Family Tommy was born
prematurely as Thomas Malcolm Pickles on June 11, 1990. He is the eldest son of Stuart "Stu" Pickles, a self-taught inventor specializing in children's toys, and Didi Pickles (
née Kropotkin), 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. 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 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. Though the youngest of the babies, Tommy is brave and adventurous and it comes naturally for him to serve as their leader, 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, 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 (1998), the story of which is centered around the birth of Tommy's brother; Dil. Tommy is also featured in
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie (2000), 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 (2003), 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. 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 (for his filmmaking aspirations) 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". ==Conception==