Susie Carmichael is one of the main characters from Rugrats.
Description[]
Tommy and the Rugrats look up to their friend Susie Carmichael. She possesses the kind of wisdom you can only get from experience. After all, she's three. Susie is the child of an overachieving mother (French chef, airline pilot and doctor) and a cartoon-writing dad (the famous Dummi Bears series). Susie's energetic, optimistic, and quick to offer friendly advice and reassurance to an overwrought Rugrat. But she's also a little kid. Even a small catastrophe can send her into a momentary tantrum. Susie stands for what's right --- which often puts her right in Angelica's way. - Rugrats Description from Klasky-Csupo
Susie is excitable and eager to follow Tommy’s lead, though she offers up some rambling ideas of her own, culled from tidbits she picks up as an actual “early reader.” What Susie can’t read, she makes up, often with fanciful results. Her vivid imagination is stoked by magical ideas about animals and undersea life, her favorite animal being the narwhal, or, as she calls them, “the unicorns of the sea.” Susie has a large toy narwhal collection which Angelica considers with outward disgust but inward envy. From the CGI series
Summary[]
Rugrats[]
Susie makes her first appearance in the season 2 episode "Meet the Carmichaels", where she and her family move into Tommy's neighborhood. Susie is a kind, competitive, and fun-loving girl. She loves adventure, and, like the babies, has a very active imagination. She is also a very supportive child, such as in "The Slide", where she tries to help Chuckie get over his fear of riding down slides, and also ends up winning two fudge pops (from a bet with Angelica) once he overcomes his fear. Susie is also shown to have a mean side, such as in "Tricycle Thief", when she believes Angelica stole her tricycle (however, for once, Angelica did not, and just had an identical one). As retaliation, she decides to tie Angelica's doll, Cynthia, to Chuckie's balloon and send it off, much to Angelica's personal horror, although a low-flying airplane pops the balloon, sending Cynthia falling back down. When they find out her father just put it under the porch, Susie asks for forgiveness, to which for once, Angelica just wants to forget it and race with her for fun.
Susie also has a much better understanding of how adults are, such as in "Dummi Bear Dinner Disaster", where she begins to realize that her father's boss would give the family money to move (although it was obvious that he was doing it to get her dad to write better material for the Dummi Bears show), and cries when she realizes he was enjoying himself. Also, in "The Stork", she explains to Angelica where (human) babies really come from, her knowledge presumably because her mother, a doctor, felt that Susie should know the truth and not lies. It is shown that Susie is not a very good cook ("Cooking With Susie"). It has been hinted that Chuckie has a crush on her and that she might return it. A possible sign is in Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, where she is seen dancing with him. In "Be My Valentine", Susie shows a romantic interest in Timmy McNulty, and even makes a valentine for him. However, Timmy, being too naive, throws her valentine away, as he only wanted the button on it.
Susie's also shown to be very intelligent for her age. An example of this is seen in Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, where she is shown to be fluent in French at only three years old. She learns very quickly how to be a toy doctor in "Doctor Susie". She is also a talented tap dancer and is shown to be quick on her feet in situations. An example would be in "And the Winner Is...", when, after discovering Angelica stole her tap dancing shoes on purpose, she realizes that although she can't tap dance, she could still win by turning her act into a comedy.
All Grown Up![]
When Susie sings at Didi's baby shower in the first movie, it is the first time that she displays her talent for singing, a talent that would later become the most important part of her character.
In 2003, when the spin-off series All Grown Up! was put into production, a press release for the show announced that "smart, spunky Susie (Cree Summer), still a crusader for what's right, upstages Angelica as a singer with real talent", which implied an increased role for Susie in the new spin-off. Besides her singing talent, it is revealed that she also knows ten languages, as shown in the episode "Runaround Susie".
The very first episode of the regular run, "Susie Sings the Blues", has Susie concerned about her singing talent. Since then, she has appeared in a majority of the episodes (although still in less than the other characters). This may be explained by the fact that by the time All Grown Up! premiered, Summer had fewer regular roles on other shows.
Also, while Susie and Angelica are still rivals (especially at singing, as seen in episodes such as "Susie Sings The Blues" and "It's Karma, Dude!"), the two will often help each other. Susie even helps Angelica find Cynthia in "Saving Cynthia".
Looks[]
Susie is a girl of African American descent. She has black eyes with multiple eyelashes and mascara. Like other Black characters in the series, her lips are full, varying from dark brown to red in color. She has brown hair that alters throughout the original series.
As a child, her braided hair is tied up in three red hair ties with red flowers at each end and she wears a yellow dress with purple wavy lines on it, purple leggings, and red flats.
In Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, she wears a white long-sleeved shirt with a purple dress with green leaves on it, her hair is tied up in three purple and green hair ties on her hair, and she wears and purple and green shoes. Later, she wears a red dress with pastel purple and green flowers, pastel purple leggings, and magenta flats.
In Rugrats Go Wild, she wears a cyan sleeveless dress with teal and green tropical grasses on it, her braided hair is tied up in three teal hair ties with teal flowers at each end and teal and she wears green sandals and a pink bracelet.
In Pre School-Daze, her hair is black, she has brown irises, and her lips are red.
As a preteen and teenager, she wears a different outfit. She first wears her hair in an afro with a headband, and then usually locs that she usually ties into a ponytail (sometimes adorned with multicolored beads and/or a scarf later in the series). Her lips are red, and her eyes are somewhat smaller.
Appearances[]
Susie has appeared in many episodes of Rugrats, with her first appearance being in "Meet the Carmichaels". She is only seen briefly in The Rugrats Movie, at Didi's baby shower, having a singing competition with Angelica. As she sings good things about a baby, Angelica loudly and rudely sings only bad things about a baby, which eventually triggers Didi's contractions. She is seen in Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, at the wedding reception of Lou and Lulu, dancing with Chuckie, and again for Chas and Kira's wedding reception, where she joins in on the cake fight. She is given a larger role in Rugrats Go Wild, as she tags along with the others, and uses her video camera to record their adventure.
Trivia[]
- Susie shares similarities with Libby Folfax from the Jimmy Neutron franchise, another Nickelodeon series.
- Both girls being African-American and main characters in their respective series.
- Both girls having similar sassy personalities.
- Both having best friends who are also blonde. (Cindy with Libby, Angelica with Susie)
- Both girls also sharing a love for music.
- Susie was the first African American recurring character.
- Susie is the first Nickelodeon African American character.
- Susie's first appearance is actually in the Rugrats3-D board game called "Rugrats Turn The House Upside Down". It was released in 1992, and the Rugrats episode "Meet the Carmichaels" was aired January 10, 1993.