The Rugrats Visit Sheltered Shrubs -- Interesting Coincidences Between Rugrats and As Told By Ginger
After reading a quite detailed description of the Rugrats All Growed Up special, I realised that there were many coincidences between that ep (and in fact, the series in general) and what I read about a recent series As Told by Ginger (abbreviated here as ATBG). I posted them in posts at alt.tv.nickelodeon, and now I decided to put them up on this page. So, here we go!
And by the way, the pictures the links go to are all on these other pages:
1. The Unoffical Rugrats Online for most of the Rugrats pics
2. SuperYo's page for the pics from All Growed Up (which in turn were obtained from CoolToons)
3. Don Del Grande's ATBG Page for the ATBG pics
General similarities:
1. Klasky Csupo is responsible for both these programs.
2. One of the major characters has allergies, a stuffy-nosed voice from those allergies, purple square-framed glasses, and bucked teeth: Chuckie Finster on Rugrats and Macie Lightfoot on ATBG.
3. Among the cast of both shows are Cree Summer, Kath Soucie and Tress Macneille:
CastRugrats CharacterATBG Character
Cree SummerSusie CarmichaelMiranda Killgallen
Kath SouciePhil, Lil and Betty DevilleBlake Gripling
Tress MacneilleCharlotte PicklesRobert "Hoodsey" Bishop
4. One character's mom is in the medical profession: Dr. Lucy Carmichael is Susie's mom and nurse Lois Foutley is Ginger Foutley's mom.
5. Besides being on the cast of both shows, Cree Summer's character associates herself closely with a certain blonde girl: On Rugrats, Susie is Angelica Pickles's biggest "enemy" (though it's sort of a "Tom and Jerry" relationship) and on ATBG we have Miranda being Courtney Gripling's best friend (who hates the main character, quite the opposite of her Rugrats character).
6. Also, Kath Soucie and Tress Macneille's characters have same relationship with an important character: On Rugrats, Kath is the voice of Phil and Lil's mom Betty and Tress is the voice of Angelica's mom Charlotte; whereas on ATBG Kath is the voice of Courtney's younger brother Blake and Tress is the voice of Dodie Bishop's younger brother Hoodsey.
7. Background similarity: One of the cast was a regular on a comedy skit show, and they both play the main character's mom: Melanie Chartoff (Didi Pickles, Tommy Pickles's mom) was a member of the short-lived ABC show Fridays, while ATBG's Larraine Newman (Lois) was on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s.
8. Both shows were nominated for Emmys for eps involving a poem being read, and a major character having no knowledge of one of his/her parents, and both times, The Simpsons won: In 1997, Rugrats had "Mother's Day", which had Chuckie learn about his mom, Melinda (who'd died before he knew who she was) and Chazz Finster reading a poem that she wrote on her last day in hospital (It was beaten by "Homer's Phobia"), and in 2001, ATBG had "Hello Stranger", which saw Ginger inviting her dad (who'd left before she even knew who he was) to hear her read a poem. (Apparently didn't work out, did it? It was beaten by "HOMR").
9. One of their cast died the same year the show got the Emmy nomination: David Doyle died in 1997 at the age of 72, and Kathleen Freeman died in 2001 at the age of 82. Also, both put up just one more animated appearance, and both of these apperances were on short-lived WB programs:
CastShowRole
David DoyleRoad Rovers (my page on it)Professor Hubert, resident professor of some sort... due to the show's short 13 ep life, he was only in one ep
Kathleen FreemanDetention (my page on it)Ms. Kisskillya, teacher who basically took care of detention matters... the show also ran 13 eps, however, the teacher appeared in all of them
Similarities that concern the All Growed Up special:
1. One character has orthodontia: Chuckie has "normal" braces in All Growed Up and Darren Patterson has conspicuous headgear that has the same purpose.
Also, Dodie says that Darren will become popular when his braaces come off. Likewise, Samantha Shane, Angelica's new best friend says that Chuckie will look cute when his braces come off. (Then again, who *doesn't* look better when their braces come off? ;-)) In the case of Darren, it's already happened, as in "Never Can Say Goodbye", his braces came off, and as Dodie said, he immediately became popular.
2. Emica (name of pop artist the Rugrats like) is an anagram of Macie.
3. Emica's voiced by Adrienne Frantz, who I've been told has also done bit voices on ATBG. 4. Larraine Newman (or ATBG's Lois, see above) is the voice of Samantha.
5. How about this... Samantha Shane = Sasha (Another person Ginger allegedly has a chance with... even though he's only put in one appearance so far!)
6. And also, both of these characters made their debut in the same timeslot, during Nick's Saturday night program "Nick Flicks". (The All Growed Up special, followed by a retrospective, replaced the Nick Flick for that week, while Sasha made his debut in the "Summer of Camp Caprice" telefilm.) Hopefully though, Samantha won't be like Sasha in one aspect: After his first appearance, he only appeared in one more ep to show that he already had a girlfriend back at his school.

Rugrats also shares some coincidences with The Simpsons. Check them out here!
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