My Thoughts on the "Rugrats" Trilogy
Note:
This review was originally written on Saturday July 1, 2023, and was posted on DeviantART on Sunday July 16, 2023. I decided to post this now because the last two posts on here have been pretty political, and the stuff I have posted on here that isn't political has been exclusively about Ghost in the Shell. I wanted to show my readers that I am interested in other things besides just politics, history, and Ghost in the Shell, that I have a pretty wide and diverse set of interests in film, TV, and video games. One of those interests is that I also like cartoons, and not just ones from Japan 🇯🇵, the stuff we call anime, but cartoons from the good ol' US of A 🇺🇸, even if the animation in a lot of them was actually done in South Korea 🇰🇷.
So, technically, nearly every major cartoon series that's been made in the past three decades, going from the 1990s to now, has been an American and South Korean co-production 🇺🇸🇰🇷. Why do these animation studios often outsource their animation to studios in South Korea 🇰🇷? Well, it's because it's cheaper and faster to have the animation done by South Koreans 🇰🇷 in South Korea 🇰🇷 than Americans 🇺🇸 in the United States 🇺🇸. Of course, not every cartoon show on these TV networks and streaming services have had their animation outsourced to South Korea 🇰🇷. Some shows like The Loud House have their animation outsourced to Canada 🇨🇦. So, it isn't just South Korea 🇰🇷 that has to do all the work on these animation shows, it also Canada 🇨🇦, our neighbor to the north.
Anyway, of the cartoon shows that have aired on TV in the United States 🇺🇸, most of my favorites are from Nickelodeon, the kid's TV network owned by Paramount. I was more of a Nickelodeon kid growing up. That's not to say that I didn't watch anything on Cartoon Network, or even Disney Channel. But, a lot of the shows that resonated with me the most, and the ones I keep coming back to were aired on Nickelodeon. I'm talking SpongeBob SquarePants 🧽, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, The Fairly OddParents, and even The Mighty B! 🐝 and Back at the Barnyard among others.
There were even some Nick Jr. shows I liked growing up too like Ni Hao, Kai-Lan and Wow, Wow, Wubbzy. Of course, that's even mentioning the obscure as hell shows on Nicktoons, formally known as Nicktoons Network. The fact that purchased the Nickelodeon Kart Racers trilogy collection for the Nintendo Switch recently last month or the month before that should tell how much I like Nickelodeon and its various properties. Even if Nickelodeon, the network itself, makes some pretty bad decisions as far as their programming goes that I personally dislike.
The only show that I didn't really watch growing up, and wasn't really apart of my childhood was Rugrats, and also Ren & Stimpy and Doug, and all of the other 90s Nickelodeon shows that everyone loves, but that's beside the point. Rugrats was kind of before my time, and even though it was still airing in the 2000s until 2004. I just didn't really watch it. Nor did I really watch any of the other shows made by Klasky Csupo that aired exclusively on Nickelodeon. The only one I sort of watched was All Grown-Up!, the spin-off sequel series to Rugrats.
But, even then, I only watched that one episode where they all go that summer camp, and Tommy and the others got lost in the woods 🌲 trying to find this ghost 👻 that's haunting the camp. I only recently watched the entire series of All Grown-Up! on Paramount+ earlier this year. It's pretty good. It's no where near as bad as anyone has made out to be over the years. In fact, I'll go as far to say that it's probably one of the best spin-off shows that's ever been created for any show. It's certainly better than stuff like Planet Sheen, The Patrick Star Show, Kamp Koral, and The Casagrandes.
So, given that I was on this sort of Rugrats kick, I decided to watch all three Rugrats movies since they were all available on Paramount+, which I do have access to. And I liked them. They're all good, decent movies, and they're just as good for the longtime fans of Rugrats as well as newcomers. The only one that I would say isn't good for newcomers, and is only good for fans is Rugrats Go Wild. But, that's only because it's a crossover movie, and crossover movies usually have limited appeal. Usually just to the two fan bases of the two properties being crossed over.
I'm not talking the MCU or any of these modern cinematic universes or attempts at cinematic universes, I'm talking actual crossover movies like Freddy vs. Jason, Sadako vs. Kayako, and the Alien vs. Predator movies, Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. And of course TV animated crossovers like Simpsorama, The Simpsons Guy, the "Rufus" episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series that was a crossover with Kim Possible, the "Spats" episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series that was a crossover with The Proud Family, the "Lax" episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series that was a crossover with Recess, the "Morpholomew" episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series that was a crossover with American Dragon: Jake Long, the "Say Uncle" episode of Steven Universe that was a crossover with Uncle Grandpa,The Grim Adventures of the KND, and of course, my personal favorite, the Jimmy Timmy Power Hour trilogy.
Anyway, back to the Rugrats movies. They're all flawed in their own ways, and I do prefer one over the others. But, I will say that they're all fairly consistent with each other in terms of quality. Like, they don't vary in quality as much as the SpongeBob 🧽 movies do. And even the ones I don't like as much aren't completely irredeemable train wrecks either. You'll see what I actually think of each film shortly. Since I now have the Blu-Ray collection 💿 with all three movies, what better time to post my thoughts on them? I'll probably rewatch these films later on in the near future after post this review on here. So, with that all out of the way, enjoy the review(s).
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I just got finished watching the entire Rugrats movie trilogy, and by that I mean, I watched them a week ago, and I'm just barely posting my thoughts on them now since I didn't have Internet for the past few days.
The Rugrats Movie
I'll start off with the very first movie, simply called, The Rugrats Movie. I don't have a lot to say about the first one, other than I thought it was good. It had some nice heartfelt moments with Tommy and Dil. The whole movie is essentially centered around their relationship, and around Tommy coming to terms with being a big brother, and I thought they did a good job with that. I liked Angelica's plot, like the B plot of this movie is entirely focused on her and her trying to retrieve her Cynthia doll from the babies after Dil stole it from her. Once again, Angelica proves that she is one of the best characters this franchise has. I liked all the moments with the adults, especially the stuff involving Stu, and him flying a Pterodactyl glider thing that he built, which I think is supposed to be character from Reptar, the show or series of movies that the babies watch.
I could've done without the musical numbers and singing, but they didn't completely detract from my enjoyment of this movie. You can tell they only put them in because it's an animated movie, and they thought that every animated movie needed to be a musical and have singing just like Disney. You can tell that this was their first time making a Rugrats movie, and a theatrical Rugrats movie at that, and they were all really excited and enjoying getting to play with this larger canvas, getting to work on something that's feature length rather than 11 minutes. I will say that this is only one of the trilogy doesn't involve them being on vacation. The next two movies are both about the characters going on vacation. Speaking of which...
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
Next is Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, the one where—as the title suggests—the Rugrats go to Paris...sort of. Even though the movie's called Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, the Rugrats don't actually spend that much time in Paris. Most of the movie takes place in EuroReptarland, which is in Paris yes, but it isn't the full city, like we aren't exploring any of the landmarks, or the eating of the cuisine, or absorbing any of the culture and language.
That's like saying you're visiting Orlando, but all you do is spend all of your time there visiting one of the many theme parks in the city like Disney World or Universal Studios Florida. You don't visit any other part of the city, or try any of the food, or see any of the landmarks or famous sites, you just spend all your time there at one of those theme parks. Even Didi's a bit disappointed that they're just stuck at this amusement park/resort the whole time, and that they didn't get try any authentic French food 🇫🇷. All they get to eat is Japanese food 🇯🇵, which is pretty good, I like Japanese food 🇯🇵, but you don't exactly travel all the way to Paris, France 🇫🇷 just to eat Japanese food 🇯🇵 at a theme park resort no less.
That's like making a movie called The Loud House in Osaka, but most of the movie takes place at Universal Studios Japan 🇯🇵. It's a bit misleading, and not taking full advantage of the city the movie is set in. It's not delivering on its premise. Or to use actual example, the original English title for Godzilla vs. Gigan was Godzilla on Monster Island, and yet, a very small percentage of the movie actually takes place on Monster Island. Like only 2 or 1% of that movie's runtime is actually spent on Monster Island.
Another good example, for all your horror fans out there, would be Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, the last Friday the 13th movie made by Paramount before the franchise moved over to New Line Cinema (which in of itself is now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery). That movie's premise is in its title: Jason going to Manhattan, and doing what he does best: killing people 🩸. And yet, most of the movie doesn't actually take place in Manhattan.
Most of it actually takes place on a boat heading to Manhattan, and Jason just kills all the teens that are on the boat, and it's just a typical Friday the 13th movie, nothing special about it whatsoever. Only the last third of the movie takes place in Manhattan, and Jason hardly kills anyone while he's there. The most he does knock over a trash can while stalking through Time Square. There are no inventive kills that utilize the unique setting of Manhattan. All of the unique Manhattan kills were all scrapped in the early stages of the development process.
That's another good example of a movie that has a very specific premise, an idea, and has that premise in its title, and yet never actually delivered on that premise. This movie is sort of like that when it approaches its premise of the Rugrats going to Paris. It's only slightly better than Jason Takes Manhattan, because the Rugrats are physically in Paris for the entirety of the movie. It's just that they spent the majority of their time in Paris at a theme park that's in Paris, but don't really explore or spend any time in the city outside of that theme park.
The only character in the movie that actually explores Paris in any meaningful way is Spike, the dog 🐕, who falls in love with this poodle 🐩 that he meets, and they start spending time together. They have their little Lady & the Tramp moment. The movie should really be called Rugrats in EuroReptarland+Spike in Paris: The Movie. But, I suppose that doesn't sound nearly as good as Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, which is why they decided to call it that. They wanted a title would grab people's attention, and nothing grabs people's attention more than the Rugrats going to Paris. Like, "Wow, the Rugrats are going to Paris 😲? I got to go see this 🤩." And then they see the movie, and most of it's in a Japanese theme park 🇯🇵 🫤.
Most of the Rugrats' exploration of Paris is in the third act, and they do it while piloting a Reptar mech and being chased by a RoboSnail mech piloted by Jean-Claude, one of the main bad guys of the movie. Yes, unlike the first Rugrats movie, this one actually has villains. In fact, it's the only one in the trilogy that has villains, unless you count that leopard 🐆 in Rugrats Go Wild.
The villains are Coco LaBouche and Jean-Claude, her assistant. We do get that cool shot where they climb all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and hanging off of it just like King Kong at the top of the Empire State Building. Oh, and the wedding scene 💍 is in Notre-Dame, but that's really about it for the City of Light. If you're going to do a movie where the Rugrats go to Paris, then I expect to actually see them explore Paris, causing as much mayhem and chaos as possible as they do in normal Rugrats episodes. Don't just have them be stuck at a theme park for most of the film.
I mean, I understand EuroReptarland is the whole reason why they all go to Paris in the first place, but that's just a plot device, it's just the thing to get the plot going. You don't have to have the entire movie take place there, just a little bit. You can have the scenes where Stu meets Coco, Angelica meets Coco and strikes a deal with her, Stu rebuilds the Reptar animatronic (which is basically a mech as I said), the Rugrats and their parents meet Kira and Kimi, the Rugrats explore the park, go on some of the rides, and even when the Rugrats watch the Reptar stage show. All of the main key events of the movie, but have the rest of it set in Paris, like have the Rugrats and their parents explore the city.
Maybe, that would've required a longer runtime, but if you're really fixated on having an hour long running time, then you better think about what you're spending most of that runtime on, and whether you actually want to be spending as much time on that as you are or not. Speaking of Kimi, even though this movie partially exists to introduce her to the series, she's not in it that much. Kira has more screen time and lines than her. Even Coco and Jean-Claude have more screen time and lines than her. It's so bizarre. You made a movie specifically to introduce a new character, and you give her very little screen time in the actual movie.
Before I saw this movie, I was under the impression that Kimi that would be in the majority of the movie. Like, once she was introduced, she would be a main character with the Rugrats gang for the rest of the film. But, no, she's only in like two or three scenes in the entire movie. One of them is her introduction scene, one of them is the scene where they're riding that green goo ride with Chas and Coco, and they walk out and escape and run amok throughout the park trying to find the "princess" for Chuckie to be his new mom, and one of them is the climax of the movie where they're trying to get to Notre-Dame in that Reptar mech to stop the wedding between Chas and Coco.
That all being said, I still enjoyed the movie. I really liked the stuff with Chuckie and him wanting to have a mother. That's the emotional crux of the movie, and it totally works. And although I don't like the fact that majority of the movie takes place in EuroReptarland, I did like the stuff that was in EuroReptarland. I liked that green goo ride that Chas and Coco ride with the kids, I liked that parade, and I especially liked the stage show. It was really well-animated, and well colored, like I liked the colors in that scene. It genuinely looked beautiful. If there was a stage show like that for Godzilla, I'd consider watching it. This seems like a theme park that I would actually want to go to if it existed. So, I liked it, even with its huge flaws, and it's probably my favorite of the three 👍.
Rugrats Go Wild
Last, but not least, we have Rugrats Go Wild, the crossover movie with The Wild Thornberrys. This one's got Bruce Willis. Now, right off the bat, I got to say that this is probably the weakest of the three. It's not a bad movie by any means, but compared to Rugrats in Paris and even The Rugrats Movie, this one is weaker. I say that, but it's not as if both The Rugrats Movie and Rugrats in Paris weren't both flawed movies. They were pretty flawed, especially Rugrats in Paris, but the good parts of those movies definitely outweighed the bad. The same thing can also be said for this movie as well. Now, I'm sure a lot of Rugrats fans and a lot of Wild Thornberrys fans were extremely hyped for this movie. To see these two shows, these characters finally come together in one movie.
Wild Thornberrys fans were especially hyped because this was technically one of two Wild Thornberrys movies that year. The actual Wild Thornberrys Movie came out that exact same year, in 2003, and only a few months apart from this movie. So, fans of The Wild Thornberrys were getting double the Wild Thornberrys action, and one of them was also going to have Rugrats characters in it. But, from what it seems like, the movie didn't really live up to their expectations, and it's not entirely hard to see why. The movie kind of has the same issue that Rugrats in Paris does, where it doesn't completely deliver on its premise. Not to same extent, but it definitely suffers from that same issue.
Mainly in which characters they decided to pair up with which. They paired up Angelica and Debbie, they pair up the main Rugrats babies with Nigel, and they pair up Eliza and Darwin with Spike, who is voiced by Bruce Willis. Out of those pairings, I think Angelica and Debbie is the only one that actually makes any sense because they're both girls ♀︎, they're both bossy and self-centered, and they're both blonde 😁. The stuff involving those two is probably the best stuff in the entire film, besides the stuff involving the Rugrats adults.
I do think it was a mistake not having Eliza interact with the actual Rugrats babies considering that she's the main character of The Wild Thornberrys. It's so weird having a crossover movie where the main character of one of the shows being crossed over doesn't interact with the main characters of the other show that's being crossed over. That would be like if they made a crossover between The Loud House and SpongeBob 🧽, and they didn't have SpongeBob 🧽 interact with the Loud family at all, or interact with them very little.
And instead, they mainly interacted with Squidward 🐙, or Mr. Krabs 🦀, or Patrick. I would hate it if they did a Loud House and SpongeBob 🧽 crossover, and they just had the Loud family mainly interact with Patrick. I think that would get really grating really fast, especially if they wrote Patrick poorly, and just had being this buffoonish asshole who's completely unlikable and you just want him to get off the screen. Still, it would sort of be amusing to see Luan tell Patrick one of her puns, and she asks, "Get it?" like she usually does after she tells a pun, and he says, "I don't get it."
The first Jimmy Timmy Power Hour special also kind of had that issue since Jimmy and Timmy interact with each other very little in that first crossover special. Like, there are only two scenes where the two characters are on screen together, and interact with each other. Every other time, they're separated from each other, in each other's universes, dealing with each other's problems. And they only interact with the side characters from each others. Timmy most just interacts with Carl, Sheen, Cindy, and Libby, and Jimmy barely interacts with anyone in The Fairly OddParents cast, except for Cosmo and Wanda, Timmy's dad, Vicky, and of course, Mr. Crocker. This was rectified in the following two Jimmy Timmy Power Hours, especially the third one, Jimmy Timmy Power Hour 3: The Jerkinators, where Jimmy and Timmy spend the majority of their screen time together. But, in this case, there's only one Rugrats/Wild Thornberrys crossover movie, and there are no sequels where they could've corrected or made up for this.
That being said, the stuff we do get with Eliza is pretty good. I do like her and Darwin's interactions with Spike, they're very entertaining. It's very understandable why they mainly had Eliza interact with Spike in this movie because she can talk to animals, and the only animal character from Rugrats that they had in the movie is Spike. And having him spend time with her, we can gain more insight into his character, get to see what his personality is, that we wouldn't get otherwise. And Bruce Willis, to his credit, did a pretty decent job voicing him.
That was probably the one thing that the whole movie was marketed on when it originally came to theaters, like that was meant to be a main selling point for people to go out and see it: the fact that Bruce Willis is in it, and he voices Spike. It was at least the thing that was supposed to be the thing that would entice the adults to go see the movie since the kids watching at the time probably had no idea who Bruce Willis was, even though was he still in mainstream Hollywood movies at the time; Armageddon wasn't that long ago by the time this movie came out. Unlike later in his career where he just did direct-to-DVD movies 📀 that hardly anyone watched.
I believe the first teaser trailer for the movie just featured Spike and Eliza. Like, it was like a therapy session where Spike was letting all of his troubles, all of his grievances out to Eliza, while Eliza, being his therapist, is writing it all down. I love that they play Spike in this movie like he's this goofy moron. Like, he doesn't think or plan ahead at all. He just runs his mouth, and doesn't know when to shut up. He's also kind of naïve and oblivious. But, even if he's not the smartest character, he still does the right thing in the end, and does save the day.
Certainly the stuff involving Eliza, Darwin, and Spike is a lot better than the stuff involving the Rugrats and Nigel. Nigel isn't really Nigel for most of the movie. He spends a good portion of the film acting like a baby. Basically, what happens is that he spots the Rugrats down below, on a cliff top, and he decides to go down to check on them to see if they're okay, and accompany them through the jungle 🌴 since, you know, they're babies.
But, he slips, and falls down the mountain, and lands on the jungle floor 🌴 below, before getting hit on the head with a coconut 🥥. This causes him to have amnesia and start acting like a baby. Like, he just forgets who he is, and completely regresses to being an infant mentally. While, this does put him on the same level as the Rugrats, or a bit lower, it also means that he can't guide them out of the jungle 🌴, and help them get back to the beach back to their parents. So, they get even more lost than they were before bumping into Nigel.
That's not to say there isn't any entertainment value to be had in this subplot, but I could've personally done without baby Nigel with amnesia. Like, if the Rugrats just have to spend most of their time with Nigel, then I would've preferred if he was just normal Nigel the whole time, and not Nigel who acts like a baby because he got hit in the head with a coconut 🥥.
He does ultimately return to normal after he hits head again, this time until the hatch door of the minisub, and he does do his best to comfort the Rugrats, and also educate them about the different sea life they see while descending down to the bottom of the ocean. I wish he was like that for the whole movie. On a side note, I know Nigel is voiced by Tim Curry, and he does an excellent job as always. But after watching this movie, I kind of think that his voice for Nigel sounds a lot like his voice for Professor Calamitous in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, only with a slightly more Australian bent to it 🇦🇺 of course since Nigel Thornberry was heavily inspired by Steve Irwin.
There's also the issue with Donnie. Donnie doesn't get specifically paired up with any one character or any group of characters. He kind of jumps in and out of everyone else's subplots, until they all converge at the end. But, he spends a lot of his screen time, with Chuckie. Basically, Chuckie gets separated from the group, and gets mixed up with Donnie. Donnie steals all of his clothes, including his glasses 👓, and starts running around the jungle 🌴, doing his usual Donnie things, while all the Rugrats babies all think that he's actually Chuckie, until the two finally switch back towards the end of the movie. But, before that, Chuckie is stuck wearing Donnie's shorts, and is left to wander around the jungle 🌴 with no glasses. The Donnie and Chuckie stuff is probably my least favorite part of this movie, like I like this stuff involving them way less than I do even the stuff involving Nigel and the other Rugrats.
Speaking of the Rugrats, Kimi is even less of a character in this than she was in Rugrats in Paris. I don't know how well the Rugrats show itself utilized her, if it used her well or not, if she has a personality in that or not. But, in these movies, Kimi is very poorly utilized. It's worse in this movie because she barely says anything, and the things she does say aren't worth mentioning or remembering. She hardly does anything, and the things she does do are also not worth mentioning or remembering. She has no standout funny moments, no funny one-liners, nothing. She is as close to being a non-entity in this movie as you can possibly get.
After watching both of these movies, I can see why people liked Kimi more in All Grown-Up!, than in Rugrats. She had more of a personality, she had entire episodes dedicated to her, she actually did stuff, and she actually had a few memorable moments and lines. I mean, Kimi wasn't really my favorite character in All Grown-Up!, I kind of found her a bit annoying at times, but she's still better in that show than she in either of these two movies or in the main Rugrats series. Preteen Kimi > Baby Kimi.
Even her mother, Kira gets the short end of the stick in this movie. In Rugrats in Paris, Kira was a fully-fledged character. She had personality, she had a huge and important role in the story, and she had way more lines and screen time than her daughter did, which makes it all the more ironic considering that it was a Rugrats movie, and Rugrats has always been more about the babies than the adults. And yet, in that movie, the adult character was way more well-developed than the baby character.
But, in this movie, Rugrats Go Wild, Kira was way less screen time and way less lines than she did in Rugrats in Paris. It's kind of a reverse of what happened in that movie, where the daughter technically has more lines and screen time than the mother. The most that we see Kira do in this movie is get sea sick 🤢, and throw up 🤮 off the side of Stu's rinky-dink fishing boat. It's quite a shame because I really like Kira. I like her more than Kimi in all honesty. I like her relationship with Chas. I wish she got to do more in this movie, rather than being along for the ride, and being on the sidelines for the entire film. Especially, when this failed vacation was meant to be her and Chas's honeymoon.
There's also the issue of singing. Yes, just like the first movie, this one has singing too. Rugrats in Paris really toned down the singing, which is part of the reason why I like it the most. The most singing that movie had was in that karaoke scene at that Japanese restaurant 🇯🇵, where those sumo wrestler waiters are singing popular songs at the time. And also the scene where they're flying Paris, and Chuckie sings about wanting have a mom. That's the only true musical moment in Rugrats in Paris.
But, this movie brought back the singing in full force, as we have at least three major musical numbers, if I'm remembering it correctly. They aren't bad, like if you aren't into musicals like me, you can sort of tolerate them. I think the best musical number is the one with Spike, where he's narrowly avoiding that leopard 🐆, Siri, and he naïvely thinks that she's just like an ordinary house cat 🐈, when she's clearly not.
But, that's mostly because Bruce Willis himself was a singer (I say was because he's retired now), so he knew what he was doing when he sung that song. But, at least, they did feature at least one needle drop in the movie, with that The Clash song, "Should I Stay or Should I Go," which Debbie and Angelica both listen to while they're driving the RV to look for the babies. It's nice little fun, cute moment between both characters. Needle drops are probably my preferred type of music in movies and TV shows, besides orchestral scores. Like, if you're going to have songs in your movie or TV show, I'd rather be a needle drop of a pre-existing license song, than actual song sung by the characters in the movie or show like in a musical. That's why I like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies so much because all of their music are needle drops.
I really hate musicals, they are by far my least favorite genre of movies. Why do you think I haven't really watched any of the Disney Renaissance movies? The only Disney animated movies from the 1990s and 2000s that I like are The Rescuers Down Under 🇦🇺, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Emperor's New Groove, Dinosaur, Lilo & Stitch, Chicken Little, and An Extremely Goofy Movie.
Yes, I actually prefer An Extremely Goofy Movie over A Goofy Movie, and a lot of it has do with the lack of singing, and the use of needle drops, especially the iconic disco scene 🪩 set to "Shake Your Groove Thing" by Peaches & Herb. That's like the one scene from that entire movie that everyone remembers; it's the scene that they based DVD and Blu-Ray cover off of 📀💿. And none of those are really considered to be apart of the Disney Renaissance, but before and after the Disney Renaissance. But, I like them the most because they aren't musicals and don't have singing in them. The only music those films have orchestral scores or needle drops.
Emperor's New Groove is the only one out of all those has something resembling musical numbers that bookend the film. But even then, the songs are both sung by Tom Jones, and not by any of the characters in the movie. Like, Kuzco and Pacha don't break out into song or anything. They were meant to in the original version of the movie called Kingdom of the Sun ☀️, which was going to be a more traditional Disney animated movie with singing and musical numbers. Kuzco was called Manco in that version of the movie, and Pacha was a younger guy closer to Kuzco or Manco's age, looked pretty much identical to him, and was voiced by Owen Wilson instead of John Goodman. It was supposed to be a modern Disney animated take on The Prince and Pauper, but set in the Inca Empire. But then they scrapped that version, and just decided to make the movie a straight up comedy with no singing or musical numbers at all, except for the two Tom Jones songs.
And Lilo & Stitch has original songs, that are in the Hawaiian Native language, but none of them are actually sung by the characters in the film, and are purely non-diegetic, meaning they aren't actually heard by the characters in-universe. If you are going to create original songs for a movie or show, I rather be closer to the Cowboy Bebop approach where the songs are not sung by the characters themselves, but are both songs that exist within that movie or show's world that the characters listen to, and also are non-diegetic.
Another notable thing is that the movie is rated PG, whereas the previous two Rugrats movies were both rated G. Why wouldn't they be? They're animated kid's movies about babies 🍼. G ratings seem like the perfect rating for a movie like that. But, no, this movie was slapped with a PG rating. Meaning that Rugrats Go Wild is the first Rugrats movie to be rated PG. It's just like how Star Wars, Episode III–Revenge of the Sith was the first Star Wars movie to be rated PG-13.
I don't really know why this movie is rated PG. There's nothing particularly egregious or worse in this movie than anything in the first two Rugrats. This movie probably should've just been rated G. It wouldn't have made much of a difference, and it probably would've been better for it. And this was 2003, this was still back when movies like this still got G ratings. Before the MPAA (now called just the MPA) just slapped the PG rating onto any and every animated movie for kids regardless of content; causing the G rating to fade into irrelevancy. So, it could've easily been done that if they wanted to, but they didn't. But, they gave it a PG rating, when a G rating would've sufficed.
But, flaws aside, this is still a very fun movie. There are good moments in this movie, and it is still assuming to see the Wild Thornberrys characters interact with the Rugrats characters, even if the pairing they went with weren't ideal, at least to me. A lot of the best moments in this movie to me are the moments with Angelica and Debbie, by far the best pairing between Rugrats and Wild Thornberrys characters, all the stuff involving the adults, and the finale where all the characters from both shows come together to rescue Nigel and the kids. And the epilogue where they finally get to go on the Lipschitz Cruise 🛳️, and have a grand ol' time.
Also, Bruce Willis as Spike was indeed a treat, I liked all the stuff involving him. Even that song he sang wasn't bad, easily best original song in the whole movie. If you're a fan of either of these shows, you'll definitely get a kick out of this movie. If you aren't, or if you don't care about crossovers, then this movie probably won't do that much for you. You'd probably be better off just watching the previous two Rugrats movies, or watching the standalone Wild Thornberrys movie, which as I said was released the same exact year as this movie.
But, with that said, even if this wasn't best of the three, Rugrats Go Wild did at least help this trilogy make it to finish line in one piece. Which is not really something that can be said for all trilogies, as Cody from PointlessHub said in his video on Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I'd certainly put this trilogy above the SpongeBob 🧽 trilogy, which had one good movie (The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 🧽), one okay movie (The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 🧽💦), and one really bad movie (The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run 🧽🐌).
If I were to rank all of the Rugrats movies from best to worst, I'd put them like: Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, The Rugrats Movie, and Rugrats Go Wild. Same thing if I were to rank them from worst to best: Rugrats Go Wild, The Rugrats Movie, and Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. I definitely had a fun time watching this trilogy. I don't know if I'll watch the actual Rugrats series itself. I think I might just stick to All Grown-Up!, since I do prefer All Grown-Up! to the original Rugrats series or the reboot. But, if I do watch the original Rugrats, or the reboot, I'll let you know...maybe.
Sometimes I don't write about everything I watch. Like, I didn't write about how I watched CatDog for the first time, and really didn't like it. Yes, this going to be a huge hot take, and I'm probably going to get heat for this, but I didn't like CatDog at all. I thought the show was kind of boring and dull. I thought it was so boring in fact, that I didn't finish it to the end.
I just gave up on it around Season 1 or 2, I don't know exactly at what point in the show I stopped watching it. I did like CatDog themselves, and I did like the music, that very western-sounding music 🤠; I feel like that type of music would work for a SpongeBob 🧽 spin-off show centered around Sandy Cheeks 🐿️ since she's from Texas, and is kind of a cowgirl 🤠 as well as being a scientist 👩🔬 and a karate fighter 🥋.
But, other than that, I really didn't like anything else in the show. I don't know what all the hype was about, or why people consider it to be one of best Nicktoons of the 1990s. I consider it to be one of the worst in all honesty. I guess people are just wearing nostalgia googles so thick that they look like Professor Farnsworth from Futurama. Yes, I know Cody from PointlessHub also said that in his Transformers: Dark of the Moon video, but it was the only thing I could think of to take that line. Or maybe, it's just that people just really want to believe that everything Nickelodeon did in the 90s was better than what they did in the 2000s, or the 2010s, or even now in the 2020s, and they want to think everything was perfect in that era of the network's history. It wasn't. And CatDog is a perfect example of that, of something from 90s era Nickelodeon that wasn't perfect.
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