Susie Carmichael
| Susie Carmichael | |
|---|---|
| Susie Carmichael | |
| First appearance | Rugrats "Meet the Carmichaels" (1993) |
| Last appearance | All Grown Up! "Petition This!" (2008) |
| Voiced by | Cree Summer |
| In-universe information | |
| Relatives | Parents: Randy and Lucy Siblings: Alisa, Edwin and Buster Great-uncle: Charles Kojo Great-aunt: Tia Adegoke |
Susanna Yvonne "Susie" Carmichael is a fictional character from the Nickelodeon show Rugrats and its spin-off All Grown Up!. She and her family were introduced in the Rugrats episode titled "Meet the Carmichaels".
Rugrats
Susie is depicted as being the same age as Angelica, and therefore is able to communicate with the infant characters featured in the series. However, in spite of this, she's portrayed as being far more understanding, kind, and honest than Angelica and strongly opposes her multiple frightening, threatening exaggerations of everyday occurrences, events, and objects intended to scare the babies and will often provide them with the truer, more realistic explanation, much to Angelica's agitation. Because of this, she has garnered much more popularity amongst the babies and shares a rivalry with Angelica, who secretly envies Susie for her better-liked status and greater talents as opposed to her own. However, she's less of a frequent character than Angelica and isn't always necessarily there to provide the frightened Rugrats with consolation, protection, and assistance with Angelica's manipulation and lies. It has been hinted that Chuckie may be mildly infatuated with Susie as seen on a few rare occasions, albeit this was never completely confirmed.
Susie is an intelligent and gifted little girl, skilled in the areas of ballet dancing and singing, and was shown on one occasion to be bilingual, as she's to be fluent in French. These talents serve as contributing factors to Angelica's jealousy towards her. Susie's the youngest of four kids, with an older sister (by thirteen years) named Alisa and two older brothers named Buster (seven years older) and Edwin (three years older), all three of whom have made appearances in several episodes throughout the course of the series, and is the only African-American Rugrat.
In the Rugrats films
- The Rugrats Movie: Despite being one of the show's main kids, Susie only had one scene. Her brief musical number with Angelica during Didi's baby shower was her entire contribution to the movie, and Lucy was Didi's obstetrician who delivered Dil Pickles. After the baby shower scene, Susie's never seen or mentioned again for the rest of the film.
- Rugrats in Paris: The Movie: Susie only appeared in three parts during the movie. She was at the wedding reception for Lou and Lulu Pickles' wedding, where she was seen dancing with Chuckie and later her mom, and the reception for Chas and Kira Finster's wedding, where she came and told the other Rugrats that the adults were handing out the wedding cake. She also briefly made fun of Angelica in fluent French after Angelica started bragging about going to Paris, France and spoke very poor French.
- Rugrats Go Wild: Unlike the previous two films, Susie has a much larger role. With a video camera, she tagged along with the other characters on their ocean trip, but was not accompanied by her parents as they were too busy. The Pickles family served as her caretakers for their trip.
All Grown Up!
When Susie sang at Didi's baby shower in the first movie, it was the first time that she displayed her talent for singing, a talent that would later become the most important part of her character.
But in 2003, when the spin-off All Grown Up! was put into production, a press release for the show [1] announced that "smart, spunky Susie (Cree Summer), still a crusader for what's right, and 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 was revealed that she's also fluent in ten different languages, as shown in the episode "Runaround Susie".
The very first episode of the regular run, "Susie Sings The Blues", concerned Susie and 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 less regular roles on other shows.
Also, while Susie and Angelica still treat each other as rivals (especially at singing, see "Susie Sings The Blues" and "It's Karma, Dude!" for cases in point), the two actually hang out with each other. Angelica has become jealous of Susie's singing. On the other token, Susie has become somewhat of a "best friend" to Angelica. Susie helps Angelica find her doll in "Saving Cynthia".