Rugrats Easter Egg?

Does anyone remember the Nickelodeon show, The RugRats? I recall it was pretty popular at the time, but in retrospect I find the art style and music choices to be.. offputting. I know a lot of people who watched the show when they were younger, but I can't say I know anyone who'd consider themselves an "active fan", then or now. Regardless of that, I caught quite a bit of the episodes of the show as a kid, but I spent much more time playing the PlayStation One game - Rugrats Search for Reptar. My mom bought me a PS1 as a kid, but I can't ever remember having more than 2 games for it, with the Rugrats game being the much better choice compared to Rune, which was much too gory for my taste at the time. I mentioned earlier that I caught quite a few episodes as a kid, but definitely not all of them. I saw enough of them that I can let you know that Rugrats Search for Reptar's levels were almost entirely based off the tv show episoddes with some minor variations. For example, the level called The Seven Voyages of Cynthia is based off the rugrats episode of the very same name, where Angela loses her Cynthia doll and Spike the Dog has to go and find her. While the title of the episode and the level are exactly the same, the game contains lava obstacles whereas the episode doesn't. Some levels have no equivalent, however. For example, Cookie Race is an optional level in the Rugrats : Search For Rep Tar where you have to race Tommy VS Angela to win cookies. It can be argued that the episode is referencing the No More Cookies episode, but it can't be confirmed if this was the intent. Why do I bring this up? I mean to say that the game has original content not referenced by the series elsewhere, and I want to mention a stage I found on one of my playthroughs when I was younger. If you go into the downstairs bathroom and check the laundry bin, there's a warp to the level called Circus Angelicus (based on the episode of the same name) where Angelica wants to start a circus in the backyard and have the Rug Rats be the performers. I think I caught the episode a few times as a kid, but not enough to tell you any details beyond that I am pretty sure that the game level is the same as the episode, most of the time. The cutscene before the Circus Angelicus level in the game has all the Rug Rats and Angela standing around talking about starting a circus, but Chuckie is reluctant due to his fraidy cat nature. He eventually relents and the level starts. How it is supposed to go is that the level is divided up into different circus acts. -Act 1: Spike jumps over hurdles. Oddly in the cutscene prior to this, Angellica says he is to jump through flaming hoola hoops, but they aren't seen anywhere in game. -Act 2: Fill and Lill go up the ramp on a tricycle and land on a bullseye. The cutscene prior is just Angelina showing the course and everything is pretty mundane. -Act 3: Chuckie is launched into a pile of leaves as a human cannonball. The cutscene before shows Angelina pushing chucky out the door, still unsure and worried about the act. If the player wins, they receive a puzzle piece (the main goal of the game is to collect all the puzzle pieces to a reptar puzzle) and an end cutscene plays with the Rug Rats arguing about who gets to be launched next. Angelica is launched next and the level is over. That's how it's supposed to be. I wrote all of this to let you know that once I encountered a weird easter egg thing? One time I was playing this game and got to this level, but things were different. The normal cutscene played, but once I got into act 1, instead of spike jumping over the hurdles, there actually ARE hoola hoops this time. They aren't flaming, but it's closer to the description Angelica first gives. They were a pain to jump through, with spike's model feeling too large to fit through them easily, and somehow floating at an awkward height. I actually almost ran out of time, but managed to do it. I took a photo of this as it made me wonder if my copy had been glitched for years when it gave me hurdles to jump through instead of the hula hoops described in the cutscene. I didn't really have a way to check, as I didn't know any other kids with this game and my internet was really crappy at the time. You can see my photo under Photo 1 under the evidence at the bottom of this page. Act 2 proceded as usual, and I beat the level as I always did - just take Phil and Lil up the ramp, and land on the bullseye. Act 3 is where things became strange, or at least I think they did. The cutscene played as it usually did, with chuckie reluctantly being pushed out of the house to become "the human cannonball", but this time he digs his shoes into the carpet and says "no, Angelica! I won't do it! This isn't safe! Something doesn't feel right about this!" Angelica gives up and says "fine, if you don't want to do this, then do I have any volunteers?" "I'll do it," a voice says off camera to reveal a new character. The character (referred to as Bruce on the instructions screen) appeared to look like a slightly modified version of Tommy's model and reminded me a bit of the All Grown Up Thommy design in that he had a few scattered strands of purple hair. Maybe this was some member from the extended cast? I hadn't really seen enough of the show to know all of the cousin characters, and just recently learned about how they added even more characters after a few of the movies. Could have been some kind of teaser or something for one of the movies. Anyway, the minigame appeared to be a carbon copy of how I usually played it - the instructions were the same, with the execption that the name "chuckie" was swapped for Bruce and of course the model was swapped. I found out that something more had changed, actually. I launched Bruce to reveal that the leaf pile hadn't been set up, and he landed flat on his back with the noise that Spike typically makes when he takes damage, though much louder than it typically is in game. Before going on to what I thought would be another try at the minigame, the screen paused, all sound stopped, and zoomed in onto this new character. His eyes were wide open and it looked as though the placement of the model was poorly done or rushed. It made me wonder if whoever created this concept was having second thoughts, or didn't want to include it. The frame lingered, before slowly fading to black. Suddenly, the music resumed and the game decided I had won the minigame and the usual end cutscene played with chuckie emerging from the leaf pile that was now magically there, as it's supposed to be. I was given the puzzle piece as normal and continued to play the game. I wonder if this was an easter egg or a reference to an episode I haven't seen? Does anyone know about anything like this? I haven't gotten this character to show up since, and I even replayed it recently to see if there's any other references to this "Bruce" character outside of this one minigame. None of the characters refer to him, I've looked to see if there was any models of the game floating out there (they are -- just not Bruce's), or even if there could be information on him on a sprite sheet or something. I did some searching and I can't find anything related to him in the show's universe either. I'm completely stumped. It wasn't scary or anything when I played it, but it's just odd. The first minigame having hoops instead of hurdles is weird too - I can't find anything on that either. Maybe it's some kind of shuffled dynamic in the game? Me and my friends recently were remiscing on old (kind of shitty) games we had growing up, and I started to remember this game and this really weird scenario I encountered. We tried searching as a team for more information on this, and it doesn't look like there's any information on a Bruce character existing in the rugrats universe, but we did find an interesting autofill result. Bruce's Death. AI Overview. Learn more. There isn't much information about Bruce's death in Rugrats, but here's some related information about the show: In Rugrats Go Wild, Eliza's father, Nigel, finds the lost babies and falls down a hill after a coconut hits his head. This causes him to lose his memory and revert to being three years old again. What the AI found is obviously not what I am looking for, and AI is known to be faulty and give out BS results, but it mentions Bruce's Death and how not much is known about it. I wonder if that's a coincidence? I've never been able to find any other information on this. Anyway that's about all I've got. You can take a look at the photos below if you want to see them. I have one for the hoops minigame alteration and one that shows bruce's model from the back, and him laying down on the ground. If anybody knows anything about this, please contact me here.