The twenty-third episode of the sixth season of Rugrats (1991).
Partners in Crime
Angelica gets Dil to help her steal sweets.
Thumbs Up
The babies worry that thumb-sucking will give them "duck teeth" and turn them into ducks.
"Partners in Crime" provides examples of:
- An Aesop: Crime doesn't pay.
- Anti-Role Model: When Angelica watches the crime movie at the beginning of the episode, she decides that she wants to be like the female robber in the movie because she drives a car and steals money. Lou warns Angelica that she doesn't want to be like her, because robbers don't get to keep the money they steal and will eventually get caught and arrested by the police.
- Bad Boss: When Dil steals a bowl of cookies for Angelica, Angelica lets him have only one cookie, and when Dil finds a second cookie, she takes it from him. She then decides that her hideout, which is a bush near the public restrooms, is where she's going to keep her stolen sweets so Dil can't get them.
- Big Brother Instinct: When Tommy sees Angelica taking Dil and using him to steal sweets, his first instinct is to get Dil away from her before she turns him into a big-time criminal. When the Reptar Wagon lands in a muddy puddle, Phil and Lil give up to play in the mud, but Tommy refuses to give up on Dil.
- Denied Food as Punishment: Charlotte punishes Angelica for eating nearly all of Didi's cupcakes by forbidding her from eating sweets for a week. Angelica does not take this punishment well and gets Dil to help her steal sweets.
- Didn't Think This Through: Angelica decide to tease the babies when she eats nearly all the cupcakes. She realize too late that the cupcakes wasn’t just for her’s to eats and got punished by no sweets for a week.
- Dogs Hate Squirrels: The babies tie the Reptar Wagon to Spike's collar to use it as a police car and chase after Angelica. When a squirrel crosses Spike's path, he chases it, causing the Reptar Wagon's rope to snap and the Reptar Wagon to stray into a mud puddle.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Angelica drives her car up to Dil, she says, "Another dumb baby.", but when she sees Dil take a stack of cards, she then says, "Oh, yeah. Maybe that one's not so dumb." and takes Dil with her to help her steal sweets.
- Filthy Fun: When the Reptar Wagon lands in a muddy puddle, Phil and Lil climb out of the wagon to play in the mud, leaving only Tommy and Chuckie to try to stop Angelica.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- When Angelica eats ten of Didi's dozen cupcakes, Charlotte punishes her by telling her she can't eat any sweets for a week.
- After she steals Ezekiel's cake, Angelica gets a stomachache as a result of eating too many sweets. All the adults then find her, and Charlotte gives her a punishment worse than her first one, telling her that she can't have any new toys or clothes or watch any television for a whole month.
- Loophole Abuse: When Didi catches Lou watching the crime movie, she turns it off, much to his ire, and tells him they're going to the park to get some fresh air. When Lou spies a portable TV, he decides to take it with him to the park so that he can see the movie's ending while still joining the rest of the Pickles family at the park.
- Parental Obliviousness: Didi and Betty have Charlotte look after Dil while they look for Stu and Lou. Charlotte is so busy reading a newspaper that she is oblivious to Angelica taking Dil out of his baby seat and putting him in her car to help her steal sweets. In addition, the rest of the adults are watching the crime movie on Lou's portable TV, completely oblivious to Angelica using Dil to help her steal sweets and the other babies trying to stop her.
- Senior Sleep-Cycle: Lou falls asleep watching a fishing show, but wakes up when Angelica changes the channel to a black and white crime movie.
- Sinister Sweet Tooth: Angelica having one of these is perhaps best exemplified in this episode; Didi bakes a dozen cupcakes, and discovers that Angelica had already eaten all but two. Then Angelica goes on stealing a bowl of cookies and a cake for Ezekiel Davis' 100th birthday. As a result of eating all of these, she gets a stomachache.
- This Is Gonna Suck: After Angelica gets stomachache eating the birthday cake she stole, she gets confronted by everyone she robbed, along with her furious mother, who tells Angelica is she is in big trouble. By the look on Angelica's face after hearing what her mother said, you can tell she feels that way.
"Thumbs Up" provides examples of:
- Baby See, Baby Do: When Stu hits his thumb trying to build a fence and starts sucking it, the babies copy him, setting off this episode's plot.
- Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: To get the babies to stop sucking their thumbs, Lou has Didi make a spicy chili, but he accidentally has her put a tablespoon of cayenne pepper instead of a teaspoon that the recipe called for. When Stu tastes the chili, his face turns red and he drinks from the kitchen sink to extinguish the spiciness. Didi refuses to put the chili on the babies' thumbs and is about to throw it away, but Lou tells her it'll still make a zesty barbecue sauce.
- Cowardly Lion: To get Chuckie to stop sucking his thumb, Angelica makes the babies build a city called Cynthianati out of building blocks. Dil is about to take a block from the bottom of the city, and when Angelica tries to stop him, she trips on a block and knocks it into the city, causing it to topple over. Chuckie stops sucking his thumb and comes to rescue Dil before the city collapses on top of him.
- Extreme Omnivore: To get Phil and Lil to stop sucking their thumbs, Tommy gives them a pill bug and a mud pie, respectively, to eat.
- Malaproper: When Lou tells Charlotte that the only thing thumb-sucking leads to is buck teeth, Angelica mishears this as "duck teeth" and tells the babies they're going to turn into ducks.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: When the parents catch the babies sucking their thumbs, they worry what's going to happen to them if this behavior continues. They turn to the Dr. Lipschitz Baby Book for advice on how to deal with the situation, only to find the page with the solution has been torn out. Stu finds the missing page in Dil's diaper near the end of the episode, and Didi reads it, finding out that it's best to let children make their own decisions about thumb-sucking and for parents to take action only if the behavior continues at an advanced age.
- Trouser Space: Dil rips the page on how to deal with thumb-sucking out of the Dr. Lipschitz Baby Book and stuffs it in his diaper. Stu finds the missing page near the end of the episode.
