Rugrats fans remember heartbreaking Mother’s Day episode as guest star Kim Cattrall responds

Cattrall voiced Chuckie’s mother, who had died of a terminal illness

Millennials have remembered the “saddest” scene from Nickelodeon’s Rugrats on Mother’s Day in the US (12 May).

Season four, episode two of the animated series about a group of toddlers guest starred Sex and City actor Kim Cattrall as Chuckie’s late mother, Melinda.

At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that Melinda died of a terminal illness. Chuckie’s father Chaz sits down with his son and shares memories of his late wife, recalling her love of gardening and reading a poem she wrote for Chuckie while in the hospital.

“This is not only the saddest Rugrats moment, but also the saddest moment in Nickelodeon history,” one fan wrote on X/Twitter alongside the scene from the 1997 episode.

Responding to the tweet, which has over 50,000 likes at the time of writing, Cattrall wrote: “Such a great pleasure voicing Chucky’s Mum…”

Many fans of the Nineties cartoon commented on seeing the scene in a new light as adults.

“This scene really hit harder as an adult,” one person said. “But it was handled very well, and did a good job of conveying the emotion without having to spell it out.

“Chaz’s struggle is understandable but he knew he would have to face this topic with his son, and he did a great job doing so.”

“Two minute clip from a 30-year-old cartoon and I’m a freaking wreck,” another person commented.

Kim Cattrall and ‘Rugrats’’ Chuckie (Getty Images/Nickelodeon)

Series co-creator Paul Germain spoke about the episode, which was deemed controversial over its themes of grief, in 2016.

“We developed the baby crew, and we developed Chuckie, and then we thought, ‘This kid magically appears at the house, but where are his parents?’ So we thought, let’s do Chuckie’s dad – but we decided not to do a mom. We just didn’t want an extra character there. But why? Why would there not be a mom? By the second or third season, we were saying, ‘What actually happened to Chuckie’s mom?’” Germain told Entertainment Weekly.

The writer claimed network executives refused to feature death or divorce as explanations for Chuckie’s mum’s absence until the fourth season. “So if we can’t say that she’s divorced, and we can’t say that she’s dead, we can’t talk about her,” he explained.

“If you watch the first 65 half-hours of Rugrats, they never mention Chuckie’s mom – or if they do, it’s a tease. We mention that she exists but we don’t tell you what happened to her.”

Germain left the series in 1993, and several new writers replaced him. He described the episode as “this whole very maudlin thing,” and said that he was disappointed that he was never permitted to cover the topic. He explained: “I just sat there thinking, ‘We weren’t allowed to do this, and now you guys are doing it.’ That’s something I regret.”