Rugrats and Me
a dumb tv show about kids becomes a touchstone
The year was 1992 and I was being suffocated by the overly sweet charm of Barney and Friends. Sure, my daughter loved the show, sang all the songs, knew all the characters. We had Barney dolls and Barney bedsheets and Barney videos to watch when the show wasn’t airing. I couldn’t stand that purple dinosaur, hated him with my very life, but Natalie loved him and I was grateful for the down time I had when she would sit in front of the tv, mesmerized by all things Barney. But damn, did he get on my nerves. The “I Love You” song was an ever present ditty in our house and I grew tired of it, in the same way I grew tired of Barney’s laugh, of everything being a Big Lesson. I longed for Natalie to move out of her Barney phase, but she seemed fixated on it. Until we discovered The Rugrats.
Nick Jr. was a fairly new concept at the time, and I hadn’t made the switch over to Nickelodeon yet because I felt that Nat was, at two, too young for those shows. But a friend urged me to put it on for her, and she was enthralled from start. Little kids, just like her! And they did and said funny things! I remember her laughing with glee at some Rugrats antics, moving herself closer to the tv as if she wanted to climb into the set and be part of the Rugrats crew. She was hooked. And frankly, so was I.
I immediately honed in on Chuckie - an anxious rule follower who always wants to do the right thing. Natalie took a liking to Tommy Pickles, a diapered baby with a heart of gold. We both hated Angelica. And I loved the way they portrayed the parents; mostly at wit’s end. This was so different from the usual fare of Barney’s sing song lessons and Hap Palmer’s almost too cute videos. It was a wide departure from our beloved Sesame Street. And we adored it. We watched Rugrats together. There was no plopping her down in front of the television while I cooked dinner - when Rugrats came on, it was mommy and me time.
I remember how Natalie made me read the short title card that came on before each show. If for some reason I wasn’t in the living room when the show started, she would scream for me - “Mommy, the TITLE!” and I’d have to run into the room because that title -accompanied by a short burst of music - would disappear in a flash. Sometimes I wouldn’t get there in time and would make up a title, which was always met with and indignant “Mommy, you made that up!” I learned to sit myself in the living room a good minute before Rugrats started so i wouldn’t miss the title. And then she would make her way into my lap and we’d cuddle on the couch while watching our favorite characters do supremely silly, charming, amusing things for two episodes.
I cherished those half hours. I knew how fast time would go. I knew that she wouldn’t always want to cuddle on the couch while laughing at Tommy and Chuckie. And I knew that there wasn’t that many kids shows that I would gladly watch with my daughter. The antics of the Rugrats crew always came with some kind of lesson - but not the overtly “I’m teaching you something” lessons of Barney. This was more subtle, and lessons more worldly than “eat your fruits and vegetables.” She learned about friendship, about doing the right thing, about respect and cooperation. Mostly she got to see kids have real, down to earth qualities. They cried, they misbehaved, they got into fights, they got into mischief. They acted like real children, and the adults sometimes were at a loss as to how to deal with them, which pleased me greatly. As comforting as the show was to Natalie, it was just as comforting to me. Yes, it was a silly little children’s cartoon, but was it really? Or was it a cartoon for adults to watch with children? Either way, the memories I have of watching Rugrats with Nat are sweet.
All good things must pass and eventually Rugrats gave way to Power Rangers. I mourned the loss of that special couch time together. The Power Rangers were a whole different vibe; Natalie and her little brother DJ would run around the living room, chasing invisible bad guys, doing Power Ranger things. This was their thing, not mine. And that was ok. The Rugrats days would always be a good memory for me. Time marches on, and each era of your kid’s life is marked by a different pop culture experience.
Rugrats debuted thirty years ago today. That fact caught me off guard this morning, made me suck in my breath and take stock of things. Thirty years. Natalie has come a long way from those days in front of the tv. A lifetime of things have happened in the intervening years. Sometimes it feels like yesterday that I was reading those title cards to her; sometimes it feels like ancient history. I want to always hold on to those days, to those memories. I never want to forget the feeling of sharing something so sweet with my daughter, the way we laughed together. She has her own comforts now. She’ll spend hours watching episodes of The O.C. when she’s feeling nostalgic. The passage of time has gotten to her, too. I wonder how much of the Rugrats years she remembers. I hope they’re stored somewhere safe.
I’m often wistful for the Rugrats time, and every once in a while I’ll put on an episode on Amazon Prime just to bring back that feeling, to really hone in on the memories. And I find myself reading the title card out loud, to no one in particular. Or maybe to the ghosts of those years.