Western Animation / Rugrats

Grown-ups are off in a world of their own,
they don't know what's going on
when the kids are alone!
^note Clockwise from top: Tommy Pickles, Chuckie Finster, Angelica Pickles, Lil and Phil DeVille, Dil Pickles, Kimi Watanabe Finster, and Susie Carmichael. The gang's all here!

Rugrats, Rugrats, the things you get into!
Rugrats, Rugrats, trouble looks for you!
A baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do!

— Rugrats Rock

Rugrats is one of the first three original Nicktoons, produced by Klasky-Csupo and debuting on August 11th, 1991, being the second to premiere. Paraphrasing the description at nick.com:

Grown-ups act as if babies don't know anything, but the fearless, hairless Tommy Pickles and his baby brigade know what's really going on. They'd be happy to inform the grown-ups, if they could only understand baby talk. For the Rugrats, every day is an adventure, especially if the doll-tossing, baby-torturing 3-year-old Angelica is around. Luckily, when the going gets tough, the gang gets going!

The rest of Tommy's gang includes:

• Chuckie, his red-headed, bespectacled best friend who is afraid of everything, but nothing more than "the guy on the oatmeal box".
• Twins Phil and Lil who hate it when they get mistaken for each other and love eating worms and mud.
• The new neighbor and Angelica's best friend AND arch rival Susie Carmichael.
• Tommy's equally colicky baby brother Dil, born in the first movie.
• Chuckie's spunky, adventure-loving step-sister Kimi, whose mother Kira marries Chuckie's dad in the second movie, Rugrats in Paris.

Premiering alongside Doug and The Ren & Stimpy Show, it was put on hiatus after three seasons in 1995. Later, with strong rerun ratings, the show was put back into production and became one of Nickelodeon's biggest mainstays. Running from 1991 to 2004, it is Nick's third-longest running animated series, next to SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents!.

Three theatrical movies were made as a result of the show's popularity: The Rugrats Movie (1998), Rugrats in Paris (2000), and Rugrats Go Wild! (2003). The first two movies did quite well in box office revenue,^note the first one in particular is notable for being the first non-Disney animated film to gross over $100 million in the domestic box office, and was the highest-grossing film based on an animated television series until Pokémon: The First Movie and later The Simpsons Movie whereas the third one tanked hard and was largely responsible for the drought of Klasky-Csupo series since then.

The successor series, All Grown Up!, showed Tommy and his friends, ten years later as Junior High schoolers. Also had another (and significantly short-lived) spin-off, Rugrats Pre-School Daze: the name says it all. Several Licensed Games were made, including Rugrats Castle Capers in 2001 and Rugrats: Royal Ransom in 2002. The series can be found digitally and on DVD, and also frequently aired on NickRewind. Also, be sure to check out The UNOFFICIAL Rugrats Online, a high-quality fansite.

In 2018, Nickelodeon announced a CGI revival series. A live-action/CGI film based on the series was also announced at the same time, but was later pulled. The show's creators Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó and Paul Germain returned as executive producers. The CGI revival series premiered on Paramount+ on May 27, 2021.

The original show was once both the longest running ViacomCBS owned animated series and Nicktoon until both records were surpassed by South Park and SpongeBob SquarePants respectively.

Now has an (in-progress) Recap page.

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A troper's gotta do what a troper's gotta do:

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• Tropes A to D
• Tropes E to I
• Tropes J to Q
• Tropes R to Z

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