Image copyright Nickelodeon
I will always consider myself privileged to have grown up during the golden age of Nickelodeon in the early and mid ‘90s. After school, I enjoyed coming home, grabbing a pack of Dunk-a-Roos, adroitly inserting my Capri Sun straw, and tuning in to my favorite cartoons for a few hours. I’ve never been able to quite replicate the magic that I experienced while watching those shows as a child, and it’s a feeling that has always stuck with me. A few years ago, when I started streaming video services, I impulsively decided to rewatch some of my favorites. Although cartoons in the U.S. are still largely considered children’s shows, I’ve found in the past several years that there were layers and subtexts to be found that I can now appreciate as an adult. I can’t count the number of times I’ve come across the originals of the things these cartoons played off of and thought, so THAT’s what it was! In particular, I’ve gained a special appreciation for Rugrats, Doug, and Hey Arnold! that I love to share with my fellow millennials.
Rugrats
Rugrats has gone down in history as one of the most successful Nickelodeon cartoons of all time, completing a thirteen-year run on the channel and two movies as well. I enjoyed it as a child, but I didn’t find it as funny as I do now, probably because I was on the same mental level as the main characters. I was about four or five when I began watching, and I would say that’s about how old the babies realistically behave in terms of vocabulary and general knowledge. The series was at times formulaic: many plots revolved around the babies mishearing a word or misunderstanding a basic concept, but the show packed several more sophisticated surprises that I enjoy today. Chief of these were the often-biting cultural critiques, as exemplified by the Dummi Bears, the show’s send up of the Care Bears. The Dummi Bears are probably the best example of a mature texture that I didn’t understand as a small child. As an adult aunt and someday mother, I’m more than a little appalled by the cloying, repetitive nature of much of children’s entertainment. But when I was four, I ate that crap like Lucky Charms. The Dummi Bear’s “Happy Song,” which was used to hypnotic effect in the episode “King Ten Pin,” epitomizes the eye-gouging, ear-plugging monotony of kids’ media that generation after generation of parents have had to suffer through. A more subtle jab came in the episode “Special Delivery,” in which toymaker Stu became distraught when he learns of his competitor’s new doll, Tina Trousers, who “walks, talks, wets, and gets realistic diaper rash.” (I can’t tell you how many commercials I saw for toys like Potty Dotty in the ‘90s. I will never understand why toy designers just HAD to go the extra mile to include that function for the sake of realism. Maybe it was a subliminal message against teen pregnancy, starting at the elementary school level.) In particular, Rugrats’ creators made extensive use of pop-culture puns when naming episodes, as shown in “Driving Miss Angelica” (Driving Miss Daisy), “Cradle Attraction” (Fatal Attraction), and “Chuckie’s Wonderful Life” (It’s a Wonderful Life). These puns were perhaps low-hanging fruit, but I think they served a function in preparing me to look more closely at the real-life bases once I made the connection. In particular, the skill of picking up parody and satire can be useful to children who want to become creators in their turn.
Doug
(Please note that I’m only discussing Doug as it was originally created by Jim Jinkins, not the episodes made after Disney’s acquisition.) Jim Jinkins’s Doug followed the adventures of Doug Funny, an earnest but overly imaginative 11-year-old, and his ethnically ambiguous (Skeeter was blue, but probably black) friends in the fictional town of Bluffington. Of the three cartoons, Doug stands out for the usage of parody alter egos drawn from existing media who make recurring appearances throughout the series. Doug’s Quailman persona is an obvious riff on the mid-century Superman comics, and his Smash Adams and Race Canyon are dead ringers for James Bond and Indiana Jones. Doug’s parody jokes weren’t always pun-based, but they did have a strong visual element to make sure the adult viewers “got it.” In some cases, the jokes were perfect Easter eggs, such as the “Walter Crankcase” poster briefly shown in the school newsroom. On occasion, Doug also incorporated smaller parodies of ‘90s culture and consumerism, such as the “Super Pretendo” video game system that Doug wins in the episode “Doug’s Lost Weekend.” Recurring characters such as Ronald Weisenheimer, the buff, Austrian-accented fitness guru, also added some cultural relevance to the series. Doug’s greatest play on words was undoubtedly in the characters of Bud and Tippy Dink, the childless middle-aged neighbors whose frequently extravagant purchases featured in many a show. As a kid, I thought “Dink” was nothing more than a funny last name, but once in a college marketing class, it hit me: Dual Income, No Kids. Suddenly, it all came together - Budd’s strange gadgets, his catchphrase of “very expensive,” and the like. At times, while rewatching the series I’ve found what I suspect are hidden references, though I can’t find confirmation on the Web about whether they were intended. One such case is the episode “Nightmare on Jumbo Street.” Although the episode title is an obvious homage to the Nightmare on Elm Street series, I believe the episode was influenced by 1985’s remake of The Thing, given the Abnormal monster’s shape-shifting powers. I also suspect that Mr. Bone’s alter ego The Rulemeister is based on Kaiser Wilhelm II, given his German-looking battle helmet and monocle. Short of interviewing the creators, I doubt I’ll ever know for sure, but it is fun to speculate. Overall, I would say Doug is the cartoon that I’ve grown the most appreciation for as an adult. Though I enjoyed it greatly as a kid, I love finding those lost bits of trivia stuffed in the frames, not unlike finding quartz bits in rocks.
Hey Arnold!
Hey Arnold! will always be remembered for having some of the most creative cartoon head shapes known to man. (I don’t just mean Footballhead, either. I can’t come up with a word to describe the monstrosity that was Eugene’s head!) To a child growing up in a San Antonio suburb, the world of Hey Arnold! was absolutely exotic: kids riding the city bus, biking everywhere, and operating with a degree of autonomy not seen since Pokemon. As a third-grader, I romanticized the idea of urban living that I saw on the show, particularly in the scenes with Arnold’s spectacularly cool room and skylight. Since the series began in 1996 and continued into the early 2000s, it reflected much of the change in technology that I experienced as a kid (CD’s substituted for cassettes, cell phones beginning to appear in a few hands, some flat-screen TVs). Hey Arnold! was more like Doug in its overall humor, particularly with the number of parodied characters, such as Dino Spumoni (Frank Sinatra mixed with Dean Martin), Jack LaPlane (fitness celebrity Jack LaLanne), Robbie Fisher (American chess legend Bobby Fischer), and Big Gino (Vito Corleone). Though these characters generally appeared in a single episode, often as antagonists, the animators often reused them when crowds were needed, creating a sort of easter egg within easter egg effect. Hey Arnold! also became a sort of forerunner to today’s diversity initiatives with its inclusion of different ethnicities among the main cast and the introduction of Mr. Simmons, who we all knew deep down was gay and too kind for this cruel world. Hey Arnold! did have the occasional language joke, usually in the form of playful irony. It is worth noting that Eugene, the perpetually optimistic class jinx, has a name that means “born lucky.” In another episode, “Polishing Rhonda,” Rhonda attends an after school social training program run by Madame Parvenu. (For non-French speakers, “Parvenue” refers to a social-climbing upstart lacking in true refinement.) I do enjoy finding little joke nuggets like that in the series, and I believe the thrill of catching them helps sharpen the viewers’ powers of observation. Of the three, I believe that Hey Arnold! would make the best reboot, with a few updates for technology’s progress.
Although the ‘90s are long over and gone, they will always have a place in my playlist. I look forward to sharing them with my own rugrats someday, knowing all the while that the cartoons are helping their cognitive development. For those who think cartoons are a waste of children’s time, I can only say this: they provide the first introduction that many kids get to the devices of parody, irony, and social critique, which students go on to study at great length in high school English class. Call it the intellectual equivalent of sneaking veggies into your kids’ (brain)food. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go look for some Dunk-a-Roos on Amazon.
Carly Tucker is a Texas-based legal assistant and freelance writer.