Rugrats Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Tricycle Thief Gallery Transcript
Season 3 Episode 3a
Tricycle Thief Title Card (HQ)
Tricycle Thief
Original Airdate October 10, 1993
VHS release Phil and Lil Double Trouble
Volume 3
DVD release Season 3
Complete Series
Previous Episode Cool Hand Angelica
Next Episode Rhinoceritis!

"Tricycle Thief" is a Season 3 episode of Rugrats.

Characters Present[]

Character Mentioned[]

Synopsis[]

Susie thinks Angelica has stolen her new tricycle, so the Rugrats weigh options on whether she did or not.

- Description from Klasky Csupo

Recap[]

Tommy and Stu are with Susie and Randy and Stu at the tricycle section of the toy store. Susie picks out the tricycle she wants, with a blue seat, a basket, a bell, a pinwheel, a horn, and a removable reflector. Later on, she shows off her trike to her friends in the Carmichaels' backyard. Angelica later comes over to inspect the trike, saying it looks stupid. Randy walks over to the yard with a can of red paint, asking Susie to move her tricycle over to the porch.

Before Susie can move a muscle, Angelica rides off with Susie's trike, bumps a rock, and lands in a mud puddle. The others run after her. Susie notices that Angelica broke her reflector and tells her that she will never ride her trike again. Lil points out that Angelica looks like a big mud pie. While the kids laugh, Angelica walks back to the house, seething. Before going further, Angelica mutters something, but all that is heard is "...sorry, Susie...", because of all the laughter.

The next day, in the backyard, Susie is playing with her blocks, while Tommy and the gang comes over. Susie notices that Chuckie is holding a balloon, and when asked where he got it, he answers "the dentist". Tommy wants to try riding on Susie's trike again. The two walk over to the shed, open it, and notice the tricycle is gone. Susie thinks that it was stolen. Angelica comes over with what looks like Susie's tricycle; it has a basket, a bell, a pinwheel, and a horn.

Susie concludes that Angelica stole her trike. Angelica denies it by saying that the trike she has was given to her by her dad (though she neither knows where nor when he bought it), but Susie does not believe her. Chuckie wants Susie to let Angelica go, but Susie doesn't want to let her off that easily, and she takes Cynthia from the basket and ties her to Chuckie's balloon string.

Before the balloon can go all the way up to the sky, Tommy tells the others that he thinks Angelica is telling the truth. Not believing Tommy, Susie laughs at this and says that Angelica lies all the time. She gives examples of Angelica's past fibs: telling Tommy that his "baby sister" was coming in the mail, telling the twins that their daddy's hair was a wig, and telling Chuckie the guy on the oatmeal box moved in next door. Susie says that Angelica probably took her trike to get back at her. Angelica denies this as well. Chuckie points out that he had heard Angelica say something the day before. A flashback begins.

The events of what happened earlier in the episode start off with Angelica running off with Susie's tricycle. It is revealed that Chuckie decided to watch from the bush while the other kids ran after Angelica. While Angelica walked back to the house, seething, Chuckie heard her say, "You're gonna be sorry, Susie".

Susie notes that this revelation is the final nail in the "coffee", but then Tommy notices the reflector on Angelica's trike, unbroken, unlike the one on Susie's. Susie thinks this does not prove anything, and claims that Angelica just threw the broken one away, and stole another reflector from another trike. Susie wants Chuckie to let go of the balloon again, but once more, Tommy stops him. He notices that Susie's hands have wet, red paint on them from when Susie opened the shed.

Tommy thinks that if Angelica's hands are clean, it will prove she did not do it. The others look at Angelica's hands, and they are red, like Susie's. Angelica says it is finger paint. Shocked, Tommy finally believes Susie, and thinks Angelica really stole the tricycle. Susie again tells Chuckie to let go of the balloon. Angelica stops Chuckie because she is "no tricycle thief". Susie tells Angelica it is too late to talk. She tells Chuckie that it is time and yells "Do it!" Chuckie finally lets the balloon go. Angelica shouts "CYNTHIA!!!" and lands on the ground. Looking up in the sky at Cynthia, Angelica starts sobbing, and Chuckie feels ashamed of what he did. Susie says that Chuckie didn't do anything-- it was Angelica who let go of the balloon; she did so the minute she stole the tricycle.

Angelica explains that she feels sorry for them all, because they will forever have to live with what they did. She says, once and for all, that she didn't steal Susie's trike, and says for all she knows, that it could be sitting under the porch. The others look at the porch and see the trike there. Now they know that Angelica was telling the truth all along and she did not steal the trike. Susie then asks Angelica why she has red paint on her hands.

Angelica again tells Susie that she really was finger-painting, and shows her a painting, complete with a Valentine heart, of how sorry she felt when she broke Susie's reflector. The guilty Susie apologizes, but Angelica, now enraged over losing her beloved Cynthia, refuses to forgive her. Suddenly, Cynthia falls back down, bouncing onto the head of Angelica who then grabs and hugs her doll. Susie tells Angelica she is glad Cynthia came back, and again apologizes. Angelica tells her to forget about it, and challenges her to a race to the back fence. With that, the babies learn a lesson: "Don't let Susie borrow your balloon." It is then revealed that Cynthia fell back down because Chuckie's balloon popped, thanks to an airplane flying nearby.

Trivia[]

  • Angelica says that she had lost Cynthia once, a reference to "The Seven Voyages of Cynthia".
  • This episode was included as a bonus episode on the Phil and Lil Double Trouble VHS (not listed on the box) when the tape was re-issued.
  • This is the first time Angelica tells the truth and nobody believes her, which is no surprise seeing as she always tells lies. They should have believed her when she was telling the truth.
  • Susie saying that Angelica once told Tommy that his sister was coming in the mail could be a reference to "Special Delivery". However, Angelica did not appear in that episode (and neither did Susie, since her family didn't live in the neighborhood at the time).
  • This episode and its name could possibly be a reference to the 1948 film Bicycle Thieves, an Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica.
  • Susie's tricycle can very briefly be seen under the stairs to the deck before it's revealed Angelica didn't steal it.
  • Moral: Don't accuse people of doing something that they actually didn't do or that never happened in the first place.

Goofs[]

  • When Tommy talks about Susie's hands, Cynthia briefly disappears from Chuckie's balloon.
  • When Angelica falls down after Cynthia has gone up into the sky, there is a coloring error where she seems to not be wearing her tights, but rather has flesh colored legs.

Videos[]

Rugrats_Horror_Story_NickOrTreat_The_Splat

Rugrats Horror Story NickOrTreat The Splat

The_Best_of_Cynthia_Pickles!_💖_Rugrats_NickRewind

The Best of Cynthia Pickles! 💖 Rugrats NickRewind

The_Saddest_Moments_on_Rugrats!_😭_NickRewind

The Saddest Moments on Rugrats! 😭 NickRewind

Advertisement