This Pesach, don't pass over the Rugrats

I would be lying if I said that growing up, I felt like an outcast because I was Jewish. Still, I didn’t really feel accepted by the most important entity in my life—the TV—until I first saw a group of cartoon babies happily munching on matzah.

I attended preschool at the local Jewish Community Center and lived in a neighborhood that was also home to at least three synagogues (Beth Shalom, Tree of Life, and Temple Sinai, but who’s counting?). In elementary school, our yearly nondenominational holiday concerts always included an equal number of Christmas songs, Hanukkah songs, and songs that generically celebrated snowfall and hot chocolate. (Any Muslims in our class, though, were shit out of luck—we never sang a Ramadan carol.) In fact, unless presented with evidence to the contrary, I assumed that everyone I met believed in a God called Adonai, loved brisket, and knew what a schlemiel was.

Even so, I couldn’t help feeling a little left out every time Dec. 1 rolled around. From that day until New Year’s Eve, my beloved television would be overrun with sappy specials about tree trimming, reindeer, and the “true meaning of Christmas”—which, as far as I could tell, involved being kind and generous but didn’t have anything to do with some Jewish dude named Jesus. Although Hanukkah would sometimes get a cursory mention on my favorite shows, I resented those references because I knew they were nothing more than a consolation prize.

At least I did have one very special episode to look forward to every year: “A Rugrats Passover,” in which Tommy and his gang of babies stood in for the Hebrew slaves and Angelica, the show’s bitchy, three-year-old antagonist, played Pharaoh. Don’t get me wrong: I despised Passover itself. The seder was always interminable, my stupid older siblings and cousins always found the afikoman before I did, and I could barely stand not eating cookies or peanut butter sandwiches for eight excruciating days.

Still, I felt important every time I watched that episode of “Rugrats.” It didn’t exactly compensate for the countless televised Christmas celebrations I had had to sit through a few months before, but it did make the media landscape seem a tiny bit more balanced. More importantly, the show taught me that my suffering had a purpose: I had to endure a boring pre-dinner service and live without Chips Ahoy because my cartoon ancestors had done the same thing.

When I did a nostalgic Google search for “A Rugrats Passover” a few nights ago, I was surprised to find that the show’s first airing in April 1995 got the highest ratings in Nickelodeon’s history. The episode also garnered a ton of critical praise, including nominations for an Emmy, an Annie (the Oscars of animation), and a CableACE award. For whatever reason, the special didn’t just strike a chord with me—everyone loved watching those adventurous babies traipse around Egypt while wearing period-appropriate diapers.

My search also led me to a site called—no joke—wejew.com, which bills itself as a “Jewish Video Sharing Megasite.” There, I watched the Rugrats do Passover for the first time since the early 2000s. I had forgotten all about Tommy’s grandparents, Boris and Minka, who squabble in thick Yiddish accents and love to talk about their old life in the shtetl. I had also forgotten about the way that the show sanitizes the Passover story—a necessary evil, since the original Biblical tale includes a lot of ruthless slaughter. In Exodus, the tenth plague God inflicts upon the Egyptians is the death of the firstborn child in every Egyptian family. In “Rugrats,” that gets softened to the oldest kid in every Egyptian household getting “taken away.”

But bowdlerization or no bowdlerization, the show still has a lot of charm. Watching it brought me back to the days when it was my responsibility to sing the four questions—an honor that traditionally goes to the youngest person present at the seder. Though my feelings about Passover itself have changed—I’m still not thrilled about having to give up pasta for a week and a day, but I do like getting a chance to catch up with my family—my feelings about the Rugrats have stayed the same.

I have no idea if Nick still has room for an episode of a badly animated ‘90s cartoon on its new, desperately-trying-to-be-hip schedule. But if there is a slot between “iCarly” reruns in the next four days, I’d highly recommend that the network consider dusting off this old standby. Watching Tommy Pickles part the Red Sea could make even the most prematurely cynical Jewish kid smile. And without “A Rugrats Passover,” little Jews might never get the chance to see fictional characters that share their real traditions—oy vey! Haven’t we suffered enough already?

Hillary Busis is a Columbia College senior majoring in English and history. She is the former managing arts editor of the Eye. And Another Thing runs alternate Thursdays.