Rugrats Lost Episode: Chuckie's Mom

Remember Rugrats, that show on Nickelodeon? What you probably don't know is that the creator of the show, Gabor Csupo, originally planned a late night version of Rugrats called "Rugrascals", to be played at night, with more adult humor.

Because every major channel thought the pilot was too disturbing, they refused to air the show, and as a result no-one has really heard about it. However, one station in Wellington New Zealand mistakenly played it in the morning, thinking it was a regular Rugrats episode.

The pilot and only episode of the show that was seen was called "Chuckie's Mom". The intro played like normal, but at the end when Tommy shoots the milk at the screen, the sound effect is much louder, and the milk simply stays there for about 10 seconds, then the name of the episode appears. The episode played out like normal, with the babies playing in the playpen. They are all talking about their Moms, when Chuckie has a flashback.

It had Chuckie in hospital standing next to his mother in bed, who was dying from an unknown illness. She was singing "You are my Sunshine, My only sunshine" to Chuckie in a very weak voice, as if she was about to die, but when she sang the second verse the song started playing in reverse. A shot of Chuckie appeared in front of a live action footage of a chicken's head being chopped off, said to represent death by fans.

Chuckie turns around and screams, and when he looks back at his mother her face has a live action mans mouth pasted on it saying "Don't worry Chucky, it's time for me to move on" in a mans voice. A flurry of random live action clips were shown, said to represent death, like a cow walking into a box with "slaughterhouse" crudely drawn on the side, footage of the L.A. Riot, other cartoons and actual footage of a man suffering from AIDS being killed. You can hear Chuckie screaming the entire time. A shot of Chuckies mom appears again, this time with a chickens beak crudely pasted onto her face, saying "Don't you remember where it all started?"

The episode then cuts to live action footage of childbirth sonograms. About after 1 minute of these sonograms, you hear Chuckie's mom say "Aren't you a lucky ducky, Chuckie?" a harlequin fetus appears. At this time, you see Chuckie come out of the flashback, having a seizure. Tommy, Phil and Lil are crying, and an ambulance worker calms him down, saying "Chuckie? Chuckie? Can you hear me?" in a stern voice.

Eventually after coughing up blood and vomiting, Chuckie comes to his senses. We then see a point of view shot of Chuckie, seeing Tommy, Phil, Lil and the ambulance worker as having live action chicken beaks on their faces, clucking away. A photo of a kid that looks just like Chuckie screaming appears, and the camera zooms into it.

After this, the regular credits played, followed by 15 minutes of static as the station had nothing else to play. Surprisingly, although the episode was watched by many children, only one adult who was watching (me) has spoken about it until now. I was unsurprised to find out that children suicide went higher in New Zealand.