Rugrats: Babies in Toyland

Like I promised yesterday, I'd review the Rugrats' second Christmas special, Babies in Toyland! Released back in 2002 when the series got a reboot with Kimi & her mum Kira being added to the group, this would be the holiday special as The Santa Experience, The Turkey Who Came For Christmas Thanksgiving special & their Kwanzaa, Chanukah & Passover specials. It's also pretty notable as it features actor Jim Belushi as Santa along with Paul Reubens as Hermie the elf. So will this be a nostalgic as The Santa Experience, or is two Christmas specials one too many? Let's find out!

Story: The story involves the Pickles, Finsters, De Villes going to Christmas Land at Mega Corp which Stu helped with, as the babies want to meet Santa since it's Dil's first Christmas despite Angelica trying to ruin it all by claiming he won't have another Christmas if he doesn't see Santa & hijinks ensue as they try to find Santa's workshop after the Jim Belushi Santa quits. As for the babies' parents, they end up snowed in due to Stu's snow machines going haywire & they end up taking advantage of the situation by having an old fashioned type of Christmas. While I don't think it has as much charm as the other Rugrats Christmas specials, it's still good for what it is despite Angelica pretty much learning the same lesson in the last special through a weird fantasy-ish sequence & some scenes feel a bit more forced in trying to be heartwarming i.e. the weird bit with the Nativity & the parents' subplot (despite the rather good message about commercialization at Christmas). Another issue I have is the filler like a Nutcracker sequence which does nothing to progress the plot, a random chase scene, a goat randomly joining the babies, the musical numbers or Grandpa replacing the Santa just to resolve that subplot after Santa quits. And the pacing is pretty slow along with as for some reason this feels like it needs to be roughly an hour long despite the story being fine if it were about 30 minutes! I will admit there's some funny moments here & there & Angelica reforming (again) is pretty nice along with the message not being about presents & being about family (which is pretty cliched) Yeah, the story feels a bit more forced, cliched & is filled with filler, but I won't say it's bad! After all, could be much worse!

 

Animation: Compared to the last Christmas special, the animation is a massive upgrade as the quality is much more polished, obviously shown in the character designs & character animation. The backgrounds of Christmas Land also look really nice & it really does have a Christmas-y feeling to it being very colourful, especially with the North Pole area, the snow machines, Angelica's fantasy sequence, the Nutcracker sequence & the old fashioned cabin the parents are locked in having a nice rustic feeling to it. Another part I loved was seeing the juxtaposition of the sequences comparing what the babies see (which is like like an epic battle between the Nutcracker & the Mouse King) & cutting to what's really going on in Christmas Land (which is pretty much harmless animatronics) If there is one thing I'd have to critisize, it'd be the use of CGI on the backgrounds at the beginning. It looks pretty jarring compared to the 2D animation used in the rest of the special & it really looks off. Besides that little nitpick since the CGI is only used once, the animation is clearly a huge upgrade & it does look really nice.

 

Characters: The babies we all know & love have turned into something that's two dimsenional like Tommy being the adventure loving leader, Chuckie being a fraidy cat, Dil being the generic baby brother, Kimi being useless & Phil & Lil just being the disgusting twins of the group. Oddly enough, the character that develops the most as Angelica as she's of course a spoilt brat towards everyone & ends up learning her lesson through a weird fantasy sequence as I mentioned. Oh yeah, and Santa (voiced by Jim Belushi) is really a grouchy man thanks to Angelica being a spoilt brat (which I can understand) The parents are all snowed in after leaving Grandpa Lou with the kids despite it being obvious they'd wonder off (yeah, I always found them pretty neglectful despite their good intentions with their children) with Stu's snow machine causing the problem (yeah, the paperclips & rubberbands from the Rugrats in Paris movie come back into play!), Didi being the worrying mother, Howard being the effeminate husband to Betty, Kira being the generic loving wife & mother (I always found her boring even in the movie) & Chas being the neurotic yet loving dad. Grandpa Lou is pretty much the & Lulu (voiced by Debbie Reynolds) is the optimist after the parents get snowed in (rightfully so due to Charlotte's cynicism). As for the new characters, there's Hermie the elf (voiced by Paul Reubens as I said earlier) who's pretty much there to tell Angelica to change to be a better person during Christmas & Prancie (who's alive in Angelica's fantasy sequence) has no personality at all. Thanks to the new additions, the characters sans Angelica have now been reduced to being qualified by their character traits!

 

Songs: Yes, they somehow managed to add in songs into this special & my feelings are pretty much mixed! Other than the obligatory public domain songs i.e. Deck The Halls & We Wish You a Merry Christmas & the Nutcracker being in the score at some points, there's a few original songs like the one the mannequins sing in the cabin the parents are locked in which is pretty much useless despite the admittedly catchy tune, the song Ang. As for the main song, sung by Hermie, Angelica & Prancie, it is pretty catchy like the first one, but the lyrics are pretty mundane, it comes out of nowhere & the overall tone is way too cheesy & made me cringe when watching it despite Paul Reubens' good singing! All the songs are pretty much useless & unecessary during this special other than to reach the 40 minute mark!

 

Although I watched this more than The Santa Experience growing up, I don't think it's as good despite the much better animation with a pretty generic story, useless songs & the characters this time round are either useless or their personalities not shining as much. The only recommendation I can really give is just watch The Santa Experience or kids will definitely enjoy this (I mean, I did when I was a kid despite my problems with it after growing up!).
Story: 5/10
Animation: 8/10
Characters: 5/10
Songs: 3/10
Overall: 5/10