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I love They Might Be Giants. They did the Phineas and Ferb theme song too

"Jimmy Neutron" has one of the cooler theme songs of a Nicktoon show. Being sung by the band They Might Be Giants certainly helps. I can't wait to see what you say about it.

Last time, I talked about a Nicktoon from the end of a great decade that started a slight decline when it came to quality Nicktoons. Thankfully, we’ve got the opposite situation here as we’re talking about one of the three original Nicktoons! And fittingly, we begin it with its most popular one. #2. “Tommy’s First Birthday” – Rugrats [August 11, 1991] Here’s a history lesson for you alphas out there! Before there was this thing called a “SpongeBob”, this used to be the longest running Nicktoon everyone liked to complain about, spanning a total of 13 years! And we can’t forget about the spinoffs, All Grown Up and the 2021 reboot, either. Wasn’t there another one that took place in pre-school too? Anyways, as someone born at the end of the 90s, my Rugrats experience mainly came from the later episodes where Dil and Kimi were introduced. It wouldn’t be until the 2010s when I watched earlier episodes (one of them being the iconic chocolate pudding one) and suffice to say, it was very interesting seeing them focus more on the adults than the kids in the first season! We’re gonna be tackling one of those episodes of course, because a Nicktoons reviewer’s gotta do what a Nicktoons reviewer’s gotta do. The episode starts off with main parents Stu and Didi Pickles wishing their son Tommy a happy birthday. As they try to feed him pudding (of the chocolate kind, whether it was made in the morning or not is unspecified), Tommy notices an ad for Huskie’s Choice Dog Food and he decides he wants to eat some of that instead of the stuff Stu tries to feed him. He distracts him by spilling pudding over his tie and uses a screwdriver to unscrew him from his baby seat. He crawls over to Spike(TV) the dog’s food bowl and tries to eat it, but he gets stopped by Grandpa Lou. Next scene is where more of the characters enter, mainly the Devilles (Phil, Lil, Betty, and Howard) and Chuckie Finster with a widowed dad. When the parents notice Spike chewing up a teddy bear, they run to him, which gives Tommy the perfect opportunity to tell the other kids about his quest to get dog food. His logic is that if he eats dog food, he’ll act just like Spike (who we see is very energetic). We finally come across the last of the main cast (for now), Tommy’s very spoiled cousin Angelica. She’s known for antagonizing the rest of the babies. That being said, she goes along with Tommy’s idea of getting dog food. As Tommy tries going over to Spike’s bowl again, he is stopped and greeted by his grandparents and Didi’s parents. They take him over to the living room so he can open up his presents, some of what include Drew’s toy truck, Stu’s hover toy, and Howard’s walkie talkies. As Tommy starts crying in an attempt to get out of opening his presents, the doorbell rings and as it turns out, Didi only ordered a puppet stage with no puppeteers. So Stu and Drew (which I now just realized their names rhyme) volunteer to be the puppeteers. The two put on a puppet version of Little Red Riding Hood but then they start fighting like they did the last time they did this. Cue Tommy trying to reach Spike’s food bowl again. Spike exits the kitchen and the babies think Tommy turned into a dog. But Spike’s food bowl was empty, so Tommy tries to reach another can of dog food. Chuckie comes up with the idea of putting batteries into the remote of Stu’s toy and knocking down the can with it. Phil and Chuckie start fighting over the remote as Tommy grabs the toy, leaving him and Angelica trapped. Lil uses the remote to try and save them, though Angelica lands in a bag of flour and the babies end up causing a huge mess in the kitchen. As the hovertoy rolls into the living room, Tommy ends up getting saved by Spike, though the toy also ends up ruining Tommy’s birthday cake. Although it seems the party was a disaster, it doesn’t matter much to the babies because they finally get to taste dog food. Of course, the babies end up not liking it at first (sans Phil and Lil who both don’t mind eating gross things) but they start thinking they’ve become dogs after eating. They crawl into the living room and Grandpa Lou takes a picture of the whole family for their family album, featuring other pictures taken during Tommy’s first birthday. The end. So it’s no surprise this show ended up being the biggest highlight when it comes to Nicktoons! They took the simple concept of childhood innocence and made some pretty entertaining stories out of it. And it also balances those stories with relatable ones featuring the adults too! As much as I was amused with the plot of the babies trying to eat dog food, the other plot with the adults setting up the party had its highlights too. Stu and Drew failing to perform a puppet show gave me some great laughs, along with Grandpa Lou’s rambling stories regarding what he did during his youthful days. Needless to say, this show truly appeals to everyone, including dumb babies. VERDICT: 9/10 (A truly iconic cartoon that would carry off into the rest of the decade! That is, until another Nicktoon took over its crown but we’ll get there when we get there.) RANKINGS: Well, that was a nice show! We'll see if the next show can possibly top that and that show is....