Dil Pickles

Dillon Prescott "Dil" Pickles is the younger brother of Tommy Pickles, and cousin of Angelica Pickles on the Nickelodeon shows Rugrats and All Grown Up! . Named for Didi Pickles' cousin, Dylan Prescott, he was born in the first Rugrats movie (released November 20, 1998). For many fans, the 1999 entrance of Dil into the Rugrats TV show marked the point where the series "jumped the shark".

Rugrats
When Dil joined the Rugrats cast in 1999, his age was moved up to 3 months. From the very beginning, Dil had curly yet limited hair on his head, and he almost always wore yellow trap-door pajamas (in the movies, his pajamas were purple for some reason. Maybe because they were the only colour available in his size at the time.). Because of his age, Dil could not say as many words as the other Rugrats. For the final five years of Rugrats' run Dil had to learn on how to be a Rugrat. He always wanted everything at his age and would always do whatever he could to get anything. When he grabbed something, he would often say, "Mine!" He was just as selfish as his cousin Angelica, and always cried until something would get his attention. Dil's cuteness, however, saved Dil from becoming an Angelica-clone. Dil would always call Angelica "Yucky," and he was also a hair puller. His favorite sports were tennis (as evidenced in "Silent Angelica") and baseball (as revealed in "Hand Me Downs"). Sometimes Dil would say "poopie" whenever he was about to poop on his diaper. And Dil would always be called up to save the other Rugrats at the right time (as when Dil found the treasure in "Club Fred"). Dil remained the same height until a 2003 episode titled "Back to School" when he, according to his father, Stu Pickles, "grew an inch." Even after Rugrats ended, Dil, and his popularity, would keep growing.

All Grown Up!
At 9 years of age, Dil may still be the youngest of the gang, but he has come a long way from when he was a 3 month old. Dil now has red hair, like his mom Didi, and he has developed an unusual personality, as evidenced in "Truth or Consequences" when Vice Principal Pangborn analyzed him. Dil had an imaginary best friend in Izzy in the episode "Izzy or Isn't He?" In "Lucky 13," Dil spoke with porpoises. And in "The Big Score," Dil becomes the mascot for the middle school soccer team by dressing up as various animals, including a slug and a monkey not unlike the Los Angeles Angels' Rally Monkey. Dil, in fact added soccer to the list of favorite sports early on in the series (since then however, most of the soccer is focused on Phil and Lil DeVille). Dil also shows his side as an inventor in "Tweenage Tycoons," proving that Dil is a smart boy. When someone needs help, Dil will always be there.

Dil is not only an unusual boy; but he also is a mix of several international cultures. Dil's lucky hat, with a set of teeth dangling from it, is a Sherpa hat; Dil's watching of Spanish-language TV shows also shows Dil's Latin American influence, even though he doesn't know a word of Spanish. Dil's kilt, first introduced in the second season, is Scottish, and in "Memoirs of a Finster" Dil wore Japanese shoes and even ate with chopsticks. Thanks to his unusual behavior and originality it's been thought that Dil got the Fonzie syndrome this happened on the last seasons of the show which most of the story-lines included him and even on the last episode "All Broke Up" he masterminded both plots.

Dil the multi-cultural rugrat
Dil Pickles is known as the weird rugrat on 'All Grown Up' and thanks to that he has developed a strong and original personality. Part of his weird behavior is how he loves embracing different cultures, is known that Dil wears a Peruvian hat in almost every episode, and he wears the kilt part of Scottish culture and in the episode 'Memoirs Of A Finster', he was seen eating with chopsticks and wearing Japanese shoes and wearing a Mexican poncho. On 'Dude, Where's my Horse?', it is known that Dil is also interested on different languages like Spanish (which is the language of one of his favorite Soap Opera "¡Hospital de Tentacion!" ) and Portuguese as we saw in 'Curse of Reptar'.

Dil the Little Bro
During the series Dil has changed his role of little brother, on Season 1 and 2 we saw a continuity of how Dil looked up to Tommy, in All Grown Up he worshipped Tommy until Season 3 where Dil seems to get independence from his own brother, on Season 4 he finally breaks that feeling of worshipping and on Season 5 the rivality of the brothers is more seen as Dil is totally independent from his brother, and as seen in Golden Boy he shows that he can be better than Tommy in almost everything, and defeating him in the forest with his skills that include :Talking to animals,constructing campers with things he can find in the forest etc.

Dil the Inventor
Like his father Stu before him, Dil Pickles possesses the gift of invention. However, Dil's inventions tend to be somewhat as weird as he is. "Tweenage Tycoons" featured many of these inventions:


 * The "Belt-Quarium", a belt-like aquarium that Dil built so he could keep an eye on his pet goldfish, Pablo.
 * "Shades With a View", shades that act somewhat like Fisher-Price's Viewmaster toy, with is a button on the top of the lens which allows the user to flip through different slides.
 * "Shillows", as Dil describes them, "shoes with pillows".
 * A tie with a watch face that allowed the wearer to quickly glance downwards and see the time, instead of lifting his hands to see the time.

The episode "All Broken Up" also shows him inventing a board game called "Impatience."

Also, another invention appeared briefly in "Truth or Consequences" that allowed Dil to read while walking backwards on his hands. As Dil passed by, it prompted Phil to ask, "I wonder what Dil would be like if we never dropped him on his head?"

Also in "Tweenage Tycoons", there were also several inventions and ideas that Dil considered, that didn't turn out so well (some of which didn't even leave the drawing board!):


 * Glow-in the dark socks
 * Glow in the dark underwear
 * Mayonnaise Wallpaper
 * Ideas which had been done before like a rubber band ball, a file cabinet, and glue.

Fan criticism
Many longtime Rugrats fans consider Dil a Cousin Oliver and cite his birth as the moment when the series jumped the shark. Some fans also couldn't understand what Dil said on Rugrats, and thought he was rather gross. Still, Dil has grown in popularity since becoming a Rugrat (with later addition Kimi taking all of his bullets for him), and has become one of All Grown Up!'s most popular characters. Dil has had at least a speaking role in all except 7 episodes as of early season 3 (the exceptions being "Susie Sings The Blues", "Chuckie's In Love", "River Rats", "Miss Nose It All", "Runaround Susie", "The Science Pair", and "Fear of Falling", but even in non-speaking roles, his weirdness is still there, for example, in "The Science Pair", he's shown floating between two poles of a huge horseshoe magnet).

Voice actress
Already a frequent Rugrats guest voice because of her role as Timmy McNulty, Tara Strong officially joined the cast as Dil's voice, as she remains today. She can also be heard on The Fairly OddParents, as Raven on Teen Titans, and Dil's Rugrats voice has been reused on another cartoon, The Proud Family, in which she is the voice of BeBe and CeCe Proud. In fact, until Rugrats ceased production Tara recorded Dil's lines separately from other cast members, a job she did again as the voice of 3-month-old Dil for the video release "Tales from the Crib: Snow White," which was released on VHS and DVD on September 26, 2005.

Trivia

 * Dil's first word was "poopie".
 * When Tommy and Dil were introduced, Dil tweaked Tommy's nose.
 * Dil has an imaginary alien friend called 'Izzy', revealed in the episode 'Izzy, or Isn't He?'. However, the somewhat cryptic ending of the episode (where an apparently empty chair is pulled down as if somebody is sitting in it) may imply that 'Izzy' could be very much real. (Dil's friend even entered a school election against Chuckie, resulting in Chuckie becoming unpopular with the electorate when he supposedly ran a lawnmower over it, resulting in the cryptic nature of the ending.)
 * Dil is fascinated by dolphins, believing that they share 'a bond with their alien brethren' - possibly inspired by Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
 * Dil is a team laser tag player, as shown in 'Tommy Foolery'.
 * Dil has a pet goldfish called Pablo, which served as his inspiration to create the 'Belt-Quarium' (see above).
 * Dil believes strongly in aliens and the supernatural.
 * Phil and Lil think the reason Dil has such a strange personality is because they dropped him on his head when he was a baby.