Little Dude

"Little Dude" is the second segment of the fourth episode of Season 1, and the fourth Rugrats segment overall.

Characters Present

• Tommy
• Didi
• Lou
• Spike
• Larry
• Steve

Characters Introduced

• Ramon
• Kirsten
• Number 12
• Pamela
• High school students

Summary

Didi brings Tommy to her workplace - the local high school, for use as a visual aid. But when Tommy gets free and roams around campus, he becomes friends with a rebellious biker.

- Description from Klasky Csupo

Plot

The episode starts with Lou playing golf with Tommy. Didi is looking for Tommy and asks Lou where he is, but Lou just ignores her. She finds him and tells Grandpa Lou that she is taking Tommy to school. Lou replies that Tommy is only one year old. She tells him that she is bringing Tommy as a "learning aid" for her home economics class at high school on how to diaper babies. Lou responds by claiming it is an experiment, and Tommy is nothing but a monkey to her. He asks who he can play golf with. Didi then suggests that maybe Spike would like to play. Lou hits the ball to Spike, who just flops over and sleeps.

Didi presents Tommy to her Home Ec class and presents their lesson of the day: how to take care of a baby. One of the students (Steve), asks what the smell in the room is, and Didi reveals this is the perfect step to their next lesson: How to change a dirty diaper, much to the other students' disgust. Didi then asks if there are any volunteers, but no one volunteers until Didi mentions that it's extra credit. Many students volunteer but none have the courage to change Tommy. Then enters Ramon (as he is tardy), a cool boy with a biker-esque appearance. Without saying a word, he removes Tommy's dirty diaper, rolls it up, and tosses it over his shoulder where the other students hastily toss it to one another until Steve throws it into a trash can. Ramon then wipes, powders, and tapes a fresh diaper onto Tommy's bottom. After this, Tommy grabs Ramon's sunglasses, much to the shock of the class. Rather than being angry, Ramon thinks that Tommy is a cool little baby and gives him the nickname 'Little Dude'. As class ends, Didi thanks Ramon, who tells her that it was no problem, as he has a little brother roughly Tommy's age.

After class, three girls (One in a red dress with dirty blonde hair, named Kirsten, one in a purple dress with black hair and a headband, named Pamela, and one with green pants and a BH sweater with brown hair, named Stephanie) ask Didi if they can play with Tommy for a while. Didi says they can watch him over her lunch break and tells them to bring him back to the lounge if he gets fussy. The girls wander around campus and notice the football player they were gossiping about. When he asks if Tommy is Kirsten's new boyfriend, she places Tommy on a truck behind them before responding.

As they continue to talk, the truck drives away. When the football player points out Tommy isn't there anymore, the girls become horrified. The truck stops elsewhere on campus, giving Tommy the chance to get off. The girls decide to split up to look for Tommy; Kirsten asks if Tommy can walk yet, which her friends are unable to answer. Just as they are splitting up, Tommy crawls behind them and waves goodbye.

At the gym, there is a student practicing basketball. Pam walks by looking for Tommy. Tommy walks into the gym looking at the kid playing basketball, who is constantly missing the net. Tommy exits the gym, dropping a banana peel in the process. As the basketball player is preparing for his next shot, he slips on the banana peel and actually makes a basket.

In the library, we see Tommy walking on one of the bookshelves. He accidentally steps onto someone's pile of books, but quickly jumps back to the shelf. But the student with the book slips, knocking down several shelves and almost hitting the librarian.

Tommy then finds his way to the shop class where Ramon studies car repair. Ramon asks if the lunch bell rang yet, to which his teacher says that it rang twenty minutes ago, and that Ramon ought to take a break and enjoy lunch. As Ramon is leaving, he drops his comb and Tommy picks it up. He is about to return it to Ramon, who throws a towel on to Tommy without noticing him. The girls are then seen meeting up again after failing to find Tommy. Kirsten suggests thinking like a baby, to which Stephanie crawls around on the floor to get into character while her friends give her an annoyed look.

Inside the cafeteria, Tommy is under one of the tables, eating a cup of pudding.  He reaches up to the table for another cup when he accidentally hits a spoon, sending a glob of pudding flying. He accidentally hits the same football player from earlier ("Number 12"). "Number 12", angry because his uniform was just washed, thinks that Ramon did it because he is seen eating pudding, in addition to ignoring "Number 12" when he demands to know who threw the pudding. He responds by throwing mashed potatoes at Ramon. Silently, furiously, Ramon and "Number 12" take turns smearing each other with food until everyone in the cafeteria is involved in a massive food fight. "Number 12" notices Tommy and grabs him from under a table. Ramon briefly halts the fight, takes Tommy from the football player, leaves the cafeteria with him, and lets the fight be resumed (food flies again as soon as Ramon and Tommy are outside the cafeteria). He then meets the three girls, who are gracious that Ramon found Tommy (who has retaken Ramon's sunglasses). Kirsten takes Tommy from Ramon, and he gets his sunglasses back. Ramon and Kirsten look into each other's eyes and see stars, falling for one another. Didi then finds them all, and the three girls say they have a much better understanding of raising children.

Later, in the evening, Didi and Tommy are at home, and Tommy is eating dinner. Didi says the trip to school was very educational for her students, and Lou asks Tommy what he learned at school. Tommy responds by throwing mashed potatoes at Lou who laughs and says that Tommy has quite an arm (as he said earlier when Tommy threw him his golf ball back).

Trivia

• It is revealed that Didi works as a part-time schoolteacher in this episode.
• This is the second time Tommy has his diaper changed. The first time was in "Tommy's First Birthday".
• This is the second episode where Tommy is the only Rugrat to appear in. The first was in "Waiter, There's a Baby in My Soup".
• Stu is neither seen nor mentioned in this episode. This is the second episode he doesn't appear in; the first being its sister episode "Baby Commercial".
• Didi's home economics class is in A113. A113 is often seen in animated movies, placed there by graduates of a private university named California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), located in Valencia, California. A113 is a real classroom number at the campus.
• Steve and Larry are students in Didi's class (who attempt and fail to change Tommy's diaper). Steve and Larry occasionally appear in some of the earlier episodes, though this episode reveals them to be of high school age (between 15 and 18).
• This is the second episode in which Tommy doesn't say a word. All he does in this episode verbally is laugh, babble, and make different sounds.
• The episode's title is also the name of an episode of the show, Adventure Time.

Gallery

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