Video: Get Nostalgic With the ‘Rugrats’ Pilot Episode

Who here remembers their first Nicktoon? I know I do! Come take a trip down memory lane with me: The original unaired pilot for Rugrats has surfaced and is currently available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube. The animation looks a little less polished and there’s a different actress voicing Tommy, but Grampa’s glasses, Deedee and Stu’s hair, and Spike the dog’s lovably disgusting behavior are all still there, just as they should be. Hum along with the familiar theme song and check it out below:

Nickelodeon debuted its first three Nicktoons– Doug, Ren and Stimpy, and of course Rugrats– in 1991. New episodes aired only on Sundays, which sort of blew our minds: We were all well-versed in the world of Saturday morning cartoons, but now we could have SUNDAY morning cartoons too? Unreal! I still have fond memories of camping out in front of the television with my brother over breakfast on Sunday during the early years of Nicktoons. Rugrats was admittedly my least favorite of the three, but that may have been because I was only six at the time and therefore probably a little too close to the age of the characters to get as much out of it as I could. Oddly enough, I’ve grown to appreciate Rugrats more as I’ve gotten older. Kids, especially little ones, have a remarkable way of looking at the world, and Tommy and his friends capture that point of view perfectly. When you’re a kid, fictional characters can be real, dinosaurs can exist, mountains that look like sundaes can be edible… the possibilities are endless. Watching old Rugrats episodes can be a fun dose of nostalgia, as well as a good reminder to step back from time to time and remember how cool day to day things can be.

So take a break from the adult world today and take a look at it through the eyes of a kid. Starting with this. Because watching Tommy Pickles contend with the Great White Thing we usually think of as a toilet is priceless.