Nickelodeon has had no problem returning to the well for some of its biggest animated properties since the NickToons first arrived decades prior. Various series saw comebacks with original movies that would air years, if not decades, after their series ended. While many sequel series saw the characters change, there is one television show that “aged up” their characters to a radical degree. In fact, the characters were aged by so many years that it was almost an entirely different genre. The Rugrats might have started as adventuring babies, but their first big franchise sequel flipped the script to a radical degree.
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All Grown Up took a radically different approach to Rugrats, deciding to transform the series from a cartoon focusing on infants to an animated series following teenage versions of Tommy, Chucky, Phil, Lil, Suzy, and Angelica. Ironically enough, the project was originally released as a “one-shot special” to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the original series. Giving fans the chance to see what the babies would look like as “grown-ups,” the special installment landed in 2001, and while the concept was a wild swing for many original fans, it saw big success on the small screen. Thanks to becoming a ratings hit, All Grown Up was given its own series in 2003. Once the premiere episode arrived, the Rugrats sequel netted a surprising five seasons with fifty-five episodes.
The Rugrats sequel would end in 2008, concluding its story in a rather anticlimactic way. While some animated series had the chance to bring their stories to a close with a climactic finale, All Grown Up ended its show with an episode that could, arguably, be interchanged with many of the installments that came before it. Nickelodeon never revealed an official reason why All Grown Up stopped with its fifth season; lower ratings and Nickelodeon deciding to focus on newer properties is what many fans attribute the cancelation to.
Revisiting All Grown Up
All Grown Up might have had the same characters as Rugrats, but it made for a very different series thanks to the scenarios and settings that the older Tommy and his friend group now dealt with. Rather than feeling like a show that followed in the footsteps of its predecessor, the revival series felt far more like a series akin to Rocket Power and Hey Arnold!, two Nickelodeon properties that focused on teenagers and pre-teens. While the characters might have been very different, most of the original voice cast would return to reprise their respective roles, albeit with deeper voices. Luckily, if you never had the opportunity to check out this revival series, it’s available to stream in its entirety on Paramount+.
Following the conclusion of All Grown Up, Paramount decided to once again bring back the toddler iterations of the characters in the 2021 Rugrats series. This latest revival series did have the core cast returning, but employed a CG animation style to make things appear “more modern,” while making for a big change from the previous seasons. Gaining three seasons before ending like its predecessors, the revival is the last time that we saw the Rugrats in action, as babies or otherwise. With nostalgia remaining a big part of the pop culture industry, and animated revivals especially seeing major returns thanks to the streaming world, it would make sense to see Nickelodeon one day return to the Rugrats in some shape or form.
