• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Are the parents in The Rugrats awful parents?

Status
Not open for further replies.

zeemumu

Member
So as I've gotten older, I've started to notice that the antics that the babies were getting into would actually be horrifying from a parental standpoint. How many times did the parents leave their kids somewhere? I mean I always knew that Angelica's parents were bad with a neglectful mom and dad who spoils her, but damn. Leaving your kids overnight in a toy store? Ditching them with some guy you don't know for no reason? Leaving a mech unattended and easily accessible/operated by 1 year olds? Stranded in the wild twice?
 

rtcn63

Member
827cb00972937c508d76ea2f0977bc32.jpg
 
Yeah, they all kind of sucked. Stu was either a stoner or clinically depressed with a frankly underwhelming career and DiDi got all her childcare advice from shitty help books by a quack doctor.

That said, they at least seemed to love each other and their kids so that counts for a lot. Unlike Angelica's parents who were one burnt pot roast away from a messy divorce.
 
Yeah, they all kind of sucked. Stu was either a stoner or clinically depressed with a frankly underwhelming career and DiDi got all her childcare advice from shitty help books by a quack doctor.

That said, they at least seemed to love each other and their kids so that counts for a lot. Unlike Angelica's parents who were one burnt pot roast away from a messy divorce.
dr lipschitz ain't no quack
 
Tommy's mom was good, his dad was a maniac.

Chucky's dad always did the best he could.

Angelica's parents....yeah.

Phil and Lil's mom was cool, I actually don't remember if they had a dad around.
 

Matsukaze

Member
Tommy's mom was good, his dad was a maniac.

Chucky's dad always did the best he could.

Angelica's parents....yeah.

Phil and Lil's mom was cool, I actually don't remember if they had a dad around
.
They did - he was a mealy-mouthed guy who just kind of blended into the background of most scenes he was in.
 
As a rule the parents in any kids centric show are terrible. Or else they wouldn't get in to interesting hijinks and there would be no show.
 

VariantX

Member
Tommy's mom was good, his dad was a maniac.

Chucky's dad always did the best he could.

Angelica's parents....yeah.

Phil and Lil's mom was cool, I actually don't remember if they had a dad around.

They did, it's just that their mom was such an loud and intense personality that he outright seemed invisible when she's around. Hell, I remember exactly what everyone's parents looked like except for him and I haven't seen the show in decades.
 

Goodstyle

Member
Tommy's mom was good, his dad was a maniac.

About that... I remember an episode from All Grown Up where Tommy is interviewing his Dad, and then his Dad just goes on a psychotic rant about how his brother stole everything from him. I can't find it anymore though since I have no idea what ep it happens in.
 

PSqueak

Banned
You know, the concept of stu is...kinda pretty sad?

He was an inventor, which he dreaming of being since he was a child, he designed toys mostly (but he also made some other inventions), so the concept sounds like it would be a child's dream com thru: Your dad is a tv styled inventor who makes toys for you.

But even in the cartoon, he was not very successful, despite inventing highly advanced toys, he was most of the time a failure and often you could see it that it really weighted on him.

That said, when he did hit it right, he hit it big, i mean, making an actual fully operational kaiju sized robot for a Disney land level amusement park has to have netted him pretty good money.

That one episode he was in personally portrayed him as a quack while the movie portrayed him as a big deal

That kinda make sense in universe, he was a quack but his experience dealing with Chuckie and Tommy made him realize everything he wrote was shit and said, thank to the new hands on experience, he would re-vamp his entire method all together.
 

zeemumu

Member
You know, the concept of stu is...kinda pretty sad?

He was an inventor, which he dreaming of being since he was a child, he designed toys mostly (but he also made some other inventions), so the concept sounds like it would be a child's dream com thru: Your dad is a tv styled inventor who makes toys for you.

But even in the cartoon, he was not very successful, despite inventing highly advanced toys, he was most of the time a failure and often you could see it that it really weighted on him.

That said, when he did hit it right, he hit it big, i mean, making an actual fully operational kaiju sized robot for a Disney land level amusement park has to have netted him pretty good money.

.

Not to mention most of those machines were so user-friendly that babies could use them effectively.

I'll never understand how the head was held on by paperclips and rubber bands though. That can't have passed OSHA compliance.
 
They did, it's just that their mom was such an loud and intense personality that he outright seemed invisible when she's around. Hell, I remember exactly what everyone's parents looked like except for him and I haven't seen the show in decades.

Yeah, same.

I just looked him up and fuck, I have no memory of that goofy-looking dude.
 
They did - he was a mealy-mouthed guy who just kind of blended into the background of most scenes he was in.
He was an absurd proposition.


Lipschitz was a commentary on the overabundance of poorly researched and flawed parental guides that were even more common in the late 80s than today.
 

Ivan 3414

Member
They did, it's just that their mom was such an loud and intense personality that he outright seemed invisible when she's around. Hell, I remember exactly what everyone's parents looked like except for him and I haven't seen the show in decades.

Well, it wasn't just that she had an overbearing personality. A lot of times the dad was just not in the episode. The mom would hang out with the other parents and the dad was nowhere to be seen. She usually appeared alone for most of the series, especially towards the earlier seasons.

Everyone knows Jonathan was the most pitiable character of the show.

IIRC he appeared in a few episodes and was kind of a dick
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom