One of the First Nicktoons:

I was in first grade when Rugrats premiered on Nickelodeon.  It debuted alongside two other cartoons, “Doug” and “Ren & Stimpy”.  All three cartoons were runaway successes.  Ren & Stimpy lasted for five years, Doug for three years, and Rugrats lasted for a whopping twelve(!) years, not counting a brief lapse in production from 1994 to 1996.

The Original Premise!

The story of Rugrats is a classic example of a show jumping the shark.  When the show premiered, it was a show that dealt with the world through the eyes of a one year old, and how such a naive baby would view the complexities of day to day life.  Of course, there were other babies for Tommy Pickles, our hero, to interact with, but the entire point of the show was to present things through his perspective.  By the time the show ended in 2004, the show had become little more than an exercise in multi-culturalism.  The powers that be had decided to add a black character, an asian character, and an annoying newborn character for whatever reason!

From Great to Garbage…

The general idea is that The Rugrats Movie, which centered around the concept of a new addition to the Pickles’ houshold, baby Dil, was the beginning of the end for the show.  Honestly, I disagree.  The Rugrats Movie was certainly the point where the show took a major nosedive though.  To me, the beginning of the end for Rugrats was the introduction of Susie in early 1993.  It was no coincidence that the show was only renewed for one more season after Susie was introduced to the series.  The show had run it’s course.  When the executives and writers decided to inject mutliculturalism into the show, Rugrats started to die a long, painful death.

In the glory days of Rugrats, one of the founding fathers of the show was Paul Germaine, who had even named the main character, Tommy, after his own kid.  After the series had run it’s course and was done in 1994, Germaine left the show to pursue other projects.  Meanwhile, Rugrats continued to pick up steam, like any exceptionally written show would, and was eventually moved to Prime Time.  In an unprecedented move, Nickelodeon decided to renew Rugrats, and it was never the same from that point on.  Case in point, all of the good Rugrats episodes are in the first three seasons.  All of the excellent episodes are in the first two seasons… and personally, all of my favorite episodes are in the FIRST season.

Bringing The Show Back…

So now that Rugrats was back, with a new crew, and driven by the promise of more money to be made, the show had only downward to go.  To be honest with you, I don’t blame Nickelodeon for bringing back the show after it had a surge in popularity.  It would have been bad business to not order new episodes for a show that was becoming more popular every day, but as the show continued to dwindle in quality, Nickelodeon should have let it die with dignity instead of sucking it dry.  As a matter of fact, a lot of people believe that the show could still continue to thrive, due to the fact that Spongebob Squarepants is now in it’s 10th year and shows no sign whatsoever of slowing down.

Like I mentioned previously, the show continued on cruise control from 1996 – 1998, when the struggling mule of a show was saddled with even more weight to burden… a brand new character and a feature length movie!  The movie was the “official” debut of the newborn character, Dil Pickles (get it?  ha ha ha!)  And even though the franchise continued to make money, milking the popularity created from the quality writing of Paul Germaine and his crew, many fans of the show will point to this period of time when the show started to go downhill.  Like I said, the show was already dying by this point, but the movie was like a terminal disease to the show, it only sped up the process!

No Pride Whatsoever!

Nickelodeon decided that there was too much money to be made, and was willing to ride the show right into the ground, continuing the franchise for two more movies, four more seasons, and two lame spinoffs.  Like I said before, I don’t blame the network for trying to profit off of a popular show, but if they had handled this show better, it might still be in production now!  And what more, the show could have maintained a consistant quality throughout the years, and stood the test of time as one of the greatest animated shows of all time.  It was litereally, that good!  But because of their greed and their short-sidedness, Rugrats will go down in history as a botched show, and a prime example of how to suck the life out of runaway hit.