In an interview with Entertainment Weekly celebrating the Rugrats 25th anniversary, the show's co-creator Paul Germain explained that death and divorce were both looked upon by Nickelodeon as subjects too dark for a kids' show, so the writers never really explained the absence of Chuckie's mother. "If you watch the first 65 half-hours of Rugrats, they never mention Chuckie’s mom — or if they do, it’s a tease," Germain said. "We mention that she exists, but we don’t tell you what happened to her. We even made a joke out of it in one episode. But we weren’t allowed to go into the subject.”
After Germain's team left, however, Rugrats decided to tackle Chuckie's loss in a Mother’s Day episode. The special follows Chuckie as he searches for a mother figure before his father finally reveals his mom died when he was an infant.
Watching the special, Germain had mixed feelings. He said, “I just sat there thinking, We weren’t allowed to do this, and now you guys are doing it. That’s something I regret,” he said.
Another Nicktoons mystery solved. And a fun fact for your next '90s trivia night: Chuckie's mom is voiced by Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall.