Rugrats is an American animated television series created by Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó, and Paul Germain for Nickelodeon. The show focuses on a group of toddlers, most prominently Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and Angelica, and their day-to-day lives, usually involving common life experiences that become adventures in the babies' imaginations. Adults in the series are almost always unaware of what the children are up to; however, this only provides more room for the babies to explore and discover their surroundings. The series premiered on August 11, 1991, as the second Nicktoon after Doug and preceding The Ren & Stimpy Show. Production initially halted in 1993 after 65 episodes, with the last one airing on May 22, 1994. From 1995 to 1996, the only new episodes broadcast were "A Rugrats Passover" and "A Rugrats Chanukah", two heavily Jewish-themed episodes that both received much critical praise. New Rugrats episodes began airing regularly again in 1997, and The Rugrats Movie, which introduced the character of Tommy's younger brother Dil, was released in November 1998. A sequel titled Rugrats in Paris: The Movie came about in 2000, and the infant character Kimi and her mother Kira were added to the series' cast. Rugrats Go Wild, a crossover film with fellow Nicktoon The Wild Thornberrys, was released in 2003 to mixed reviews. The final episode aired on June 8, 2004, bringing the series to a total of 172 episodes and 9 seasons. On August 11, 2001, Nickelodeon broadcast the made-for-TV special "All Growed Up" in celebration of the series' 10th anniversary. The special acted as a pilot for the Rugrats spinoff series All Grown Up!, which appropriately chronicles the lives of the babies and their parents after aging 10 years. Another spinoff series, Rugrats Pre-School Daze was considered, but only four episodes made it past production. Two direct-to-video specials have also been produced under the title Rugrats Tales from the Crib. Tie-in media for the series include video games, comics, toys, and various other merchandise. Rugrats gained over 20 awards during its 13-year run, including 4 Daytime Emmy Awards, 7 Kids' Choice Awards, and its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The series garnered Nickelodeon high ratings and stayed as the network's top rated show for five consecutive years. It was Nickelodeon's longest-running Nicktoon until 2012, when SpongeBob SquarePants aired its 173rd episode.

Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a gameboard which is divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words which, in crossword fashion, flow left to right in rows or downwards in columns. The words must be defined in a standard dictionary. Specified reference works (e.g., the Official Club and Tournament Word List, the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) provide a list of officially permissible words. The name Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the United States and Canada and has been sold by Hasbro's Parker Brothers division since 1999; prior to 1999 it was sold as a Milton Bradley game. Outside the United States and Canada, Scrabble is a trademark of Mattel. The game is sold in 121 countries and is available in 29 languages; approximately 150 million sets have been sold worldwide and roughly one-third of American homes have a Scrabble set.

Shaman King (Japanese: シャーマンキング, Hepburn: Shāman Kingu) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiroyuki Takei. This manga follows the adventures of Yoh Asakura as he attempts to hone his shaman skills to become the Shaman King by winning the Shaman Fight. Takei chose shamanism as the main theme of the series because he wanted a topic that had never been attempted before in manga. The Shaman King manga was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump between 1998 and 2004. The individual chapters were collected and released in 32 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. An animated television series was co-produced by TV Tokyo, NAS, and Xebec, which aired on Japan's TV Tokyo network from 2001 to 2002. The manga has also been reprinted in a kanzenban edition, and has spawned video games, a trading card game, and many types of Shaman King-related merchandise. In North America, Viz Media obtained the English-language license for the manga and published chapters of Shaman King in its Shonen Jump magazine from March 2003 to August 2007. The anime series was licensed in North America by 4Kids Entertainment in 2003, and aired on Fox Box. Exclusive video games were released by 4Kids Entertainment in North America and Europe. In Japan, the manga has been popular, selling over 26 million volumes as of 2011. Both the manga and anime have been featured, at various times, in "top ten" lists of their respective media. The Shaman King anime has been watched by a large number of television viewers in Japan. Publications about manga, anime and other media have commented on the Shaman King manga, with positive comments on the series.

Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy-comedy film produced by PDI/DreamWorks, released by DreamWorks Pictures, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. It is loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!, and somewhat serves as a parody film, targeting other films adapted from numerous children's fantasies (mainly animated Disney films). The film made notable use of popular music; the soundtrack includes music by Smash Mouth, Eels, Joan Jett, The Proclaimers, Jason Wade, Baha Men, and John Cale (covering Leonard Cohen). The rights to the books were originally bought by Steven Spielberg in 1991, before the founding of DreamWorks, when he thought about making a traditionally animated film based on the book. However, John H. Williams convinced him to bring the film to DreamWorks in 1994, the time the studio was founded, and the film was put quickly into active development by Jeffrey Katzenberg after the rights were bought by the studio in 1995. Shrek originally cast Chris Farley to do the voice for the title character, recording about 80%–90% of his dialog. After Farley died in 1997 before he could finish, Mike Myers was brought in to work for the character, who after his first recording decided to record his voice in a Scottish accent. The film was also originally planned to be motion-captured, but after poor results, the studio decided to get PDI to help Shrek get its final computer-animated look. Earning $484.4 million at the worldwide box office, the film was a critical and commercial success. Shrek also received promotion from food chains such as Baskin-Robbins (promoting the film's DVD release) and Burger King. It was acclaimed as an animated film worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented jokes and themes but a simple enough plot and humour to appeal to children. Shrek won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was also nominated for six British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, including the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Eddie Murphy for his voice-over performance as Donkey, and won the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film's main (and title) character was awarded his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2010. Shrek established DreamWorks Animation as a prime competitor to Pixar in the field of feature film animation, particularly in computer animation. The film's success prompted DreamWorks to create three sequels, Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, and Shrek Forever After, two holiday specials, Shrek the Halls and Scared Shrekless, and a spin-off film, Puss in Boots. A fifth film, planned as the last of the series, was cancelled in 2009 with the announcement that the fourth film would conclude the series. The film's success also inspired other merchandise, such as video games, a stage musical and even a comic book by Dark Horse Comics.