Once again, it is time for the Defector staff to go into seclusion for our annual company meetings and fall frolic. This year we are gathering in Atlantic City, America’s abandoned playground. We decided to hold a mini theme week to keep the site robust and full of blogs while we’re in meetings. This year’s theme: Risk!
Unless you count Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties when you were a kid (and I kinda do), I haven’t spent any time in casinos. So when I heard we were trading the peaceful Poconos for glitzy Atlantic City for this year’s company meeting, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I scoured my long term memory for a previous experience or cultural touch point to ground my expectations and then I remembered the 1997 Rugrats episode, “Vacation.”
In the episode, the “Rugrats” families all pile into an RV and drive to Las Vegas—which the babies call “Slots Vegas”—for a vacation. On the way, Grandpa Lou reminisces on the debauchery he got into as a young man, and Angelica explains that “a vacation is when you get to do exactly what you want all the time.”
Having been to neither of these places, my impression is that Atlantic City is like Las Vegas, but New Jersey, so I decided to rewatch the episode to mentally prepare myself for what to expect.
To be honest, I remembered it as a full-length movie, but turns out it was only a 20 minute episode that I had on VHS. Half an hour really does feel like 90 minutes when you’re six.
OK, let’s start with Angelica’s assertion that on a vacation, you can do exactly what you want, all the time. I’m gonna say right now: myth busted. What I want is to take a nap, and I know from experience that that will not be possible on our biannual offsite. Instead, I will drink too much coffee and feel just a little bit sick from the rich food and fight every night to not be the first person to go to bed.
As they’re driving into the city, Lil says the lights look like a “kissmass tree.” I, too, will be arriving after sunset, so I expect to be wowed by the splendor of BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY.
One of the episode’s driving motivations is Tommy’s desire to pet a pair of kitties (white tigers) he sees on a giant advertisement for the Heimlich and Bob magic show. The babies spend the entire episode crawling around what I can only imagine are disgusting carpets and navigating by vibes only, and yet they somehow end up meeting the kitties. This is very relatable to me, as I will do similarly disgusting and stupid things for the chance to pet a kitty.
Grandpa Lou gets rich on nickels at the slot machine. Because I am the worst, I hate playing card games, so slot machines seem like the right place for me to start my gambling journey. I like the idea of carrying around bags and bags of nickels like a bank robber.
During the whole episode, Angelica is like “watashi wa STAR,” which is an aspect of her character I don’t remember canonically from the show, though I guess it squares. She’s convinced for some reason that Slots Vegas is where she is going to be discovered, so she’s singing on every elevated surface she can find. The episode ends with her performing The Go-Go’s “Vacation,” the Kidz Bop version: “Now that I’m away, gotta play all day, I’m gonna stay out til they come and get me.” Like Angelica, I am prepared for the spotlight. I’ve had a special playlist for weeks of songs I’d like to sing for Defector karaoke, though I’m not sure any of them will beat Sabs and me singing “Dig It” by the D-Tent Boys from the 2003 feature film, Holes.
The biggest lesson I learned from the episode though, is that no matter what hijinks we get into on this “vacation,” all conflicts and desires will be wrapped up and satisfied in a tidy 22 minutes. I know better than to believe the Rugrats propaganda. I have attended several of these retreats at this point and I know the work of running a cooperative media company is never finished. Naps aren’t just for babies, they’re for bloggers too.
