Tommy Pickles
Thomas Malcolm "Tommy" Pickles is a fictional character and the protagonist of the animated children's television series Rugrats, the reboot, and its spinoff series All Grown Up!. He is also the protagonist of The Rugrats Movie and Rugrats Go Wild, and a major character in Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, as well as other various Rugrats-related media.
In Rugrats, Tommy is a 1-year-old baby and the leader of the show's other infant characters. He is inquisitive, wants to explore everything, and often breaks out of his crib and gets himself into unusual situations. Writer Steve Viksten said his adventurous personality was partially modeled after the actor John Wayne. All Grown Up! depicts a preteen version of Tommy.
Rugrats co-creators Paul Germain and Arlene Klasky have both claimed to have created the Tommy character, with both saying he was based upon their real-life sons. The character's first name comes from Germain's son, and he was drawn to resemble Klasky and her then-husband, fellow Rugrats co-creator Gábor Csupó's, son.
The character is voiced by E. G. Daily, who based her performance on a child character she had been developing since her youth. Daily voiced Tommy for the entire 13-year run of the Rugrats series as well as the films, and returned to voice the older version of the character in All Grown Up! and the 2021 reboot of the original series. The character of Tommy has been very well received by reviewers and fans, and as the central character on the network's top-rated program, he was considered pivotal in Nickelodeon's rise in the 1990s.
Character history
Family
Tommy was born prematurely as Thomas Malcolm Pickles on August 11, 1990. He is the eldest son of Stuart "Stu" Pickles, a self-taught inventor specializing in children's toys, and Didi Pickles, a schoolteacher. Though Stu works from home, out of the family's basement, Tommy and his younger brother, Dylan "Dil" are primarily cared for by Didi, who devotes much of her free time reading books on the latest in child development, hoping to raise her sons, and niece to be as emotionally and physically healthy as possible. As Stu is a Christian and Didi is Jewish, the family celebrates religious holidays affiliated with both Christianity and Judaism, such as Easter, Passover, Christmas, and Hanukkah. His paternal grandparents are Louis Kalhern "Lou" Pickles, and the late Beatrix "Trixie" Pickles, and his maternal grandparents are Boris Kropotkin and Minka Kropotkin. He has a paternal uncle and aunt, Andrew "Drew" and Charlotte Angelica Pickles, by whom he has a cousin, Angelica Pickles, and a maternal uncle and aunt, Benjamin "Ben" Kropotkin and his wife, Elaine Robinson-Kropotkin, who is rarely seen or mentioned.Description
In the original Rugrats series, Tommy is almost always depicted as speaking in a soft voice and wearing only a baby blue shirt and diaper, though he wore a red-orange shirt and overalls in the first episode, "Tommy's First Birthday." He is one year old at the beginning of the series, and has only a few strands of hair, the color of which indeterminable. He is white and through his mother, Didi, Tommy is of European Jewish heritage, with her parents being born and raised in Russia and later immigrated to the United States. He and other babies talk to each other when adults are either not around, or are not paying attention. Tommy and other babies also talk to toddlers such as his cousin Angelica and his neighbor Susie, who are both three years old. Tommy is not able to communicate with his newborn brother, Dil, which frustrates him at times. Though the youngest of the babies, Tommy is brave and adventurous and it comes naturally for him to serve as their leader, and, in stark contrast to Angelica, who frequently serves as an antagonist, he has a strong sense of justice and is unafraid to stand up for what he believes is right.Tommy is highly inquisitive, wants to explore everything, and regularly breaks out of his crib. He often uses a plastic toy screwdriver as a tool for escaping his crib and getting into places. Because of his goodhearted nature, he is sometimes easily manipulated or lied to. He is closest to Chuckie, as Phil and Lil, being twins, spend most of their time with one another and have a strong familial bond. His catchphrase is "A baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do."The series All Grown Up! depicts Tommy, Dil, and the other Rugrats children as middle-schoolers. Tommy, now a preteen, bears resemblance to both his mother and father, with palatinate hair similar to Stu and a button nose similar to Didi. A nod to his childhood, Tommy still carries his toy screwdriver with him as part of his keychain. He has become less of a leader to his siblings and friends and more of an equal and while he still has a strong sense of right and wrong, he is sometimes hesitant to do the right thing for fear of being rejected or teased by peers. He has remained best friends with Chuckie throughout the years, still encouraging him to step outside of his very small comfort zone, and somewhat critical of Dil, whose abnormal tendencies sometimes embarrass or confuse him. He shows a strong interest in filmmaking. In the first season, Tommy wears a white shirt with yellow sleeves, but from the second season onward, Tommy and the other characters expanded their wardrobe and began wearing many different outfits.
''Rugrats''
As the main protagonist of Rugrats, Tommy appears in the majority of episodes across the show's 13-year run, with many of the storylines centering around him and his family, and with the Pickles household often serving as the primary setting. The original unaired pilot for the series, "Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing", revolved around Tommy breaking out of his crib to travel to the bathroom and investigate the "great white thing," which is actually a toilet. The first aired episode of Rugrats was "Tommy's First Birthday", which was broadcast on Nickelodeon on August 11, 1991. It centered around Tommy first birthday and his birthday party, during which he and the other children believe that eating dog food will turn them into dogs. Some of the first season episodes featured such plotlines as Tommy journeying into a neighbor's house to retrieve a lost ball, Tommy making a mess at a fancy restaurant at his dad's work function, Tommy getting lost at the school where his mother teaches, and Tommy wandering around the stadium during a baseball game, in which he ultimately ends up playing. In the episode "Weening Tommy", his mother transition Tommy away from using a baby bottle to a Sippy cup, which he resists. Other episodes involved Tommy trying to escape from the doctor's office to avoid a shot, Tommy becoming fearful after Angelica tells him his parents will give him away at a family reunion, and Tommy developing a fear of getting sucked down the bathtub drain. One of the most notable episodes was "A Rugrats Passover", in which Tommy's Grandpa Boris tells the children the Jewish story of the Exodus on Passover. This leads the children to imagining themselves as part of the story, with Tommy playing the part of Moses.Tommy has been featured in several other Rugrats-related works outside of the main series. He is the protagonist of The Rugrats Movie, the story of which is centered around the birth of Tommy's brother; Dil. Throughout the film, Tommy struggles with the sudden change in his family's dynamic and with accepting Dil, who, being a newborn baby, does not understand the concept of sharing, cooperating, or being nice as Tommy does, which Tommy finds to be incredibly difficult to deal with. Ultimately, Tommy comes to accept Dil at the end of the film. Tommy is also featured in Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, which is set in Paris and focuses primarily on the wedding of Chuckie's father, as well as Tommy's father Stu being summoned to the amusement park Reptarland to fix a malfunctioning Reptar robot. Tommy appeared as the protagonist once again in the film Rugrats Go Wild, a crossover of Rugrats and the Nickelodeon animated series The Wild Thornberrys, in which Tommy and his family and friends become shipwrecked on a deserted island, where they meet the Thornberry family. Tommy made additional appearances in the straight-to-DVD films Rugrats Tales from the Crib, which were released between 2005 and 2006. In July 2018, it was announced that Tommy would appear in newly-planned Rugrats television series and a live-action film featuring characters rendered with computer-generated imagery. Plans for the movie were shelved in November 2019.
''All Grown Up!''
In addition to Rugrats and its related films and media, Tommy was the protagonist of All Grown Up!, which depicts him and the children from the original series as adolescents. The concept for the series derived from "All Growed Up", a special episode of Rugrats that aired on July 21, 2001, to celebrate the series' 10th anniversary, which portrayed the original characters 10 years into the future. Tommy remains the ringleader of his group of friends, though he has now developed a strong interest in filmmaking and makes movies with a camcorder. The episode "Truth or Consequences" revealed he made his first film at the age of 37 months, then made a negative film about his friends. The main storyline of "Brother, Can You Spare The Time?" opened with him mentioning recently winning a young filmmaker's award; and one storyline in the episode "Bad Aptitude" was about Tommy's sudden early retirement from filmmaking after making a flop and receiving an unfavorable result on his career aptitude exam, though he soon reconsiders after rediscovering his filmmaking passion. However, he has not been seen with his camcorder since "The Big Score", when he was filming Lil at the soccer field.In the episode "River Rats", Tommy was shown to be afraid of water, stemming from an experience during a fishing outing with his grandpa. Up until early Season 2, Tommy was also either shown or mentioned as being part of the school soccer team, even trying to teach Dil how to play in the episode "Fools Rush In". Tommy had his first kiss with Olivia in the episode "Fear of Falling". He also develops a romantic relationship with Rachel, who he meets at Hebrew school in the episode "Rachel, Rachel". It is also implied in the episode "TP + KF" that Tommy and Kimi Finster may have feelings for each other. All Grown Up! featured Tommy Pickles' final appearance, in the episode "Golden Boy". In January 2023, All Grown Up! got featured by CBR in the list of "10 Best Cartoons that turn 20 in 2023".