Rugrats: Encyclopedia II - Rugrats - Brief history

Rugrats - Brief history

Rugrats was created by the then husband and wife duo of Gabor Csupo (pronounced Chew-poh) and Arlene Klasky in 1989 along with Paul Germain. They were inspired by the antics of their then infant children, which they found humourus, it was one of three pitches to popular children's cable channel Nickelodeon, which was planning on commisioning their own animated series, which would later be called "Nicktoons". They produced a pilot, "Tommy Pickles And The Great White Thing", which was directed by Peter Chung, later of Aeon Flux fame. The production finished in early 1990, and was shown to an audience of children, of which the majority gave their approval. The pilot was only 6 1/2 minutes in length, and was not aired for that reason, according to Steve Mindykowski's Rugrats Online. However,this film is available on the DVD Rugrats: Decade In Diapers, and Volume 1 of the VHS, as a special feature. The series debuted on August 11, 1991, along with Doug and Ren and Stimpy. It went out of production in 1994, but after increased ratings when shown in primetime, it was revived in 1997, subsequently leading to 3 movies: The Rugrats Movie (1998), which became the first non-Disney animated movie to earn $100 million in the US, Rugrats in Paris (2000), and Rugrats Go Wild! (2003), a crossover with The Wild Thornberrys.

In 2001, the show celebrated its 10th anniversary by making a special one-hour episode about what the Rugrats would be like 10 years older. After the special had aired, Klasky-Csupo said that they had no plans to make a series about it. The special became one of the highest rated episodes in Nick's history. Nick eventually commissioned a full series, All Grown Up!, which started its regular run in November 2003 (a sneak peek full episode named Coup DeVille had aired earlier in April). Many fans feel that AGU has taken a step in the right direction, while others feel that it takes away from the show's original premise, and reduces it to something that, at best, vaguely resembles the show that many people grew to love in the 1990s, and pales in comparison to the writing, acting, artwork, and even music of the original show. Still, it is considered the best cartoon Klasky-Csupo has made since 1998. Meanwhile, production on the Rugrats series (along with that of most of the other Klasky-Csupo shows) was eventually shut down, and the last new episode ("Hurricane Alice") aired on August 1, 2004.

In 2005, Klasky-Csupo announced that they were reviving the original Rugrats as a series of DVDs based on classic fairy tales. The first were based on Snow White and Jack and the Beanstalk. It is unknown if these were actually released, however.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Brief history", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki