'Rugrats': The Series' 10 Best Parodies

Hitting screens a little over three decades ago, Rugrats, one of the three original Nicktoons, remains an icon of popculture. The series is fondly remembered for how it tackled important issues, such as the loss of a parent, or gender equality, in subtle, fun, child friendly ways.

The series is also notable for the number of jokes and parodies that would have likely flown over the heads of the young target audience. While a CGI animated reboot is currently winning the hearts of a new generation, the aforementioned jokes and parodies give the original Rugrats, and it's spin off All Grown Up!, a high rewatch value for both old fans, or new ones looking for a series they can enjoy watching with their kids.

Here's some of the best parodies in Rugrats.

1. The Dummi Bears

The Dummi Bears are most obviously a parody of the Care Bears franchise, though may have taken their name from Disney's Gummi Bears. The colorful bears with belly symbols are introduced in the season one episode 'At The Movies', in which the Rugrats are taken to see The Dummi Bears in the Land Without Smiles as their first movie theatre experience. In that episode, the babies are more interested in finding the theatre showing Reptar, but in later episodes have developed some interest in the characters, when they are taken to Dummi Bear live performances. However, in an interesting twist, the most Dummi-bear obsessed character is Tommy's Father, Stu, implying that in-universe, the bears have been around for sometime.

In the episode 'King Ten Pin', the Dummi Bears take on a slightly more sinister tone, when a video of their 'Happy, Happy Song' hypnotises the attendees at a Bowling Alley Day Care centre. Tommy is able to resist and free his friends from the hypnosis. The babies try to always avoid the song thereafter, with its hypnotic qualities becoming an occasional running joke.

2. The Inside Story = Fantastic Voyage

'The Inside Story', an episode from Rugrats' early seasons, has the gang imagining they have to shrink themselves and enter Chuckie's body to retrieve a watermelon seed he accidentally swallowed before it begins to grow. Unbeknownst to Tommy, Phil, and Lil, there is a sabateur in their midst: Angelica plans to water the seed and ensure it grows, which the babies have been led to believe would cause Chuckie to explode.

'The Inside Story' is a fun episode, but to most children watching when it first aired, that's all it is. However, any viewer who happened to be a sci-fi fan may have found themselves experiencing deja vu.

The plot of 'The Inside Story' almost perfectly mirrors the classic 1966 sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage. A group of scientists shrink and enter a human body to remove a blood clot, only to eventually discover a traitor amongst them. Perhaps, the true brilliance of this Rugrats parody is how so few would have realised it was one.

3. The Mega Diaper Babies

Drawing on a number of popular franchises at the time, including Power Rangers, Captain Planet, and even a little bit of Transformers, the episode 'Mega Diaper Babies' was an homage to 80s and 90s superhero/toy commercial cartoons. When their new Mega Hyper Heroes action figures are stolen by Angelica/The evil Angelitron, the babies use their supposedly magic teething rings to become the Mega Diaper Babies and rescue them.

This parody ep was clearly more obvious about what it was riffing off, but that isn't an issue when it was done so well. To this day, 'Mega Diaper Babies' remains one of the most popular episodes of Rugrats early seasons.

4. Reptar On Ice

On the surface, Reptar is a very obvious parody of the iconic Japanese movie monster Godzilla. However, Reptar was also used for wider scale commentary of the commercialism of children's characters. This concept is on full display in the episode 'Reptar on Ice', when, after already appearing as a toy, candy bar, and cereal, the Reptar franchise is adapted into an Ice Show.

The adults plans to take the babies to Reptar on Ice forms a humorous backdrop to the episode's true major plot: The Rugrats' own plan to return a lizard, who they believe to be Reptar's baby, to it's Daddy. In the process, they end up sending the show into a chaos.'Reptar on Ice' often ranks among Rugrats most popular episodes, mostly due to the humorous snippets of the Ice Show spread throughout the action.

5. Cynthia

In both Rugrats original run, and the reboot, Angelica Pickles and her beloved doll, Cynthia, are near inseparable, with Angelica often referring to Cynthia as her best friend. Cynthia is, of course, a parody of Barbie and similar dolls. Throughout the series, Angelica is seen gathering various different accessories for the doll, including cars, boats, and a Dreamhouse, and eagerly sitting down to watch Cynthia TV specials.

In the All Grown Up! episode 'Saving Cynthia', the doll is accidentally placed in the donation pile, becoming an accidental victim of Angelica's eagerness to grow up and eliminate anything pre-teenager from her life. Realising Cynthia as a precious and irreplaceable peace of her childhood, Angelica sets out with Susie and Harold to retrieve the doll, and in the process, comes to appreciate her two oldest friends a lot more.

6. Okey-Dokey Jones

Some of the greatest parody moments take place in the Rugrats theatrical films. The first film, titled simply The Rugrats Movie, is bookended by fantasy sequences featuring Tommy Pickles imagining himself as treasure hunter Okey-Dokey Jones, a clear parody of Indiana Jones. In the opening sequence, Okey-Dokey's expedition is ruined by an invading boulder, aka, the pregnant belly of Tommy's Mother, Didi. In the closing sequence, Tommy's baby brother, Dil, becomes the reason for a follow up expedition's success, showing the growth of their relationship over the film.

While the Okey-Dokey Jones character is mentioned occasionally after the movie, the parody is revisited fully in the season eight episode 'Okey-Dokey Jones and the Ring of Sunbeams'. After Lil's new ring (a capsule machine prize), is lost in an Exotic Pet Store, Tommy becomes Okey-Dokey Jones once more, leading the babies in a quest to find the ring before Angelica does.

7. Runaway Reptar

In 1999, the first hour-long Rugrats special, 'Runaway Reptar', aired for the first time. The special sees the babies take a trip to the Drive-In movies with Grandpa Lou for a showing of a classic Reptar film. They become troubled when Reptar appears to have turned 'naughty', destroying Tokyo instead of his usual job of saving it. Venturing into the film in the hope of discovering what was wrong with their hero, the babies uncover an evil plot involving a robot Reptar.

As with 'The Inside Story', the parody here would have gone over many fans heads. 'Runaway Reptar' runs surprisingly close to the classic film Godzilla Vs MechaGodzilla, including yellow jumpsuits, visible puppet strings, a spunky reporter and her dog, and of course, hilariously bad English dubbing.

While hilarious to those in the know, 'Runaway Reptar' was likely the episode that drew Rugrats to the attention of Toho, who threatened legal action that led to a highly reduced presence of Reptar in the show's final season.

8. Reptar Vs Robosnail

Thankfully, before word of Reptar reached Toho, the character was able to be given what turned out to be, at least for a while, a last hurrah in the second film, Rugrats in Paris. The main plot of the film is set off by Stu Pickles being forced to take a trip to Paris to repair an animatronic Reptar he had designed for the theme park EuroReptarland. In the climax, the babies hijack the giant animatronic to head to Church and stop Chuckie's Father Chas from marrying the evil Coco LaBouche.

The babies take Reptar on a very Godzilla-like rampage through the streets of Paris, before they are intercepted by Coco's assistant, Jean-Claude, in an animatronic copy of Reptar's rival, Robo-Snail. This results in a Kaiju inspired battle between the two, which Reptar wins. In recent years, Toho have softened their stance on Reptar, allowing the character to be used in the reboot.

9. Goober

In the latter half of Rugrats run, Goober the Gopher was introduced as a counterpart to Reptar. Fearing that over-exposure to the sometimes violent Reptar may have an adverse affect on her children, Didi removes all traces of Reptar from the home and tries to replace him with Goober, a friendly, huggable, Hypo-Allergenic gopher approved by child psychologists. While Dil and Chuckie warm to Goober, Tommy resists the change. After an incident at a meet-and-greet where Tommy is almost injured, but rescued by a man in a Reptar suit, Didi agrees to restore his access to Reptar.

Funnily enough, Goober is actually a parody of a famous friendly dinosaur, Barney. While at first coloured orange, later episodes give him a purple-green colour palette, strengthening the Barney connection.

10. Yu-Gotta-Go

While there were fewer parody elements in the spin-off All Grown Up!, they did not fade from the franchise entirely. The most notable is in the episode 'Yu-Gotta-Go!', which sees Chuckie develop a dangerous addiction to the popular trading card game of the episode's title, and become obsessed with finding a rare card. In a later episode, the gang gather to watch a Yu-Gotta-Go! anime special.

Yu-Gotta-Go! is, of course, a parody of the popular Yu-Gi-Oh!/Duel Monsters franchise. Arriving a few years after the height of the Yu-Gi-Oh craze, All Grown Up's parody was still close enough for fans to understand the reference. Even today, the Yu-Gotta-Go episodes stand up as a parody of anime and Trading Card Games in general.

There's plenty of other references for fans to discover, making Rugrats a cartoon that is always worth rewatching.