Teenage Toons: All Grown Up (2003)

Nickelodeon, seeing how their 1991 series, Rugrats, continued to thrive in reruns, experimented with a follow-up series, the result of a backdoor pilot that was produced around the 10th anniversary of the series.

All Grown Up went to series in 2003, recasting Tommy & Dil Pickles, Chuckie Finster, and the rest of the gang as pre-teens or teens. Tommy, in fact, is already a successful filmmaker, for example. Production stopped on the series after 3 years and 55 episodes, but the series continues in repeats, just like the earlier series, airing on weekends on Nicktoons and, supposedly also, Nickelodeon (check listings to verify, since the MTV Networks channels tend to make last second changes).

All Grown Up also aired briefly on CBS, and I do mean briefly, maybe a few months at the most.

One positive, as exemplified by Tommy (EG Daily), is that the kids are pursuing careers, as most kids are wont to do. There are some new faces, and, as we'll see, Tommy has also found love and heartbreak.

Here's the intro, with the theme song sung by Cree Summer.



The voice cast for the series also includes TV vets Ron Glass (ex-Barney Miller) and Lara Jill Miller (ex-The Life & Times of Juniper Lee, Gimme A Break!). With David Doyle (ex-Charlie's Angels) having passed away while Rugrats was still in production, Joe Alaskey was called on to fill in as Grandpa. Otherwise, most of the original cast returned, which helped the continuity in a big time way.

Rating: A-.