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As I mentioned to you all earlier, #17 is a tie. Here is the first half. The other should be up very soon.

Sorry for the wait. Ive had to write 25 pages of essay over the last week. I have about 10 more to do, so the updates should start to become a little more frequent in the near future.

17a. Rugrats

In many ways, this show was a children's version of the Ed Sullivan show for the 90's... EVERYONE watched it. This was one of my favorite shows ever as a kid, but in no way was I unique because I was just like every other kid between the age of 6 and 10. In fact, I remember having frequent discussions on the bus to school about last night's episode of Rugrats, and it wouldn't be uncommon for the subject to spread through to every kid on that bus. This show was like kiddy crack.

Rugrats was about the adventures of four babies and a bratty little toddler. The story was told from the eyes of the babies and we got to see their perspective on the world. Tommy, Chucky, Phil, Lil, and Angelica were all hilarious and surprisingly well done characters for a kids show (especially Tommy and Chucky). Later on, other babies were added, but I never really watched at the time when they were on the show. The parents of the kids were also pretty prominent figures in the show, and by far the coolest was Stu, Tommy's dad. Also, Tommy's family had goofy a dog named Spike which I came to love.

Just writing about this show makes me feel a little nostalgic. BUT, that is not the only reason why this show made the list. I actually watched an online episode earlier this week to make sure that I wasn't remembering things inaccurately, and the show was actually high quality. It is the type of show that I recognize is not aimed at me, but that I still find funny. If I was a parent I would have loved for my kids to watch this show because it had good moral messages while also being funny enough for me to enjoy at least somewhat.

The mindset of the babies was actually about that of an 6 or 7 year old, but they still liked to do what babies do, which was pretty cool. The writers were able to write in a manner that was really relevant to kids. While this seems obvious, what I mean is that writers actually had the psychology of kids down pat. In the episode I watched yesterday Phil and Lil talk about 'taker-backers' to Tommy, and this was the kind of concept that would speak to me as a kid.

The animation style was pretty cool. It was a well drawn show and the characters all looked really goofy (especially Dede's hair). But even better than its animation was its soundtrack . . . more specifically the theme song. It was just perfect and conveyed the style of the show really well. They were also one of the first shows I remembered watching to pull off the double 10 minute episodes.

The show was tremendously successful. I didn't realize when I started writing this, but the show lasted 13 seasons! Also, it was made into a few movies. And I was looking at wikipedia, it was made into a bunch of video games. It even won day-time emmys, and was nominated for a real one, among many other awards.

So overall, I don't tend to rate kids shows very high, but this show rates higher than it normally would have if it wasn't a kids show because it was able to connect to kids, had great animation, awesome music, and a unique sense of humour, and transcended the conventional kids show.

Also, this show also made me feel special as a kid because I shard a name with the main character.