Hello and welcome back to Conspiracies with Alyssa. If you tuned in last week, you saw that I had some very serious questions for Craig McCracken, the creator of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Well this week, we're going to dive into a series with a much longer run - Rugrats. We're going to leave the movies out just for the sake of length and maybe talk about them in a different article.

Rugrats was my absolute favorite show in the entire world as a child. I grew up with it. I was born in 1992 and the show premiered in 1991. It follows a group of babies as they occasionally wander away from their parents and discover the joys and perils of life.

Which brings me to my first question...

Why the hell didn't these parents notice their kids were missing?!

So the babies went on "adventures" in various formats which almost always involved sneaking away from their parents. I mean they locked themselves in a toy store overnight and just crawled away from their parents at the movies. Now, I'm not saying they had to be perfect parents, BUT FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR BABY.

Half the time, the parents didn't even notice what was happening or that the babies were gone until they'd already come back, learned a lesson or completed an adventure. I know that that's the entire point of the show, but in real life, these parents would have had DCYF called on them long ago.

Things were different in the 90s. You could let your kids play outside and not have to worry about them being abducted - or at least it wasn't something people thought about. And that's fine, let your kid run around the backyard, especially if it's fenced in like the Pickles'.

But the moment they learn to get out of that playpen, you better watch them like a hawk.

That also brings me to my next question...

Nearly all the parents, grandparents, babysitters and the like are incompetent when it comes to watching small children

Grandpa Lou is a prime example. Not only is he almost always sleeping, but his hearing is gone, his eyesight without glasses is bad and he can hardly remember anything. I'm surprised they haven't put him in a retirement home yet. He's clearly not entirely capable of watching five babies on his own, which he does frequently in the early seasons.

In the episode "Little Dude", Didi brings Tommy to the high school she's teaching at and lets a few of her home economics students watch Tommy while she takes her lunch break. This is a horrible idea. They wind up losing Tommy while he wanders around campus, having his own fun.

Why can't these people notice that the small person in their care is no longer with them? It's not rocket science to watch a child, you just have to watch it. How can the babies manage to wander off unnoticed for what feels like it could be hours at a time?

When things get extra hairy, sometimes the parents notice, like when Tommy and Chuckie are left behind in the toy store in the episode "Toy Palace". Chaz and Stu initially don't even notice when they leave the actual store and drive out of the parking lot without their own children. In fact, neither of them notice until they get home. The donut-obsessed security guard doesn't notice them walking around the store either.

The message that the show was trying to portray was that sometimes, babies can be even smarter than teens and even full-grown adults, however, they're bordering on negligence. It's not that the parents and those watching the babies don't care for them or love them, but it is a reminder that sometimes we get too wrapped up in our own lives to notice what's happening around us.

That reminds me...

The babies don't just go on adventures, they cause wide-spread destruction

In one of the very first episodes "At the Movies", the babies completely destroy a snack bar and ALL of the film up in the projection room. Not just one movie - ALL OF THEM. In "Baby Commercial", Lil manages to get up onto the catwalk of the set, distracting everyone while Phil climbs up onto the camera and all hell breaks loose. Though it works out in the end, as it always does, they nearly destroy expensive equipment, accidentally waste resources, and terrify their parents by getting into sticky situations.

It's kind of a running gag that the babies just destroy everything in their wake. Though sometimes they cause more damage than not, they obviously don't know any better and always get away with it.

But does that mean that every baby would cause such mayhem if they were left unchecked like the Rugrats? Would they completely destroy their parents' homes and lives just for the sake of curiosity?

Speaking of which...

Baby logic is flawed at best and dangerous at worst

So baby logic isn't great. That's apparent from the show. In the episode "Special Delivery", the babies theorize where other babies come from, coming up with the usual "store/stork" debate, as well as Chuckie throwing in that his mother (who we know is actually dead at this point) says he came from the hospital. The babies quickly dismiss him and Tommy says the "new baby" (a doll Stu is ordering from a competing toy company) is coming in the mail.

This wouldn't be too harmful if Tommy didn't climb into the Mail Man's bag and then wreak havoc at the post office, nearly getting himself killed in the process. The babies regularly risk life and limb just for an adventure because they don't know why something happens or where it comes from. And that's fine, babies are supposed to be curious, but Rugrats takes it to a whole new level.

This show is probably one of the greatest cartoons ever made, and really dives into the mind of a child. Though I may have some issues with it re-watching it as an adult, I still find it entertaining and fun.

That's all the time we have today. Thanks again for joining us here at Conspiracies with Alyssa, be sure to tune in next week when we discuss the perils of having a private laboratory in your home.