Rugrats (2021) - paramount plus

[MysticMisty]

It worked on Rugrats, just because

It worked mainly because nobody was really over the top ugly, just average or unfortunate. Characters had a negative facial feature (or two), not everything, and not over the top.

Someone mentioned this on /co/ but around the time Arlene and Gabor got divorced their style went ugly FAST

Yeah, it got to a point on other shows where even the "attractive" characters were ugly. As Told by Ginger is the best example of that.

 

[Mariposa Electrique]

Why is it so dark?

 

[Dr. Dude]

And of course we'll get the very special episode on child abuse:

 

[Pickle Dick]

And of course we'll get the very special episode on child abuse:

View attachment 1972938

https://lostmediaarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Rugrats_%22Incredible_Storyboard_Jam%22_(1998_Banned_In-House_Comic)

One such storyboard jam, titled "Incredible", began life around 1998 within the Klasky-Csupo production crew of Rugrats (according to a now-deleted livejournal recount posted by one of the directors/animators of Rugrats, Steve Ressel[1]). Ressel has recounted that the first page of the storyboard consisted of "Angelica being a bitch to Tommy, so Tommy gets her a drink in the kitchen and puts in dog food and draino, then toddles back to Angelica". After being handed the comic, Ressel initially pushed it away in disgust, before eventually making some additions of his own.

The first page added to by Ressel (the third page overall, and the only one that he was able to recover and post online) depicts (after Tommy returns to Angelica with the poisoned drink), Stu arriving home before angrily abusing everyone and making sexual remarks to Angelica, while Tommy twitches uncontrollably. Allegedly, some of the other artists were displeased with Ressel's additions to the plot, though regardless of their disapproval he continued the storyboard, beginning the next page with "a close up of Stu's crotch (on model) and then a cut away showing his entire pelvis is in fact two tight and well rounded testicles with a tiny cock dangling from above. Lightening was bouncing around and words appeared saying 'BALLS OF THUNDER!', or something to that effect".

In total, Ressel ended up adding roughly 12 frames to the storyboard, whereas most of the other artists had previously contributed just 3-4 frames each. After this point, the comic was given to other artists to add on, and this later resulted in images of Angelica's hands stroking Stu's testicles, followed by a barrage of incest sex scenes. Ressel has noted "I was disgusted, even, when I saw what had become of the comic".

While someone was taking the storyboard to show the production crew of The Wild Thornberrys, an executive producer "saw it, was disturbed, and confiscated the jam... and thus it ended". It's unknown if the missing pages were destroyed or simply locked away, but either way, it is unlikely we will ever see any more pages of this infamous comic.

And the kicker:

In July 2020, Ressel was eventually accused of grooming and sexual harassing underaged girls which dated back as early as 2005.[2]

 

[Android raptor]

Rugrats sucked tbh, Tommy was a Mary sue and Suzie was a bad enough token I realized it when I was 9 (granted I didnt know the word token at the time).

I can't wait for Susie to still be my least favorite character.

Same she'll probably be even more obnoxiously woke. She was the product of the proto-sjws in the early 90s insisting on diversity quotas and shoving badly-written tokens in everything. She'll probably go from having no personality or defining traits outside of being generically nice to beating Angelina down while ranting about how she rayciss and ACAB and donate to her patreon.

Even as a kid I remember hating her enough to where I probably drew bad fanart of her getting eaten by raptors or something. Her, Tommy, and Dee dee I could not stand on any level.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

https://lostmediaarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Rugrats_%22Incredible_Storyboard_Jam%22_(1998_Banned_In-House_Comic)

And the kicker:

I googled and yes this man looks exactly like how you would expect him to look

 

[Ravana]

Tommy was a Mary sue

It's a show about babies who could give a shit if a talking baby is a mary sue in a talking baby show

 

[Android raptor]

It's a show about babies who could give a shit if a talking baby is a mary sue in a talking baby show

Because even as a kid it makes a character boring and unlikable if they're always right and don't have any flaws.

Like damn it's a talking baby show but space wizard movies are just as "who cares" yet people act like the main character being a Mary Sue (who still has way more flaws than Tommy) is a fucking crime against humanity

 

[Ravana]

Are your parents TVTropes users what made you this way?

 

[Android raptor]

Are your parents TVTropes users what made you this way?

Idk, I was just a kid that thought badly written baby shows sucked and the main character was obnoxiously bland and that him getting eaten by dinosaurs would be badass.

But yeah wild how weird people get when I point out tommy is a Mary sue.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

https://lostmediaarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Rugrats_%22Incredible_Storyboard_Jam%22_(1998_Banned_In-House_Comic)

And the kicker:

I've known about this jam for a few years now, but the guy who wrote it being arrested for child grooming is news to me.

Only more evidence that the animation industry attracts the sickest fucks out there.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I never saw the episode of the Carmichaels moving into the neighborhood so I don't know how they approached that, nor have I ever thought of Susie any differently or even as a token character. I've always recognized darker-skinned people existed even if I didn't know as a kid why they were dark, so having her in the show who showed up sometimes never bothered me. Other shows of the time had a black character or two as well, didn't come off as a diversity checklist like it does nowadays.

I dunno, Susie never really stood out much to me, it was just fun to see other kids come in sometimes. I remember thinking she might've been too smart for her age, though ('cause she's Angelica's age, right?), but that was the extent of it. Am honestly not looking forward to hearing how much more woke she becomes.

EDIT: No "Z" in "Susie", derp.

 

[Eloise419]

Chuckie and Angelica are my favorite characters. Some of the best episodes (of the original run) are ones about them. Tommy was a low-key bully, especially towards Chuckie. Phil was useless and Dil was and remains my least favorite character. The damn kid couldn't even talk FFS!

They never should have gone beyond the first movie. Who gives a shit about them being teenagers anyway? This isn't As Told By Ginger.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Chuckie and Angelica are my favorite characters. Some of the best episodes (of the original run) are ones about them. Tommy was a low-key bully, especially towards Chuckie. Phil was useless and Dil was and remains my least favorite character. The damn kid couldn't even talk FFS!

They never should have gone beyond the first movie. Who gives a shit about them being teenagers anyway? This isn't As Told By Ginger.

Nah, it would have ended on a sour note if they had not gone beyond the first movie since the second one was so much better.

Showing them as teenagers should have only been a one off, series finale episode.

 

[Yamma Damma]

I never saw the episode of the Carmichaels moving into the neighborhood so I don't know how they approached that, nor have I ever thought of Susie any differently or even as a token character. I've always recognized darker-skinned people existed even if I didn't know as a kid why they were dark, so having her in the show who showed up sometimes never bothered me. Other shows of the time had a black character or two as well, didn't come off as a diversity checklist like it does nowadays.

I dunno, Susie never really stood out much to me, it was just fun to see other kids come in sometimes. I remember thinking she might've been too smart for her age, though ('cause she's Angelica's age, right?), but that was the extent of it. Am honestly not looking forward to hearing how much more woke she becomes.

EDIT: No "Z" in "Susie", derp.

IIRC the mom was a doctor with a lot of achievements (she did something at Le Cordan Bleu), and the father worked for the dummy bears. And the B plot was Susie finding her room. It was okay as far as intro eps go.

I think both Angelica and Susie were average intelligence but let's not dive into autistic logistics of talking babies who survived things real babies wouldn't in 100 years.

 

[MysticMisty]

IIRC the mom was a doctor with a lot of achievements (she did something at Le Cordan Bleu)

I feel like Susie's mom being a ridiculously over the top overachiever was a dig back at the network. Like, they okayed her dad being a writer for Dummi Bears, but they said her mom could not be a house wife like half the other moms, she had to be an achiever because positive stereotypes blah blah blah. So they were like okay, she's a surgeon, a pilot, a world class chef, and so on. And the network execs had no idea they were being made fun of.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I was born later than most of you all posting here, so my recollections of Rugrats were mostly the stuff from the first movie onwards (some early stuff too but the later stuff is what I'm more familiar with). Honestly had no idea Dil was so hated. He seemed inoffensive to me, but then I was also too young to really understand the dynamic of the show beyond babies doing baby things. It's kinda fascinating, really, most of the stuff I thought was fine a lot of the longtime viewers hated.

 

[KingofNothing]

I never saw the episode of the Carmichaels moving into the neighborhood so I don't know how they approached that, nor have I ever thought of Susie any differently or even as a token character. I've always recognized darker-skinned people existed even if I didn't know as a kid why they were dark, so having her in the show who showed up sometimes never bothered me. Other shows of the time had a black character or two as well, didn't come off as a diversity checklist like it does nowadays.

I dunno, Susie never really stood out much to me, it was just fun to see other kids come in sometimes. I remember thinking she might've been too smart for her age, though ('cause she's Angelica's age, right?), but that was the extent of it. Am honestly not looking forward to hearing how much more woke she becomes.

EDIT: No "Z" in "Susie", derp.

Susie was fine if a little bland. I saw her as Bizarro Angelica, a nice kid who could challenge Angelica and keep her shit stirring in check and gave the babies a nice toddler to interact with.

I was born later than most of you all posting here, so my recollections of Rugrats were mostly the stuff from the first movie onwards (some early stuff too but the later stuff is what I'm more familiar with). Honestly had no idea Dil was so hated. He seemed inoffensive to me, but then I was also too young to really understand the dynamic of the show beyond babies doing baby things. It's kinda fascinating, really, most of the stuff I thought was fine a lot of the longtime viewers hated.

I never hated Dil, but yeah having a show about talking babies that did shit, just to add a baby that acted like...well a baby was really stupid and missed the point of the show. But speaking of characters added to the show, I just remembered that Kimi existed. I remember episodes about her the least, but I think she was essentially a less cautious Tommy.

 

[queenvi]

I guess we can all forget all grown up happened then.

 

[Android raptor]

I never saw the episode of the Carmichaels moving into the neighborhood so I don't know how they approached that, nor have I ever thought of Susie any differently or even as a token character. I've always recognized darker-skinned people existed even if I didn't know as a kid why they were dark, so having her in the show who showed up sometimes never bothered me. Other shows of the time had a black character or two as well, didn't come off as a diversity checklist like it does nowadays.

I dunno, Susie never really stood out much to me, it was just fun to see other kids come in sometimes. I remember thinking she might've been too smart for her age, though ('cause she's Angelica's age, right?), but that was the extent of it. Am honestly not looking forward to hearing how much more woke she becomes.

EDIT: No "Z" in "Susie", derp.

I think for me it was the fact that she was so bland and one-note and had literally no purpose in the show other than to be black, and to a lesser extent, to be female. And when she did show up, like Tommy she never has any flaws or was ever wrong. Tokens are usually either stereotypes, or they lack any flaws and are just generically "nice" because for some reason writers think they'll be accused if istphobia if they show a minority character having flaws.

Hey Arnold I remember doing a much better job with having minority characters and actually fleshing them out instead of leaving them as shallow stereotypes or bland and undeveloped. I think because it had better writers and it came out a bit latter, after there had been years of criticism of tokenism and discussion of how to avoid it in writing. Meanwhile Rugrats came out right in the middle of when tokenism was at its peak. Shit is absolutely a product of it's time.