![]() ![]() ![]() “When we’re talking ’80s and ’90s, there was this trope of the demure or very soft-spoken or timid Asian American. “As an Asian American actor, I’ve seen the evolution of the way characters are portrayed,” Chung said. That decision, voice actor Charlet Chung said, gave her the opportunity to bring a bit more spunk to the character. On the child end, the other major change is to Kimi Watanabe, aged up to be more of a peer of Angelica’s in addition to being recast. And Charlotte, while still a #girlboss, is less of a ’90s cliché. The Carmichaels, Randy and Lucy, are already neighbors this time around, and part of the main adult friend group from the start - a natural effect of the decision to age their daughter, Susie, down from Angelica’s age to closer to Chuckie’s, making her nonverbal to adults and more of a central part of the main child cast. Betty DeVille is explicitly queer, and the DeVilles are Latinx. Stu and Didi Pickles live with Grandpa Lou, not vice versa, taking into account the gap in home ownership between millennials and prior generations. The rest of the adults were also tweaked to better represent millennial parenthood and to better account for diversity. We wanted a little bit of a warmer, more enlightened, modern Grandpa Lou, who does yoga and streams concerts with his headphones on so the babies can sneak away.” “He would be in his late 60s from the end of the hippie era. Audiences in the ’90s would have found the World War II veteran grandpa a familiar figure, but with a 2020 setting, “We definitely did the math and said, this grandpa would not be a WWII veteran,” Boutilier said. There was all this possibility with technology.” Then there were the generational differences, which are perhaps best reflected in the changes to Grandpa Lou. “We are in a definitely different world right now. “In the original, Charlotte Pickles was the only one with a cell phone,” Casemiro said. 19, after all, are worlds apart in many ways. And while the core premise remains the same - a bunch of imaginative babies romp around on adventures while their guardians’ attention is elsewhere and hilarity (with a healthy dose of sentimentality) ensues - some differences were inevitable, even beyond the CG style, which Casemiro noted had already been decided upon before they came aboard. “We thought, well, if we don’t do it, we might regret someone else taking our babies and doing something to them, making it so radically different that we’ll kick ourselves for not doing it,” Casemiro said. Like many Hollywood projects before it, Rugrats started with a phone call, in this case from Ramsey Ann Naito, who is now president of Paramount’s animation division. In addition to creators Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó, and Paul Germain, the show is executive-produced by veterans of the original series, Kate Boutilier and Eryk Casemiro, who wrote the immensely popular special episode “ All Growed Up” and developed its sequel series, All Grown Up! And the vast majority of the cast from the original series has returned to voice the child characters ( the late Christine Cavanaugh being one sad exception), although the adults have been recast and, in some cases, reimagined. Then there was a lull until earlier this year, when Klasky Csupo came back with a new Rugrats for a new generation, a computer-animated revival of the same name streaming on Paramount+, Nickelodeon parent company ViacomCBS’s subscription service. Angelica Pickles went on The Rosie O’Donnell Show. The Rugrats Movie was the first animated film not produced by the Walt Disney Company to gross more than $100 million in the U.S. And that’s without mentioning the merchandise. While Klasky Csupo’s first hit was far from its last - the studio went on to produce Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, The Wild Thornberrys, Rocket Power, and As Told by Ginger for Nick in the years that followed - it was surely its biggest, spawning a franchise spanning three series, three films, two TV films, a baker’s dozen video games, a handful of books, a comic strip, and even a live performance over the next two decades. All three series proved influential, but it was Rugrats that endured as a runaway success, coming as close to rivaling The Simpsons’ status in pop culture as nearly any other animated show of any era. Two years later, in August 1991, Nickelodeon did it again, three times over, with its inaugural slate of Nicktoons: Doug, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Rugrats. In December of 1989, Fox revolutionized animated television with The Simpsons.
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