| Family Reunion | Gallery | Transcript |
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| Season 2 Episode 8a | |
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| Family Reunion | |
| Original Airdate | October 25, 1992 |
| DVD release | The Best of Season 2 Season 2 Complete Series |
| Previous Episode | The Bank Trick |
| Next Episode | Grandpa's Date |
"Family Reunion" is the first segment of the eighth episode of Season 2, and the fortieth Rugrats segment overall.
Characters Present[]
Character Mentioned[]
Characters Introduced[]
Synopsis[]
The Pickles attend a family reunion in Willoughby, Iowa being hosted by Hugh and Dotti Pickles. When Angelica convinces Tommy that reunions are swap meets for kids where you get traded to other members of your family, he begins to worry he may not be going home with Stu and Didi. Will Angelica's lie backfire on her when some of her relatives really want to take her home with them?
- - Description from Klasky Csupo
Plot[]
The episode opens where the Pickles are on a train headed for their family reunion. Angelica scares Tommy with a toy spider and quickly pretends to be asleep to avoid punishment, with Didi thinking Tommy is only crying due to crankiness. As the train arrives at their destination, the family realizes that Grandpa Lou is missing. Stu and Drew find him telling stories to several others, and try to get him to come with them, but he insists he'll get off later after finishing his stories. As Didi, Angelica, and Tommy get off the train, Didi tries to stall the train so that Lou, Stu and Drew could get off, but the conductor says that the train is leaving that very moment, and they'll end up in Chicago if they don't get off. The train starts running, and Stu and Drew jump off onto the platform in time, but Lou stays on the train and waves the others goodbye as he's headed off to Chicago. Stu then goes on to voice a theory that perhaps Lou's intentions had always been to keep heading on to Chicago to avoid the family reunion.
They are welcomed by Hugh and Dotti, who give Stu some sunflower seeds ("the official money crop of the Pickles clan"). Hugh and Dotti also welcome Angelica and Tommy, and pay extra attention to Tommy, raising Angelica's ire, especially since Drew previously said she was going to be the star of the party. The feud builds up when Tommy asks twice "What's a family 'union?" Angelica answers that a family reunion is where family goes to meet others, and that they hold you, kiss you and other stuff, and talk about how they'd like to take the kids home with them. Tommy interprets this as the other adults wanting to take him away from his mom and dad, and Angelica reinforces this, lying that Tommy will be taken away from his family 'forever'.
Eventually, after arriving, Tommy and Angelica are taken to a playpen where all their cousins are playing. After Tommy is introduced to his cousins Timmy-Ray Pickles, Tony Pickles, and Tammy-Faye Pickles, Angelica introduces herself and states she'll be the boss, but Timmy-Ray points out she hasn't met the leader of the cousins, Emmet Pickles, who is much bigger than Angelica is. Emmet thinks Angelica is trying to hurt his cousins, but Angelica denies this, stating she's one of his cousins as well. Emmet tries to wrestle her to pay her back but Angelica screams in the nick of time. Drew comes and takes Angelica out of the playpen; she blows a raspberry at her cousins. Tommy explains to everyone what Angelica told him about family reunions, but Timmy-Ray is doubtful that their own parents would let something like that happen. Not long after this, however, the other relatives come to the playpen and start kissing, hugging, and picking up the kids, except for Emmet, who is too big and heavy.
Then, Mackie and Edie, Emmet's parents, find Tommy, and his worst fears seem to be realized when Edie asks if he wants to come home with her; as she opens her mouth, the flashback of Angelica's head appears inside, repeating "And you'll never see your mom or your dad or your dumb old dog ever again!" After the grownups leave, the other kids agree that Tommy may be right, and Tommy makes a plan for them to get out of the playpen and find their own parents so no one can take them away from them. Emmet opens the playpen, after which he complains about being hungry.
As Huge and Dotti take the other relatives on a rather boring tour of the farmyard, showcasing their barn, Angelica groans because she can't see a thing (the adults are blocking her view). She soon sees a dog nearby, who playfully rushes up to Drew and pounces on him, getting his clothes all muddy in the process. At Mackie's insistence, Drew leaves Angelica in the care of Mackie and Edie and goes back to the farmhouse and change. This worries Angelica, as her own fabricated lie begins to backfire on her, making her believe Mackie and Edie want to take her away from her dad. As the grownups and Angelica ride through the cornfields, Tommy finds the sunflower seeds that Stu was eating, and thinks that if they follow the seeds, they'll find their parents. As Edie talks about taking Angelica home with her and tries to change her hair, Angelica's own words come back to haunt her as she sees her own flashback in Edie's mouth like Tommy did before. The babies follow the sunflower seeds through the cornfield, while, in the barn, Angelica tries to stay where she is by stating she's tired. Edie tells Angelica that "city kids" like her don't even know what tired means, and states that doing chores is what Angelica should do. The babies come out of the cornfield (or corn forest, as Tammy-Faye calls it), and see the barn nearby. Timmy-Ray says it's where the cows go when they want to drink milk, and all the other kids go there to try and get some.
Angelica walks along the path with her doll, Cynthia, but doesn't know that a goat escaped from the field. The goat scratches its foot and charges at Angelica, as if to say, "This is MY field!" Tommy soon understands Angelica is in danger. After Tammy-Faye expresses hesitation to help Angelica, due to how mean she had acted to them earlier, they vow to save her (she is a Pickles, after all), but when they chase the goat away, it startles a flock of sheep; the sheep break out of the fences and set a lot of the other farm animals free as well. They rescue Angelica, who talks about what she went through, despite the fact she thought she had made up her previous statement about the grown-ups exchanging their children.
As the adults see the escaped animals, they all try to capture them, as Stu and Didi rush to the playpen, only to find the kids missing. They then see them quickly coming up to them, and all of their parents hug their own kids. Angelica is also reunited with Drew. Grandpa Lou arrives in a cab from Chicago (having gone to a Cubs baseball game), and, seeing the state the farm is in, states that this is what a good family reunion is all about.
Trivia[]
- The train conductor calling "Next stop, Willoughby" is a reference to The Twilight Zone episode "A Stop at Willoughby".
- A banjo plays in the background as Emmet tells Angelica "Wanna rassle? Bet I can make you squeal like a piggy.” This is a reference to the movie Deliverance.
- This is the first time Tommy sucked his thumb before "Thumbs Up".
- Angelica seems excited to see a dog in this episode, even though she previously stated she disliked dogs in "Fluffy vs. Spike".
- In this episode, all of the Pickles appear except for Charlotte; she won't make her first in-person appearance until "The Santa Experience".
- Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Chas, Betty, Howard and Spike are absent in this episode though Spike is mentioned by Tommy.
- Phil, Lil, Chas, Betty, Howard and Spike are also absent in its sister episode Grandpa's Date.
- This marks the only appearances of Hugh, Dotti, Emmet, Mackie, Edie, Tammy-Faye, Tony and Timmy-Ray.
- Moral: Don't tell stories that aren't really true even if you think they're true; they will come back and haunt you.
