Our Very Snarky Holiday continues, but today’s post comes from the in-house Snark Ladies. Enjoy!
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A Rugrats Chanukah
Lorraine: I love Rugrats. Or, I mean, I remember loving it fiercely and catching the show on TV anytime it was on. When it came time to pick holiday specials, I was quick to call this episode, though I’m guessing no one else was really thinking of it.
Sweeney: True on all counts, but I did have an immediate OMG YES, THAT! BEST IDEA EVER! reaction, and corresponding feelings of jealousy that you thought of it first.
Lor: Well that makes me feel better, because really, let’s be honest, A Rugrats Chanukah was my first education on the holiday.
Sweeney: It wasn’t my first education on the holiday, but probably the longest lasting. Even though I grew up in an area with enough of a Jewish population to get proper exposure, my understanding of Jewish holidays is fundamentally defined by what I learned on this show. (THE PASSOVER EPISODE IS AWESOME.)
Lor: The credits roll and, well:
1.) The opening music gave me warm fuzzies. But also, do you guys remember Mya and the song she made for the Rugrats move? LOOK AT THIS GUYS. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?
3.) I’m not sure about this whole having kids business.
Sweeney: A+ to everything you just said.
Lor: Anyways. We open in Israel, “a long time ago.” Tommy’s grandma is narrating and tells us that the Jewish people were living happily with the ancient Greeks until a new king, Antiochus came along and wanted “everyone to be just like him.” Don’t you feel hella more educated already?
So, some toddler Greek soldiers hand Tommy and Chuckie Greek robes and a book that hilariously just says, “Plato.” Chuckie is excited about “a whole book about play dough.” Not even close, kid.
Sweeney: This moment is particularly fantastic due to the fact that I can’t image an American 7-year-old actually appreciating/understanding this joke.
What am I?
Lor: I feel that way about a number of these jokes. I guess the animators wanted to make sure the parents didn’t kill themselves while watching. It’s possibly and I will only reference my ultimate hate for Dora the Explorer.
Antiochus wants the Jews to worship his gods. The baby version of the Greek god is a giant statue of Cynthia, the ugliest freaking doll in the world.
Chuckie and Tommy go hide out in a cave so that they can “read their old books.” Chuckie is worried about being caught by the new king, but Tommy doesn’t care. “These are the books that our forefathers read, and our five fathers, and our six fathers. And I’m not stopping now.”
Sweeney: Freedom fighting Tommy is awesome.
Lor: As they are reading their scroll (with pop-up story of Moses included!) a toddler-soldier finds them. They try to hide the scroll and pretend they are playing with driedels. “We made them out of clay!” Tommy says, but the soldier finds the Moses pop-up book and confiscates it.
Tommy is pissed. So pissed that he steps forward to challenge the king. He’s wielding a sword right now, but he’s still wearing a diaper. This entire visual is very disturbing. You poop in diapers.
We’re told that the real-life man who stood up to the king was Judah, the Maccabee, who is Tommy is portraying. Chuckie asks what Tommy is doing. “A macca-baby’s gotta do what a macca-baby’s gotta do.”
So Tommy/Judah Maccabee leads the army against the more powerful Greek armies. The baby animation stops for a second and we get drawings of PG-war.
The war sounds (metal clashing and yelling) melt away into giggles as we see the Rugrats in present time, in their living room. Grandma was reading from a book, but Didi (Tommy’s mom) needs her help in the kitchen. She mentions making latkas and that wakes Grandpa Boris. All the adults exit, leaving the babies alone. I’m not sure if we can call them negligent. I mean you shouldn’t leave 5 babies in a living room with no supervision, but I also remember the parents being super present. Maybe they just lose half a Sandy Cohen Eyebrow.
Nobody wants this. Pay attention to your kids.
Sweeney: I love you.
On the whole, yeah, the events of The Rugrats largely took place inside their own heads, with the parents a few feet away. Also, these kids stayed babies for a decade and I respect these parents for not becoming raging alcoholics in their quest to cope with having actual babies for ten years.
Lor: Babies for 10 years is in special hell along with being in middle school forever.
Angelica is happy that they are alone because she is a brat. I’m sorry. I know she’s like 3 years old but it had to be said. She’s happy the adults are gone because she wants to watch her Christmas specials.
Sweeney: Angelica is right up there with Kristy Thomas on my list of hated fictional children. The difference is that we’re supposed to hate Angelica and it’s understood that pretty much everything she does is wrong.
Lor: In the kitchen, Didi is educating us on potato pancakes, which I’ve never had. I like potatoes though, and I like pancakes, so like “tea cozy” I’m going to say I want one based on the name alone.
Sweeney: You live in Florida. Who are you hanging out with? Why hasn’t anyone fixed these experience gaps? Not that I’m the one to do that for you, but I’m sure you can find someone. Also, yeah, nomnomnom potatoes.
Lor: Dude, I know. The Jewish population where I live is intense. The owners of the company I work for are Jewish and I work next door to a kosher market. My best friend is Jew(ish). That’s her own term FYI and she says the “ish” part with a little shoulder shrug or a hand wiggle. Wait, maybe that’s where the gap in my experience is.
Anyhow, they fry potatoes in oil as a reminder of the miracle of Chanukah. “The miracle is, these things have clogged our people’s arteries for 2000 years, yet we survive,” says Grandpa Boris.
Grandpa is in a Chanukah play and Charles (Chuckie’s dad) notices that there is an article about in the newspaper. Unfortunately, they used a picture of Shlomo, his arch nemesis. Hahahaha. Shlomo.
(Sorry.)
Back in the living room, the babies are playing with dreidels and chocolate coins. Phil thinks the chocolate doesn’t taste as good as the coins he finds under the couch. In addition to being my Chanukah education, perhaps this entire episode should just be sub-titled: Birth Control.
Sweeney: On that note, this series is like a lesson in all the ways babies unwittingly plot their own demise, which makes the whole parenting gig look impossible.
Lor: All the Negligent Parents air punch and scream, “yeah! Kids are dumb!”
Tommy says he’s super confused by what’s going on in his house. His mom is making pancakes at night, plus, he points out, there is now a lit menorah with pride of place in their house.
Phil: What is it?
Tommy: I don’t know. But every night I have to wear a funny hat while Grandpa Boris says some stuff I don’t understand and Mommy lights another candle.
Chuckie: Sounds scary.
Tommy: Yeah. But then I get a present.
Phil and Lil think maybe it’s his birthday, but it’s happening every night. Having just one day be your birthday is anti-climatic. 8 days is really where it’s at.
The babies help Tommy climb closer to the menorah so that he can try to blow out the candles. Angelica, though, shows up to be a brat. She says the candles aren’t for anyone’s birthday, it’s for Chanukah, and there’s extra flem and spittle when she says it. Meanwhile, in this whole scene, all the babies have chocolate over there faces, and no one can hear me yelling, “SOMEONE GET A WIPE-Y.”
“Harmonica?” Tommy asks and Angelica clarifies with the line I most remember: “HAAA-nukah. You have to HAAA when you say it.” Cue the babies hocking it up. Angelica also gives the second best line and I guess I should stop calling her names now: “Chanukah is that special time of year between Christmas and Misgiving when all the bestest holiday shows are on TV.”
Maybe Angelica is just really a Snark Lady in the making.
Sweeney: That’s probably true. Although, if she’s this ruined at three, I’m not sure what nostalgia she’ll have to destroy when she reaches her twenties.
Lor: In the living room, Stu (Tommy’s dad) is trying to show Didi that he supports Chanukah. Somehow this has equaled him putting a giant menorah on his car. Of course, it doesn’t work and it explodes when he tries to light it.
Sweeney: Well, obviously, we demonstrate our Christmas spirit by filling our lawns with enough gaudy, illuminated shit to melt the snow in the mid-west. The musical, trinket-laden menorah-mobile was a pretty logical choice for Stu the failed inventor.
Lor: A+
Didi and the grandparents are off the the synagogue for the play about “the meaning of Chanukah.” Because they are babies and babies are dumb and because Boris is complaining about Shlomo again, the babies understand the meanie of Chanukah and are understandably alarmed.
Chuckie tells of his experience with the Meanie of Daycare, who made him lick the slide and then buried him in the sand. Tommy wants to know what happened and Chuckie says that the teacher dug him out of the sand and then put them down for a nap. Tommy decides they need to put the Meanie of Chanukah down for a nap.
I am amazed by this life policy. Stand down and take a nap.
Sweeney: I feel like we are learning so much about why we turned out the way we did in this magical thirty minutes.
Lor: At the “synamabob,” Angelica goes in search of a TV as she’s determined to watch the Cynthia Christmas special, Meanwhile, the babies are having a hard time finding “the meanie of Chanukah,” even thought they’ve come bearing a plethora of nap-taking-tools. Then Chuckie says this:
The lights are dimmed for the Chanukah play. Grandpa Boris and Shlomo act out what we saw in the beginning, but, you know, with less diapers. The babies watch as Shlomo, playing the king of the Greeks, pokes Grandpa Boris, a Maccabee, with a stage sword. “The meanie of Chanukah!” the Rugrats deduce and charge the stage with their nap-taking-tools.
We cut to Angelica in the nursery. She was caught by an adult and deposited there and is now doing her best to get out. The door knob has one of those plastic baby-proof things on it. She wonders what kind of sick mind comes up with something like that, and I can’t lie: I’ve struggled with one of those once or a few times in the past.
Sweeney: My boss has a baby gate that I think is more effective at slowing me down than her toddlers.
Lor: We see Didi dropping all the babies off at the nursery, saying she doesn’t know what got into them. There, Angelica tricks the babies, saying what they really need to put a grown-up down for a nap is not a blankie or pillows, but a TV. Or alcohol? Alcohol makes me sleepy. But that’s probably beyond the scope of this show.
Sweeney: Alcohol would have been more effective, but given the limitations of middle-class baby knowledge, television was a suitable alternative.
Lor: Back at the play, Boris and Shlomo come to actual, non-scripted blows and the curtain is drawn. Back stage, they continue arguing. Shlomo says Boris is always bragging about his grand kids and Boris says Shlomo is always bragging about his business and didn’t have time for kids. Shlomo clarifies: he and his now dead wife were never able to have babies. Shlomo finally walks away saying he has no one to share tradition with, anyways.
Welp. That’s a little heavy.
Sweeney: Right!? Another one of those, “What exactly were little kids meant to take from this?” moments.
Fear not, of course, because this is Rugrats, so we’re going to jump immediately away from deceased barren wives to manipulative toddlers. I’m now beginning to understand why we are incapable of expressing our epic feels more articulately than CAPSLOCK!!!1
Lor: The babies escape the nursery and track down a janitor with a mini TV. Angelica uses the babies as stepping stools to reach the TV and I question the structural integrity of baby bodies, but whatever.
Sweeney: Lil complains about Angelica stepping on her “soft spot” to which Angelica replies that her whole head is a soft spot, and thinking about this exchange disturbed me. I did watch an episode or two of All Grown Up and can verify that Lil did not appear to have lasting brain damage, but still.
Lor: Baby soft spots creep the hell out of me.
Angelica gets the TV. The babies try to grab it, but Angelica runs away, no intention of giving it to them, so she can finally watch her Christmas special. While running, she runs into Shlomo. “The meanie of Chanukah!” the babies exclaim and they scatter and hide. Meanwhile, Angelica dropped the TV and it broke. She cries.
Shlomo tries to help Angelica, but he kind of just picks her up and holds her at arms length, proclaiming he isn’t a people person. (S: I love this part.) The babies all watch and wonder if maybe he’s trying to squeeze her guts out. Tommy’s final plan is to read the meanie a good story and hope that will cause him to nap. The babies take over the Chanukah book Grandma was reading at the beginning of the episode.
Boris shows up and wonders what’s happening. He grabs Angelica and pats her on the back and explains that the babies clearly want Shlomo to read the book. Hesitantly he does so, picking up our story at the end of the war.
Antiochus lost the war but left the city and the holy temple in a mess. The babies (acting out the Chanukah story again) spot the broken, unlit menorah in the temple. It was supposed to burn forever. Boris stops the story and says the babies don’t know WTF a menorah is. “It’s like the night light of our people,” Shlomo says. “In times of darkness it shines in the whole world, reminding us not to be afraid to be different, but to be proud of who we are.”
Grandpa Boris takes over the story as Shlomo sets up a menorah, filling it with oil.
Back in the long ago, the Macca-babies repair the menorah and find there is only enough oil left to burn for one day, and it will take 8 days to make more oil. They wonder what they can do and Shlomo narrates that they need a miracle. Phil wonders what a miracle is and Tommy explains: that’s when something good happens that you never thought could happen. Chuckie: That’ll never happen.
Oh, Chuckie. Your baby depression is hilarious.
But the menorah burned for 8 days. And thus, every year the menorah is lit to remember the miracle of Chanukah.
Shlomo is alseep and Tommy rejoices.
Sweeney: NAPS SAVE THE DAY!
Lor: As they often do.
Meanwhile, out at the play, Stu finally arrives with his giant menorah. He rolls it out on stage and goes to light it, but it explodes again, bringing down the curtain. Behind it, we see Boris, Shlomo, the kids and the lit menorah. Boris wakes Shlomo up and he feeds the audience a line about their kids carrying the tradition of Chanukah.
Boris recites a blessing and he and Shlomo start to sing together. Tommy and Chuckie are watching them sing and be merry and proclaim it a “mirable.”
Though the real mirable will be if Rugrats didn’t scare me of babies for life.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
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