greenlit by Nickelodeon. So as of today, even though ''[=SpongeBob=]'' has most definitely overshadowed it in overall pop culture impact, ''Rugrats'' has remained a steady franchise in some form or another compared to where it was in the mid-2000's.

** In "Chuckie vs. the Potty", when Drew mentions that it took him so long to potty train Stu that he nearly didn't get him into the boy scouts, is he telling the truth, exaggerating, referring to [[EmbarrassingDampSheets bed wetting]], or outright lying?

* IncestYayShipping: Some people {{ship|ping}} Chuckie and Kimi together. At least they are only step-brother and step-sister. Tommy and Angelica get shipped, but it's more rare.

* NeverLiveItDown: While the parents have had some really dumb moments ''The Big Showdown'' is one that will haunt the character of Didi forever. Pretty much the entire fandom hates Didi for her cruel actions and this episode tends to be the one people point to when declaring she is one of the worst mothers on TV.

** "The Case of the Missing Rugrat" is one of times the adults ParentalNeglect isn't PlayedForLaughs. Lou accidentally leaves Tommy in the back of a stranger's car while fooling around and ends up losing him when it drives off with his baby grandson in tow. Tommy is kidnapped and nearly adopted by complete strangers as a result of this, with Lou absolutely scared out of his mind trying to find where Tommy was taken to.
** In "Chuckie's Wonderful Life", [[ItsAWonderfulPlot an angel shows a depressed Chuckie what the world would be like if he was never born]]. While horrifying, most of the alternate world has clearly been exaggerated to the extreme, like babies destroying the city and Angelica enslaves Stu and Didi, leaving Tommy to eat garbage. Unfortunately, Chaz's fate is disturbingly and heartbreakingly possible. Basically, without a child of his own (and with, as later episodes reveal, the death of his wife) Chaz became a complete shut-in, complete with mounds of empty pizza boxes littering his house. Worse yet, living alone among the garbage has taken its toll on Chaz's sanity, as he only talks to a sock puppet who is his only friend. Not only does this stick out in the otherwise over blown dark world, but this much like real life cases of people with crippling depression.

** When the writers moved away from Dil only crying and hitting Tommy and actually gave him a bit more personality (such as "Hello Dilly" and "Tommy For Mayor" as well as the only Dil daydream episode "Dil's Bathtime"), fans began to come around, stating they wished the show had done more with Dil as the baby learning from the babies sooner.

* ToyShip: Tommy/Kimi, Chuckie/Lil, Chuckie/Angelica, Tommy/Lil among others.

* WMG/PoisonOakEpilepticTrees: Pertaining to Tommy's maternal grandparents, Boris and Minka: [[spoiler:They're Holocaust survivors.]] Due to Boris and Minka's devout faith, it can easily be argued that they more likely escaped Russia while Hitler and the Nazis were just beginning to conquer Europe. While it may be difficult for some to believe, not every Jewish person who lived in Eastern Europe in the early to mid 20th century experienced the concentration camps.

* SeasonalRot: The Kimi era was seen as this by some fans, due to random [[{{Retcon}} retcons]] (such as the babies' first meeting and Angelica's first walk) and [[RecycledPlot recycling plots from earlier seasons]].

** Chas, due to his {{nervous|Wreck}}ness and the fact [[spoiler:that his wife died]].

* ValuesDissonance:
** While the reboot does feature the babies escaping from their playpen there is no way episodes such as Tommy being kidnapped by criminals or having his life threatened in a post office would EVER be allowed to air, let alone be treated as humorous.
** In "Weaning Tommy", Stu and Didi close the door on Tommy and simply leave him to cry himself to sleep. This was already a controversial method at the time, but it's fallen ever increasingly out of favor.
** In "A Visit from Lipschitz" Didi leaves the titular famous doctor to his own devices in her home alone to tell Stu off for leaving his presence to go to a ballgame with the guys[[note]]completely unawares that Stu, Lou and Chas didn’t take Tommy or Chuckie with them[[/note]]. This leaves two babies home alone with an absolute total stranger only known for his fame and prestige while he proceeds to unknowingly strip naked in front of them to take a bath. Ignoring that Dr. Lipschitz is a celebrity, the idea of leaving a complete stranger alone in your house is not something that would really fly anymore let alone be PlayedForLaughs.

** Chuckie offering to [[HoYay be "Spike's other dad" with Tommy]] in the episode where the babies try to potty-train their dog. Granted, it's still a joke, but it otherwise doesn't say there's anything ''wrong'' with someone [[HasTwoMommies having two daddies]]. Similarly, one episode has Lil saying about another girl "She's going to marry me because we're both so pretty!" It's PlayedForLaughs since the other babies are arguing over the same girl, but it doesn't say that girls marrying other girls is something weird or wrong.

** When the writers moved away from Dil only crying and hitting Tommy and actually gave him a bit more personality (such as "Hello Dilly" and "Tommy For Mayor" as well as the only Dil daydream episode "Bathtime for Dil"), fans began to come around, stating they wished the show had done more with Dil as the baby learning from the babies sooner.

** Out of all the parents in this show, Charlotte gets most of the criticism for her parenting. Fans make her out to be the worst, forgetting the fact that she: never left her kid at a public places and never allowed Angelica to get lost in the woods. What's more is that Charlotte has never had a problem disciplining Angelica, and it's Drew who usually gives into his daughter.

** Didi also tends to get this in the fandom. Thanks to her worshiping of Lipschitz and her hatred for Reptar (one of the most popular characters on the show) it isn't uncommon for fanfics to portray Didi has a horrible wife and mother, abusive, or just plain moronic.
** Dil is seen by many in the fandom as an evil brat who torments Tommy and will always resort to violence. This does ignore the fact that Tommy, in earlier seasons, was just as greedy and mean-spirited as Dil.

** When the writers moved away from Dil only crying and hitting Tommy and actually gave him a bit more personality, fans began to come around, stating they wished the show had done more with Dil as the baby learning from the babies sooner.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** How exactly the baby talk works. Can baby talk be typical baby babbling or do the babies actually talk but they choose not to speak to or in front of the adults, further proof of this is they only seem to communicate when the adults leave the room like in the pilot. In “Angelica’s Birthday” they also informed her that babies aren’t supposed to talk to adults but never explained why. It seems like the baby talk is understandable by beings with a lower level of brain function. Younger children can understand them, but so can adults who've suffered a head injury and regressed to a baby-like state (seen twice with Stu and Nigel Thornberry). Animals also seem to understand babies at least as well as they understand adults, as a parrot could imitate Tommy's speech in "The Case of the Missing Rugrat" and Spike seems to understand Tommy as well as he understands Stu and Didi, if not better.
** Was Tommy {{the hero}}ic, assertive and fearless {{leader}} of the babies or a reckless DesignatedHero and ManipulativeBastard comparable to Angelica who coerces his friends (particularly Chuckie) into doing what ''he'' thinks they should do based on his perceptions and getting his way? A little of both? The episodes "Farewell, My Friend", "Garage Sale" and "The Odd Couple" showcase the theory of him being more than a little InnocentlyInsensitive (such as continually painting Chuckie's interests as "weird" and being an overall lousy houseguest or giving away all of his parents' belongings to their immense chagrin, particularly Stu's).
** Similarly such episodes also totter as to whether Phil and Lil were good if occasionally weak willed friends to Tommy and Chuckie, or merely neutral brats who could be easily influenced, even having times they sold out the other babies to Angelica when she [[ManipulativeBastard coaxed them with good things]] rather than [[ObviouslyEvil bullying them]]. Their cowardice, while maybe more reserved than Chuckie's, could arguably also be seen as more prevailing, as shown in cases like "Farewell, My Friend" where they [[DirtyCoward gladly left Tommy to his fate]], which Chuckie found [[CowardlyLion he could never live with doing]] (eg. "Dust Bunnies" or TheMovie).
** Many fans view Angelica as TheSociopath based on her TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior as seen in "The Trial" as well as her out of nowhere freakout in "The Box" and it's assumed that her FreudianExcuse is that her parents are somewhat [[ParentalNeglect negligent]] towards her and clueless about her that it probably kinda warped her and, as a result, she gets a strange kick out of telling lies to her cousin and his friends and she has no idea how to be a good friend.
** To go along with that, other fans believe Angelica is a neglected and lonely kid who, not fully aware of her own FreudianExcuse, takes out her sadness and frustration on the babies. Episodes in which she's nice to or protective of Tommy and friends, such as "New Kid in Town" and "Moving Away" lend support. There's also the fact that in "Runaway Angelica", her response to Drew disciplining her for the first time is to run away from home and then she fears he's actually ''happy'' she's gone. And in "Mommy's Little Assets", when Charlotte is disciplining her, Angelica tearfully asks if she's going to be fired.
** In "Angelica's Worst Nightmare", Charlotte tells Angelica that she's having another child, and Charlotte and Drew are both thrilled. In the end however, Charlotte tells her, while sounding rather sad, that they're no longer having a baby. Naturally, she didn't give her 3-year-old daughter any details, so just ''what'' happened has stumped fans for decades. Was it a miscarriage, an abortion, or just an inaccurate and disappointing test result?[[note]]It should be noted that, while home pregnancy tests *can* be wrong, when they are, it's almost always a false negative -- false positives are VERY rare.[[/note]]
** Assuming "Chuckie's Wonderful Life" is AllJustADream, Chuckie can be painted as a SmallNameBigEgo who convinces himself that the whole world would fall apart at the seams if not for his constant direction. Alternatively this along with other episodes like "The Odd Couple" might suggest he suffers from OCD, a known psychological element to the disorder is believing terrible things will happen if you do not commit to things in an exact way.
** Another episode involves Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica, and their parents attending a wedding. While most of the guests are happy for Tommy's Uncle Ben and his bride Elaine, Chuckie's father Chas is shown crying his eyes out. Could it just show [[TenderTears how sensitive he is]], or is it because he's thinking about his own wedding to [[TheLostLenore Melinda]]? The fact that Hulu's captions describe his crying as "[[ManlyTears weeping]]" [[TearJerker may lean towards the latter explanation]].
** Was Drew really a traumatising BigBrotherBully to Stu as a kid, or is Stu just an AnnoyingYoungerSibling with a victim complex and a massive SelfServingMemory? This even ties into the aforementioned example with Tommy, since the one unbiased flashback of them as kids ("Sour Pickles") shows Stu to basically be a GenerationXerox of Tommy, and Drew basically Chuckie but more assertive to the former's brattiness. Is Chuckie being an ExtremeDoormat the only thing preventing him and Tommy being constantly at each other throats?
** Was Miss Carol fired at the end of "Word of the Day" not necessarily for cursing on live television, but because she physically screamed at a three-year-old who got tongue-tied and then ordered the child off the stage when she said a curse word? It's also possible that her attitude was so poor that the higher-ups may have been looking for any chance to get rid of her.
** In "Slumber Party", was Tommy having a nightmare, or was he awake but hallucinating?

* HarsherInHindsight:
** In "The Santa Experience", Angelica meets a shopping mall Santa and one item she tells him she wants is a "911 working emergency stethoscope kit", pronouncing "911" as [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror "Nine-Eleven"]].
** "The Santa Experience" has Chas lamenting that his childhood Christmases were never that enjoyable and he worries that it'll be the same for Chuckie. Fast forward to the ChristmasEpisode of ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'' where we discover that Chuckie's Christmases are indeed miserable ''because'' of Chas.
** A couple of episodes deal with Angelica's loneliness and jealousy of the babies' friendship, notably "The Unfair Pair" where she gets annoyed that the twins exclude her. By the last season she's the only one of the babies without a sibling -- and an episode explores her wanting one.
** In the 1994 episode "Pickles vs. Pickles", Drew's nightmare involves a pair of lawyers named "Alan Hershowitz" and "F. Lee Barnum"--thinly-veiled NoCelebritiesWereHarmed parodies of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz Alan Dershowitz]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Lee_Bailey F. Lee Bailey]]--battling it out in a courtroom over his custody of Angelica. While you might think that's a reference to the O.J. Simpson murder trial, it's actually not: Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered just a few months after the episode aired.
** ''Many'' things relating to Chas and Chuckie's relationship thanks to "Mother's Day":
*** "Chuckie vs. the Potty" has Chuckie describe getting potty-trained as "the worstest thing that's happened to me since my mom put me on the bottle." Perhaps she put him on the bottle because she knew she was dying. There's also the fact that he still remembers her in this episode, but by the time of "Mother's Day," his infantile amnesia seems to be kicking in and he only has dreams about her without remembering that she really existed.
*** Remember when Chas was crying his eyes out during Ben and Elaine's wedding in "Let Them Eat Cake"? There's a chance it's bringing up painful memories of losing his wife.
*** In "My Friend Barney," Chuckie having an imaginary friend is not too far off from how real-life children, and even adults, who are coping with loss often have imaginary friends so they can talk to someone as if they were physically present.
*** There's also "Dummi Bear Dinner Disaster," which makes a passing remark about Chas going to see a psychiatrist. If you think about it, it is implied that the death of Melinda left him an emotional wreck, and that the only thing preventing him from losing his sanity completely is their son Chuckie.
*** In the aforementioned "Chuckie's Wonderful Life," Chuckie sees that, [[LivingEmotionalCrutch without him]], Chas' sanity [[SanitySlippage is completely broken]]: he's unemployed and lives in poverty, with empty pizza boxes for furniture and a sock puppet as his only friend. Considering that he's lost his wife and Chuckie is their only son, this is justified... [[TearJerker and heartbreaking]].
** In "A Visit From Lipschitz", Didi decides that it is perfectly reasonable to leave Dr. Lipschitz, a man she just met all alone in her house, because he is famous; unknowingly leaving Tommy and Chuckie alone with a complete stranger.[[note]]She is completely unawares that Stu and the guys didn't take Tommy and Chuckie with them to a baseball game.[[/note]] Considering the horrible stories of pedophiles and celebrities with dark truths about them that fill our world today, the idea of leaving a baby alone with the doctor is horrifying; it's made even worse by the fact that he, unwittingly, [[ItMakesSenseInContext strips naked in front of them]] to take a bubble bath. There's a [[https://someordinarygamers.fandom.com/wiki/The_Truth_about_Dr._Lipschitz Creepypasta]] that goes into detail about an earlier draft of this episode, which dives into the dangers of child predators.[[note]]The story does a surprisingly good job at inserting it's subject matter into the story while still feeling in tone with the original episodes plot.[[/note]]
* HilariousInHindsight:
** 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 forward to 1997, where the plot of the episode becomes almost the basis for [[WesternAnimation/{{Recess}} Paul Germain and fellow writer Joe Ansolabehere's new Disney series, where Pamela Segal is one of the major characters]].
** In one episode, Chuckie comments that he was afraid of eating green Jell-O because it could've been alive. A couple of years later, Jell-O's slogan was actually [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68U58GrGt20 "It's alive!"]]
** In the episode "Garage Sale", Didi gets mortified when the kids stumble upon her and Stu's old disco memorabilia, and when Angelica asks her what "disco" is, she tells her that "It's something that happened a long time ago, and it's never, never coming back!" (which is currently the page quote for DiscoSucks). Years later, the pilot for ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'' would revolve around Stu and Didi competing in a disco dance competition.
** In "He Saw, She Saw", Chuckie was hanging out with a girl who had an overprotective brother who, initially, refused to let Chuckie hang out with her. Chuckie later takes on this behavior with Kimi in ''All Grown Up'', freaking out with she starts hanging out with a bad boy and being upset over his best friend (possibly) crushing on his little sister.
** In "Unfair Pair", Angelica mentions how Phil and Lil are the only ones among the main characters who have siblings. Later on in the series, Tommy and Chuckie get a brother and a sister respectively, leaving Angelica the only one without any siblings. Additionally the episode "Angelica's Worst Nightmare" has her worrying about the news that she could possibly get a sibling, which is hilarious with the episode where she demands Drew get her a brother or sister.
** One later episode has Tommy and Chuckie meet [[Series/ICarly a tough girl named Samantha and a meek boy named Freddie]] respectively.
** In "Graham Canyon," Stu and Didi get on route to the Grand Canyon, but, after a wrong turn and a troubling time with the mechanics, they decide to go to the Clam Canyon (a waterpark and seafood restaurant), instead. In the ''All Grown Up!'' episode "RV Having Fun Yet?", the Pickles family finally go to the Grand Canyon proper.
** The scene where Stu orders 144 eggs, far more than needed for the cake he and Drew were making, becomes this when during the 2018 Olympics, due to a translation error, the chefs for Norway's team acccidentally ordered 15,000 eggs when they only needed 1,500. [[http://fragglevision.tumblr.com/post/170700649731/translation-scramble-norway-gets-15k-eggs Fans were quick to note the parallels.]]
** The episode "Sour Pickles" aired in 1993, and in it, Stu and Drew watch a show called "[[WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle Blocky]] ''[[WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle and Oxwinkle]]''". [[WebAnimation/BattleForDreamIsland 17 years later...]]
** "Acorn Nuts and Diapey Butts" has Grandpa Lou say that he doesn't want to turn into a hippie. And a hippie is exactly what he becomes in [[WesternAnimation/Rugrats2021 the revival series]].
** Similarly in "Angelica's Birthday", he makes a comment about how the best year of his life was being at Woodstock, but then complains about how all those kids made a racket.
** A RunningGag was, whenever the babies' scheme or game or whatnot required coffee, they would just use mud ("This coffee tastes like mud![=/=]It IS mud!"). In 2018, Shane Heath released a drink made of powdered mushrooms and herbs marketed specifically as a coffee alternative. Its name? [[https://mudwtr.com/ Mud Water.]]

* MemeticMutation: [[Memes/{{Rugrats}} A pageful, in fact.]]

* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: One of the shorts produced is a line-for-line recreation of a scene from the original series, which many fans have seen as looking worse than the original.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Tommy goes through three stages:
** Season 1 where he mostly behaves as a curious baby, with several episodes having him hardly say a word. He rarely imagines anything and is far more prone to crying.
** Seasons 2 through 3 where Tommy is more adventurerous, imagines a bit more, and far more talkative. This also is the period where he grabs JerkassBall, where he will force Chuckie to go on adventures with him when the latter really don't want to, dismiss other people's concerns, and believe he is always right, leading to several occasions he is called out or his friendship is tested with another baby (often Chuckie).
** Post Holiday Specials sees Tommy settle into the role he is most known for. Imagination spots are common and his adventures are more about trying to help people than just having fun. The previous jerkass tendencies are now completely gone and Tommy is far more kind and supportive to everyone (if still sometimes InnocentlyInsensitive and prone to causing trouble obliviously).

** To go along with that, other fans believe Angelica is a neglected and lonely kid who, not fully aware of her own FreudianExcuse, takes out her sadness and frustration on the babies. Episodes in which she's nice to or protective of Tommy and friends, such as "New Kid in Town" and "Moving Away" lend support. There's also the fact that in "Angelica Runs Away", her response to Drew disciplining her for the first time is to run away from home and then she fears he's actually ''happy'' she's gone. And in "Mommy's Little Assets", when Charlotte is disciplining her, Angelica tearfully asks if she's going to be fired.

** Chuckie offering to [[HoYay be "Spike's other dad" with Tommy]] in the episode where the babies try to potty-train their dog. Granted, it's still a joke, but it otherwise doesn't say there's anything ''wrong'' with someone [[HasTwoMommies having two daddies]].

** Assuming "Chuckie's Wonderful Life" is AllJustADream, Chuckie can be painted as a SmallNameBigEgo who convinces himself that the whole world would fall apart at the seams if not for his constant direction. Alternatively this along with other episodes like "The Odd Couple" might suggest he suffers from SuperOCD, a known psychological element to the disorder is believing terrible things will happen if you do not commit to things in an exact way.

* FanFicFuel:

** In one episode, Charlotte tells Angelica that she's having another child, and Charlotte and Drew are both thrilled. In the end however, Charlotte tells her, while sounding rather sad, that they're no longer having a baby. Naturally, she didn't give her 3-year-old daughter any details, so just ''what'' happened has stumped fans for decades. Was it a miscarriage, or just an inaccurate and disappointing test result?[[note]]It should be noted that, while home pregnancy tests *can* be wrong, when they are, it's almost always a false negative -- false positives are VERY rare.[[/note]]

** In "Angelica's Worst Nightmare", did Charlotte get a false reading on her pregnancy test, or did she miscarry or have an abortion?

** It's a show about babies, what did you expect!?
** Chuckie is the prime example; he's a shy and tenderhearted NiceGuy with glasses.

** In "Spike Runs Away", the scene where Tommy sobs over Spike being missing loses some of its [[TearJerker tearjerkiness]] when Tommy is drawn with a VolumetricMouth, but it's still pretty sad to see Tommy so depressed.
** Another tearjerker scene was in "Regarding Stuie" when Tommy cries after missing when Stu was his father after he hit his head and got amnesia, but the camera [[MouthCam being positioned inside Tommy's mouth as he cries]] can be somewhat distracting.

** While nearly everyone agrees that Susie is a much-needed example of representation for Black children, the verdict on her is out: is she a refreshing, popular TeamMom who counterbalances Angelica's nastiness, or one of the most blatant examples of PositiveDiscrimination in 90's cartoons? It's notable that in her early episodes, Susie had quite a few negative traits. Her very first moment on the show was her screaming and crying that her older brother took her lollipop, and other plots showed her as being quick to anger (as seen when she blamed Angelica for stealing her tricycle without any evidence). As the seasons progressed, though, Susie gradually lost those bad qualities and became more of a saintly, wise character who could do no wrong and was generally a paragon of good to the babies. ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'' went out of its way to give her some flaws (the first episode saw her get conned out of a lot of money), suggesting that the writers wanted to make a more balanced character.
** Susie's parents also suffer from the same "needed representation versus PositiveDiscrimination" debate. Both of them are wealthy and successful in their careers (Randy is a writer for the ShowWithinAShow ''The Dummi Bears'' and Lucy an OB/GYN), which stands apart from the other parents' struggles and less glamorous jobs (Drew and Charlotte are probably in the same tax bracket, but Randy and Lucy are generally shown as being more loving and attentive to their children than them). The Carmichaels are also shown to be excellent parents who are raising ''four'' kids, including one teenager, with very little trouble. Furthermore, Randy has [[FlatCharacter very little characterization]] ''besides'' being good at his work, and in Lucy's debut, she casually rattles off a LongList of everything she's accomplished in her life (including being a professionally-trained French chef and airline pilot) that almost makes her seem like an in-universe ParodySue. Granted, there's nothing wrong with having successful Black characters in children's TV, but the issue is that unlike the other, more rounded parents on the show, Randy and Lucy are ''only'' successful and never seem to make any mistakes.