The first episode of the sixth season of Rugrats (1991).
Chuckie's Duckling
Chuckie befriends a duckling (who he names Herbert) after it imprints on him.
A Dog's Life
Spike's attempts to help Dil are misinterpreted as bad behavior.
"Chuckie's Duckling" provides examples of:
- Accidental Tickle Torture: See Squirrels in My Pants below. Additionally while playing with Herbert, the duckling walks around on Chuckie's stomach, causing him to lampshade the trope.
- Big Brother Instinct: Early in this episode, Tommy and Chuckie play sheriff, and just as Tommy is about to go to jail after Chuckie captures him, Dil wants to play as well. Tommy wants to ensure Dil is included in the game despite Chuckie's objections.
- Counting to Potato: When Lil plays hide and seek with her friends, her counting is atrocious due to her young age. She says "Four, Sixty-eleven, button, twenty-hundred, ready or not, here I come!"
- Green Aesop: Herbert's mother flies away to Tommy's backyard to lay her egg because her pond is being bulldozed to make room for a condo department. Betty also partakes in a protest against the condo. In the end, Betty gets the bulldozer driver to tear down the sign and the other construction workers to restore the pond to its former glory.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Grandpa Lou spends the entire episode studying up on a book of checkers strategy so he can beat Conan McNulty at a tournament at the park. The final shot of the episode shows it's actually a backgammon tournament, with an irate Grandpa chasing McNulty around for lying to him.
- Squirrels in My Pants: After Chuckie tries to leave Herbert at Tommy's place while he and the babies go to the park, Dil puts the duckling into his diaper, causing him to squirm around laughing from how tickly it feels.
- Unsuccessful Pet Adoption: In this episode, Chuckie tries to keep a duckling named Herbert. Ducks can be pets, but Chuckie doesn't have a pond and eventually gets annoyed with how clingy Herbert is, so he puts Herbert back with his family.
"A Dog's Life" provides examples of:
- Animals See in Monochrome: This episode features several POV shots of Tommy's dog Spike seeing the world in black-and-white (as well as the humans speaking in gibberish).
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Throughout the episode, Spike's attempts to help Dil are misinterpeted as bad behavior. Near the end of the episode, Dil bounces towards some bags of soil, causing them to topple, and Spike pushes Dil out of the way before the bags can fall on him, and he gets praised as a hero.
- Possession Presumes Guilt: When Dil cries after Spike saves him from getting hit by a fallen vase, Spike tries to calm Dil down by giving him his pacifier. When Didi arrives at the scene of the disaster, she assumes that Spike broke the vase, and when Stu arrives, he think that Spike took Dil's pacifier. These both result in Spike being punished outside.
