Recap / Rugrats S 1 E 6 Ruthless Tommy Moose Country

The sixth episode of the first season of Rugrats (1991).

Ruthless Tommy

Two crooks kidnap Tommy, mistaking him for a millionaire's son, but he ends up being too much trouble for them to handle.

Moose Country

The babies search for a moose after Grandpa tells them a story about one.

"Ruthless Tommy" provides examples of:

• Adults Are Useless: Not only do Lou and Stu not even notice that Tommy is gone when Bob and Mike return him to them, but Bob and Mike are so incompetent at holding Tommy ransom, that they suffer a series of Amusing Injuries and eventually return him to Stu and Lou. Additionally, Didi and Lou set this episode's entire plot in motion by leaving the front door open.
• An Aesop: Keep the front door securely closed and locked, and be careful with whom you trust to look after your children.
• Banana Peel: When Bob and Mike return to their apartment, Tommy slips on the peel of the very banana that Bob tried to feed him, causing him to lose his ball and cry about it.
• Bland-Name Product: Bob and Mike's apartment is littered with Burger Buddy cups and wrappers.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: Near the end of the episode, Mike gets blinded by his ransom note, causing him to crash his car into a fire hydrant. He and Bob are launched out of it and land in the back window of a police car, which is conveniently parked next to a donut stand.
• Dropped in the Toilet: Tommy is captured by Bob and Mike, a pair of criminals who mistake him for the infant son of millionaire Ronald Thump and hold him for ransom. While in their apartment building, Tommy finds some stolen jewels and tosses them in the toilet. When Bob and Mike find out, they are horrified, and argue over which one of them is going to get the jewels out before Tommy can flush them.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Tommy escapes from his playpen using a toy wrench instead of a screwdriver.
• Fat and Skinny: Mike is the fat criminal, and Bob is the skinny one.
• Fun with Flushing: When Tommy finds a briefcase filled with stolen jewelry, he tosses them into the toilet. When Bob and Mike find out, they argue over which one of them will get them out before Tommy has the chance to flush them.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Mike always has a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Near the end of the episode, the ransom note flies out of Stu's hands and covers Mike's eyes, causing him to crash into a hydrant and send him and Bob flying headfirst into the back window of a police car, where they are promptly arrested.
• Hydrant Geyser: Happens to the hydrant that Mike crashes his car into when he is blinded by his own ransom note.
• The Magazine Rule: Bob and Mike possess an issue of Burglar Life.
• Misery Trigger: Due to the recurring banana that Bob kept trying to give to Tommy, When Didi presented a toy banana to Tommy, he starts crying at the sight of it.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Bob and Mike mistake Tommy for the infant son of millionare Ronald Thump, and hold him for ransom.
• Parental Obliviousness: When Bob and Mike give up and return Tommy to Stu and Lou, neither one of them is aware of Tommy's kidnapping.
• Pity the Kidnapper: Tommy gets captured by Bob and Mike, but Tommy ruins their hideout, so they give him back to his family while apologizing a lot, but his parents hadn't even realized he was missing.
  Mike: Please take him back!
  Bob: We've learned our lesson, and we're very sorry, Mr. Thump.
  (The crooks hand Tommy back to Stu, then walk away. Stu stares in confusion as they get into their car and drive off)
  Stu: Who were those guys?
• 6 Is 9: Tommy gets kidnapped as a result of Bob and Mike succumbing to this trope.
• Senior Sleep-Cycle: Lou falls asleep watching a fishing show on television. Not long after, Tommy awakens and goes outside, but Lou doesn't wake up until after Bob and Mike deliver the ransom note.
• Stupid Crooks: Bob and Mike. They kidnap Tommy, believing him to be the infant son of a billionaire (due to them mixing up their real target's house address). Even then, the one-year-old baby becomes too much for the two idiots to handle so fast, they ended up returning Tommy to his family before they even realized he was gone. As the crooks leave, the ransom note flies out of Stu's hands and covers Mike's eyes, causing him to crash into a hydrant and send him and Bob flying headfirst into the back window of a police car.
• Vanity License Plate: The license plate on Bob and Mike's car is revealed to say "BRGLRS".
• Weapons That Suck: While Tommy attempts to get his ball back from a high shelf, he climbs on top of a vacuum cleaner and accidentally turns it on, causing it to suck up Bob and Mike's stolen money.

"Moose Country" provides examples of:

• An Aesop: Make sure your lawn is safe for your kids. If the holes are too deep, you can fall in and possibly break your arm or leg.
• Garden-Hose Squirt Surprise: When getting out of a hole he fell in, Chuckie accidentally dislodges the valve to the Pickles family's garden hose, creating a geyser. This causes Boris' garden hose to stop flowing when he tries to fill his birdbath with water and another couple's fountain to stop flowing. When the valve lands on the switch that turns the Pickles family's water flow off, Boris gets sprayed by his garden hose, and the couple get sprayed by their fountain.
  Boris: AAH! MINKA! MINKA! TURN THIS MASHUGANA THING OFF!
• Here We Go Again!: At the end of the episode, the moose the babies found was really Spike with tree branches stuck to his ears. This leads Tommy to believe that Spike was pretending to be a moose to tell them they have to go a little further to get to Moose Country.
  Chuckie: OH, NO!
• Human Ladder: Tommy and Chuckie form one to get out of the playpen. Phil and Lil hold Chuckie's hands to keep him balanced.
• Leitmotif: In this episode, when a moose is shown or talked about, the same sound plays in the background almost every time.
• Right Behind Me:
  Chuckie: (as Spike, who appears as a moose in the shadows, approaches behind him) I don't see any moose! Where's the moose, Tommy? Where? Where? Where?
  Tommy: THERE!
• Senior Sleep-Cycle: Lou falls asleep after he tells the babies the story of a moose he and his father found when he was a kid.