16 Things You Didn't Know About Rugrats

The creator of Rugrats, Paul Germain, spoke at Brandeis University. What he revealed might surprise you.

1. The premise was an afterthought.

When Paul Germain pitched the idea to Klasky-Csupo, they rejected all his ideas that he had really thought out, for which he had prepared pages of plans and visuals. After his ideas grew increasingly less well thought out, he finally presented the idea with these exact words: "A bunch of drooling babies, seemingly incognizant - but when the adults leave the room, the babies talk." That one got picked!

2. The babies look ugly on purpose.

Paul was worried that a show about babies would fail if it was too cute, so the babies purposely are made to look ugly.

3. Tommy's go-to tool is a screwdriver because it's the last thing a baby should have.

Continuing on the theme of making sure the show wasn't too cutesy, they decided Tommy should never go anywhere without his trusty screwdriver.

4. Tommy is named after the creator's son.

Paul's son, Tommy, was six months old when the show was created. Naturally, he named the protagonist for his son. Tommy got major bragging points for this in elementary school, and is now 26 (and single!)

5. The pilot of Rugrats never aired.

They only showed the pilot with a studio audience to test how much kids would like the show. It's only been aired once since then, during the creator's talk at Brandeis University. In the episode, Tommy first discovers the toilet, and does some shenanigans to figure out what's inside. This was the original logo for the show.

6. Angelica and Chuckie were added later.

These two weren't invented until after they screened the pilot. They added them so that there would be some conflict in the show to make the stories more interesting. Chuckie was designed to be the opposite of the brave, exploring Tommy - Chuckie is a scaredy cat, and with one more year of life experience than the rest of the bunch, he knows to be terrified of everything the young'ns are first discovering. Angelica was put there to make the show more interesting. In fact, she was one of the first traditional bullies on TV to be female.

7. Chuckie is the creator's favorite character.

Who wouldn't love that adorable little red-head?

8. Chuckie's missing mother was not planned.

They realized after the first season that it was always Chuckie's dad dropping him off and picking him up from the Pickles residence. Their choices of how to address it were for the parents to be divorced, or for his mother to have passed away. At that time, they weren't allowed to include either plot line, for fear of upsetting kids too much. Instead, they chose to not address it. In the second round of the series, they addressed her absence, explaining that she had passed away.

9. Parents were mad about Angelia.

They thought she was too mean. It turned out many little girls wanted to be like her, because she was one of few girls on TV at that point who was portrayed as powerful.

10. The show also got flack for Boris and Minka.

These two, Tommy's maternal grandparents, were featured in the Passover special. The show got criticism from people saying the characters embodied anti-Semitic stereotypes. In reality, they were modeled after the creator's Jewish grandparents, Seaman and Minka. He had to pick a different name for the grandfather though, for obvious reasons.

11. It was called Rugrats because...

Paul Germain heard his friend who was in the Navy refer to some little kids as rugrats. He thought it was the perfect title.

12. No one really knew what they were doing.

The creator, Paul Germain, was the most experienced person on the production, even though he had never written or produced anything on his own before. Since they had to learn on the job, they actually turned out to be extremely innovative, because they didn't know how things were usually done.

13. The creator left to create Recess halfway through the series.

He disagrees with some of the choices they made after that. He felt Tommy would never have a younger brother, because he loved the idea that the characters always stayed the same age, and having a younger brother implies that Tommy isn't a baby anymore. He also hates the name Dil Pickles, because he thinks it's too cutesy.

14. All the children's voices are done by fully grown women.

This is the only way to keep voices the same over many years in animation.

15. The show never clarifies if the babies speak English and keep it a secret from the parents, or if they speak their own language.

And we'll never know. The creative team decided that this should forever remain a mystery, and purposely kept it vague in the show.

16. Last, but not least: the conspiracy theories are false.

Paul Germain confirmed that the theory that the babies are all dead (http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Rugrats_Theory) and the show reflects Angelica's imagination of what they would be like is false. He thinks it's one of the funniest things he's ever heard. He's actually totally flattered that people care enough about his show to develop such intricate interpretations. He concedes that, after all, all art is open to interpretation, so he supposes he could have been wrong all along about his creation.