Hey guys Justin aka Nitsuj here, season’s greetings to everyone out. Remember last year how I borrowed a page from Doug Walker’s book and dedicated the whole month to looking at Cartoon Network’s cartoon cartoons? Well I’m doing the same thing again this year, only this time I’m looking at the nicktoons of Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon is the first kids network for kids by kids and during the 90s them and Cartoon Network were bunking heads with each other. When you really look at these two channels is quite interesting the approach they took with their shows. For Cartoon Network their shows had creative ideas but had simple stories. Take for example Dexter’s Laboratory, the idea is a young boy genius who secretly has a lab but the stories are quite simple because it’s just him going through the hardships of everyday life and employing the help of his lab to get through them. Another example is Courage the Cowardly Dog. The idea of a cowardly dog protecting his owners from the supernatural and bizarre people of the world is a very creative idea but the stories that take place are quite simple. Nickelodeon on the other hand did the opposite of Cartoon Network. They had simple ideas but creative stories which allowed their shows to run longer and have more seasons while Cartoon Network’s shows had fewer seasons (like 4 or 5 seasons at most) the shows that they showed are a lot more memorable and stayed in our mind even to this day. Both of the ideas of the channels paid off for them in the end and each one has their advantages and disadvantages. Let’s get ready to be entertained story wise and take a look at Nickelodeon’s nicktoons. Welcome to month of Nicktoon-cember.
Let’s start by looking at one of Nickelodeon’s first nicktoons the Rugrats. Yeah you all remember watching this show and even those of you who haven’t have at least heard of it. The Rugrats is the second longest show on Nickelodeon airing from 1991-2004 with 172 episodes and a total of 9 seasons. The show primarily focuses on a group of toddlers and their adventures around their environment to the unawareness of their parents who pay no attention to them. The whole idea of the show was to explore the psyche of toddlers as if to say this us what we might have thought about when we were just babies. We have Tommy the leader of the group and a very brave kid for his age who likes to go on adventures, his best friend Chuckie who is the oldest of the babies (age 2) and a big coward, and the twins Phil and Lil who like to play in mud and collect insects. There was also Angelica a bratty spoiled selfish girl who was the embodiment of evil in the show and Tommy’s cousin. As the show went on new characters also came into the picture. We had Susie a new black girl who moved into the neighborhood and was the same age as Angelica but unlike Angelica who was evil and always picked on the bodies, Susie was nice and looked out for them. There was also Dil, Tommy’s little brother and Kimi who became Chuckie’s stepsister after his dad remarried and just like Tommy she’s quite adventurous.
As I said before the focus of the show was on these babies and there many adventures. Sometimes it be in their houses, other times it would be exploring a mall, playground, food store or toy store with their parents not noticing they’re gone. What makes the show work out so well is that the babies really do think and act like babies. There would be episodes where they find out about something and just sit around trying to figure out what is. When they can’t figure it out they go off exploring to figure it out for themselves. That’s pretty cool, I like how they would always go out and try to figure out stuff on their own which is a good message to kids telling them that if there’s something they don’t understand don’t be afraid to go out, explore, and discover it for yourself. There would also be times when they would misinterpret things. In one episode Tommy’s parents are hosting a yard sale and the babies get the idea in their head that the parents are trying to sell everything in their house. So unbeknownst to their parents the babies begin to secretly move everything outside and when I say everything I mean everything. Pictures, house decorations, kitchenware, and furniture and its funny and interesting how they pull it off. There were also times when Angelica would lie to them about stuff like Boogeyman, the carwash being a monster, Tommy and Chuckie disappearing and being pushed to the side because of their younger siblings, and other stuff. The best thing is you can’t get mad or tease them about any of the stuff they do, think, or believe because their babies and whether we remember it or not we use to think like them. The show provided us with a number of creative stories and settings for the babies to go on and never left you feeling bored or confused which allowed the show to be good from beginning to end for 13 years. If I had to name one problem I had with the show it would have to be the parents. How do these guys still have custody of these babies, they lose them almost every episode. I’m not kidding they lose sight of them almost every episode it’s pretty sad and bad parenting when you think about it. Like there’s this one episode where Tommy and Chuckie sneak away from their dad’s in a toy store, replace their bodies with a stuff doll and monkey, get locked inside the toy store at night, and the dad’s don’t notice their babies are gone until they each get back home. Are you seriously telling me these parents pay little attention to their kids that they don’t even realize when they’re replaced with stuffed dolls? These are some bad parents right here folks. But in the end that’s probably what makes the show work out in the end. It’s the fact that they pay so little attention to their kids and don’t notice them all that much that it allows for the kids to go off on their own and have an adventure where they learn stuff or have fun. In the end the Rugrats was a good show and one that enjoyed watching from beginning to end even when I was in my teen years.