The Bank Trick

Season 2 Episode 7a
The Bank Trick
Original Airdate	October 25, 1992
DVD release	The Best of Season 2 Season 2
Previous Episode	Let There Be Light
Next Episode	Family Reunion

The Bank Trick is the second segment of the seventh episode of season 2, and the twentieth Rugrats episode overall.

Characters Present

• Tommy
• Chuckie
• Didi
• Lou
• Ms. Haze
• Mr. Loew
• Mr. Poltax
• Richter
• Simms

Synopsis

Didi takes Tommy and Chuckie to the bank. While the babies look for the "M&M" machine (the ATM machine), they inadvertently foil a bank robbery by 2 crooks posing as bank examiners.

- Description from Klasky Csupo.

Plot

The episode begins with Tommy and Chuckie playing with Grandpa Lou's chess set that he's been playing a match via mail over fifteen months prior to the episode's events. Lou sees what the boys have done in shock. Didi takes the babies with her so she can run her errands while Lou tries to cool down. The first stop is at the bank. Didi's main focus was to pay at the Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Tommy and Chuckie think that it's an M&M machine. Tommy presses the buttons on the machine in order to dispense candy, but it ruins Didi's bank card. As she takes the boys inside to fill out some forms to receive a new card, Tommy says that the two of them have to search the bank to find the candy after they see one of the employees with a lollipop.

While along the way, a couple of bank inspectors (Agents Richter and Simms) are being shown around by the bank's manager, Mr. Loew, who shows them the bank's tellers. Each teller has a button on the floor they can discreetly press if the bank is being held up. This sends a signal to the police that there's a robbery in process, and they'll arrive within five minutes. The two inspectors, however, are displeased with the time it takes for the police to arrive, saying it's too long.

The babies make their way to the machine, which is broken and needs repairs, as it won't dispense money to anybody. Tommy and Chuckie go behind the machine to look for M&M's, but when they pull a lever they believe with give them candy, it makes money fly out of the machine instead. Tommy thinks that the repairman who was there earlier ate all the M&Ms. Just then, a mint shipment crew comes in to lock the local mint in a laser-protected vault. The boys follow the crew, thinking they have a ship full of mint candy.

Mr. Loew shows the examiners the vault, saying that it could detect even a buzzing fly. Tommy and Chuckie go through the lasers (because they were too little to be seen) to find mints in the bags, but all they see is dollar bills, which they mistake for green wrapping paper. They then spot one of the bank's oldest customers, Mrs. Harriet Trencherman, looking at her valuable gems. They think that her gems are candy.

She is interviewed by the bank examiners, but she becomes angry after Mr. Loew informs them that she is one of the bank's oldest customers, finding this offensive. As she hurries them out, Tommy and Chuckie attempt to taste the gems, but are disgusted and disappointed to find they taste like ordinary rocks. After finding her gems gone, Mrs. Trencherman faints.

Tommy and Chuckie notice Ms. Haze, who Didi was talking to earlier licking a lollipop. As she attempts to talk to the bank's boss, Mr. Poltax, he tells her not to interrupt him while he makes some important decisions. She walks out of his office, but quickly returns to inform him that Mrs. Trencherman's fainted. As Mr. Poltax follows Ms. Haze to make sure she's all right, Tommy looks for lollipops and Chuckie plays around on Mr. Poltax's computer, thinking it's a TV. When they try to change the channel, they first send stock prices for a company skyrocketing, then plummeting. The babies give up and return to Didi. Along the way, Chuckie unknowingly steps on one of the buttons beneath a teller, sending out the signal of a robbery in process. The police don't hesitate to send out a squad to the bank.

Didi found that filling all those forms to get a new card was quite challenging. Ms. Haze treats the two boys with a couple of lollipops and apologizes to Didi for the forms. As Didi takes Tommy and Chuckie to her car so she can actually begin her errands, the bank inspectors exit the bank with briefcases full of money to be kept under watchful eye, saying that the bank has failed their inspection. However, before they can get into their car, they are apprehended by the police. The chief of police reveals that the so-called "bank inspectors" are actually notorious bank robbers! The robbers don't understand what went wrong as "it should've been like taking candy from a baby!"

Goofs

When Didi arrived at the bank and inserted her card into the ATM, Tommy (thinking the machine is a candy machine) pushes the buttons at random, causing the ATM to spit out Didi's card in shredded pieces. Normally, if anything suspicious were to happen to an ATM card (i.e. delinquent payments, too many invalid PIN numbers in the same session, etc.), the machine would simply "impound" the card by not returning it to the customer. It'd usually be stored intact inside a special hold area of the ATM.

Quotes

[Chuckie is playing around with the computer linked to the New York Stock Exchange]

• Chuckie: Uh, this is the worstest TV I ever sawed!

Gallery

Title Card.