See Tommy and the gang brought to life in this ‘Rugrats’ reboot trailer
For kids that grew up during the boom of Nickelodeon, you probably remember watching reruns of Rugrats. The premise was simple: following a group of babies and toddlers through some pretty wild adventures. Led by the brave Tommy Pickles, the group remained close friends through the series All Grown Up, which followed the group through their preteen and teen years.
Unsurprisingly, Rugrats turned out to be a big franchise for Nickelodeon with movies, video games, merch, and more spawning out of it. With Paramount+, however, there are plans to reboot the Rugrats bringing it into the year 2021. Which, uh, we have mixed feelings about. On the plus side? It’s not live-action. On the negative side? Maybe, just maybe, these babies should have remained in two dimensions.
What do we know about the Rugrats reboot?
Tommy Pickles has geared up his life’s motto “A baby’s gotta do what a baby’s gotta do” in the first trailer for the reboot series. The OG voice actors for the babies are back: E.G. Daily (Tommy Pickles), Nancy Cartwright (Chuckie Finster), Cheryl Chase (Angelica Pickles), Cree Summer (Susie Carmichael) and Kath Soucie (Phil and Lil DeVille). The series looks like it’s set pre-movies, so no Dil or Kimmy if they’re your favorite.
We have for the parents: Ashley Rae Spillers and Tommy Dewey (Tommy’s parents, Didi and Stu Pickles); Tony Hale (Chuckie’s father, Chas Finster); Natalie Morales (Phil and Lil’s mother, Betty DeVille); Anna Chlumsky and Timothy Simons (Angelica’s parents, Charlotte and Drew Pickles); Nicole Byer and Omar Miller (Susie’s parents, Lucy and Randy Carmichael); and Michael McKean (Grandpa Lou Pickles).
The reboot of the Rugrats was created by Arlene Klasky, Gabor Csupo and Paul Germain. It will tell “brand-new adventures” that are meant to “both compliment and evolve the original series’ beloved stories”. The first trailer, which you can see above, shows the babies being led off onto some of those Indiana Jones-esque flights of imaginative fancy.
The 3D though
It’s not the reboot of the Rugrats that has us wanting to hide under our covers. It’s just that, woof, that 3D animation mixed with these character designs looks bad. It looks so bad, people. We just want to flatten them out to make them look 2D again. It’s . . . look there are definitely stylistic choices at play here, but these stylistic choices are very, very, very wrong.
What’s wrong with Stu Pickles’s nose at the end? It looks like a different color from his body. Why does everyone look like they’re made out of clay? Why do the 3D eyes make their eyes look so cold & dead? It’s just not a good look for the series, like at all. But who knows? Maybe it’s a generational thing? Maybe we’re just used to seeing these characters in 2D.
Either way, we really don’t like it. We don’t want it like this. Why is 2D a dirty word in animation? There are plenty of great 2D shows out there. Is there any reason why they decided that “Hey you know what the Rugrats need? To be in 3D! That’d be great, right? Right. We’re doing this. Let’s go.” An executive probably came up with the idea or something, huh?
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What do you think about the latest news for the Rugrats reboot? Are you excited to see Tommy Pickles & the gang back in action to have adventures and do baby things? Or do you think that the 3D is ugly as sin and want the series to rock a 2D look instead? Do you think Dil & Kimmy will show up in the reboot? Let us know your thoughts down below!