The Truth about Dr. Lipschitz

The Rugrats main cast may consist of toddlers and be cute, but the earlier seasons weren't all lighthearted and innocent. The show tackled serious issues and had disturbing moments. Truthfully, this is what makes watching things as an adult fascinating as you don't realize how serious things are when you're young.

The issues that Rugrats tackled were as followed

- Stu almost ending up with permanent head trauma in Regarding Stuie.

- Tommy gets child abducted in Ruthless Tommy

- Chuckie's Wonderful Life has Angelica at her worse when she convinces Chuckie to run away from home.

- Tommy goes down a conveyor in Special Delivery and almost gets trapped in a chute for mail with no return addresses. While there, Tommy sees a DEAD BODY amongst all of the mail.

- New Kid has a chubby boy named Josh who like a nice, but quickly turns out to be worse then Angelica. He could of broken the bones of the babies because he planned to jump off a swing and land on top of them.

Rugrats was serious when dealing with real life issues and that is what makes it great. Nowdays, people who write episodes are worried to bring up the same subjects that Rugrats did.

I was able to get into an interview with one of the writers for the show who wishes to remain anonymous. We talked about the adventures of the Rugrat gang and Angelica's antics. I also found some interesting facts such as Angelica causing the show's team to break up due to how mean she was.

We eventually got to talking about the darker themes the show had as I mentioned earlier and then he told me about the concept of one episode that crossed the line and caused a debate among the other writers.

They were going to have an episode about the dangers of child predators and how manipulative/dangerous they were.

The original take from a Visit from Lipschitz was going to cover this.

In the episode, Dr. Lipschitz accepts Didi's dinner invitation and is revealed to be a terrible doctor with the intention of freeloading off of the Pickles food. The original script had this Lipschitz turn out to be an imposter with the intent of kidnapping Tommy and Chuckie for his own purposes as he had seen them out with Didi before. The episode also doesn't make the predator obvious to younger viewers with only adults understanding what was going on.

Didi is excited to have the doctor over after inviting him for dinner while Lou Pickles (Tommy's uncle) insults Lipschitz only for the imposter to show up and hear Lou. Despite taking offense, the fake Lipschitz stays calm when he spots Tommy and Chuckie and has an evil look on his face. While having dinner, Fake Lipschitz is caught several times looking at the babies creepily, but defends himself by saying that he's observing them to see if they're being cared for properly.

The plot of Tommy and Chuckie thinking he'll be their new mommy is the same and remains unchanged. Another unchanged part is the imposter taking Tommy and Chuckie's pop up book away which causes the children to cry. He then gets everyone to meditate and while his eyes are closed, Tommy to takes "Lipschitz's" ink pen and squirts it over him. Didi apologizes and rushes off to find cleaning supplies to get the stain off his shirt.

In the final cut, Lipschitz would go with Didi, but in the original script, he stays in the room with Stu, Lou, and Chas.

"Lipschitz" who somehow knows about Stu's baseball game convinces him to go since he would waste money due to already buying a ticket. Stu reveals that he brought tickets for Lou and Chas and leaves Tommy and Chuckie by themselves. This is where "Lipschitz" begins his horrific scheme. He picks up Tommy and Chuckie, hiding them in a closet by the entrance of the house. He then informs Didi that Stu left for his baseball game and took the kids with him.

Didi complains about the night being ruined, being convinced by the antagonist to drive to the baseball game and bring everyone back.

With everyone out of the picture, "Lipschitz" goes to retrieve Tommy and Chuckie only to find out that they escaped. Freaked out, he begins searching for them with no luck and tries to trick them into coming out with promises of things such as toys or candy. Tommy and Chuckie still think that "Lipschitz" is gonna be their mom without knowing how dangerous their situation really is and remain hidden.

The imposter realizes they're intentionally avoiding him and he plans to lure them into a false sense of feeling safe. He pretends to take a bath causing the two to come out of hiding. They are quickly nabbed by the predator who tries to make off with them. His plans are finally ruined when Stu, Lou, and Chas arrive back home and catch him in the act.

He drops the kids and makes a run for it, losing his beard and mustache revealing his deception. Instead of giving chase, Stu runs up to Tommy and hugs him. Chas does the same with Chuckie as they apologize for being irresponsible. It's revealed Stu had a change of heart and felt bad for taking off when it was Didi's important night.

The episode ends on the only scene considered funny. Didi is at the baseball stadium searching for the others who didn't even arrive to watch the game. She spends all night without realizing everyone is home.

If the script had been accepted, A Visit from Lipschitz was going to be Rugrats darkest episode with good intentions. It was a message direct towards kids and adults that you shouldn't trust people you don't know despite how popular they are. Like I talked about earlier, the premise of the episode wasn't even worker on due to conflicts between staff and the shows production crew as they felt it was too risky. This is why A Visit From Lipschitz had its script heavily altered and removed all of its references to pedophilia

I know discussing that topic can cause a lot of children to lose their innocence and maybe thats also why it isn't Rugrat's place to teach what parents should be teaching their kids.

KRokon (talk) 01:14, September 24, 2018 (UTC)