Voice actor Michael Bell, who voiced Chaz Finster, said he had a gut feeling about the explanation for why viewers never see Chuckie's mom
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| Chaz and Chuckie during the Mother's Day episode of 'Rugrats'. | Credit : Nicktoons |
A Rugrats voice actor is remembering one of the show's most heart-wrenching episodes.
Fans of the beloved Nickelodeon animated series likely remember the season four Mother's Day episode where Chuckie Finster learns that his mom, Melinda, is in heaven.
Michael Bell, 87, who voiced Chaz, recalls recording the emotional episode during his recent appearance on Toon'd In with Jim Cummings. In it, Chaz carefully explains to his son that his mother was sick and wrote a journal for Chuckie in her final days, reading him the poem that was the last entry in it.
"We did a memorial. We did a Mother's Day piece where Chaz has to explain to Chuckie why his mother isn't there for Mother's Day. When I read it, I was very moved by it by myself. So I would, as an actor, I was able to to bring it as it were. It wasn't just here," he said, first motioning to his chest.
"It was really down here, in explaining it," he added, motioning to his gut.
"And when we finished recording, I knew I was going to have to do a second take. And I looked up, and everybody in the booth was crying," Bell continued.
"The engineer, the director, the casting director, the producer, they were all sobbing. They were crying. And I said, 'This is going to be a biggie. Mother's Day is going to be big.' "
Chuckie's mom was voiced by Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall, who was acknowledged by fans for being part of one of the most heart-wrenching moments in children's TV history.
In 2016, series creator Paul Germain explained that Nickelodeon refused to allow him to address Chuckie's mom's absence in Rugrats' early seasons.
“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.
According to Germain, the network initially didn't want to delve into death or divorce, the only two plausible reasons why Chuckie's mom wasn't around, in a kids' show. "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."
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Original source: PEOPLE.
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