



Elizabeth ‘EG’ Daily, voice of Tommy Pickles

It was my first ever voiceover audition, and I very nearly didn’t go. I was having carpet fitted in my apartment, and I didn’t want to leave the workers alone. But my agent was like: “I really think you should go.” So I went. I was the first person in, and I told them I was in a hurry. But they kept me in the booth, and just kept on bringing producers in, one after another.

I recorded a Tommy session while I was in labour. The engineer was like, ‘Your contractions are coming really quickly’

As soon as they showed me a drawing of Tommy, I could hear his voice in my head. It was a voice I’d been doing since I was in elementary school, when my friend Michelle and I would walk around the yard holding pinkies and doing baby voices. I’d performed this voice for friends ever since; it was just a cute thing I did. And of course, once Rugrats was famous, I did the voice even more. Teenage boys were my favourites: at my daughters’ parties, I’d go over to the boys pretending to be tough guys, and then do my Tommy voice, and watch as their whole bravado dropped and they started doing baby impressions at each other.

I sometimes get the urge to do the Tommy voice at inappropriate times. Recently, I did it for my mother’s bank manager.

‘Leader and hero’ Tommy Pickles Photograph: Moviestore/Rex Shutterstock

I worked on the show for 14 years. Paul Germain, our main director, was really into detail: something that might have taken 10 minutes on another show would take a lot longer on Rugrats. He worked us hard, and it shows.

Rugrats worked so well I think, because it wasn’t sugar-coated. In the middle of a real family, with real issues, we had real children living out their fantasy lives. It was this amazing chance to see what children think and do while their parents aren’t looking.

When you work on something for that long, you all become very close. We saw both births and deaths. We lost the wonderful actress Dana Hill to diabetes. I even recorded a Tommy session while I was in labour. The engineer was like: “Your contractions are coming really quickly now.” And I was like: “No, I’m fine.” Very soon after that, I had my daughter.

Arlene Klasky, creator

Originally, I wanted to call the show Onesomething, after the TV series Thirtysomething. But in the end, we decided on “Rugrats”, a phrase used to describe kids crawling about on the floor, which wasn’t so well known at the time.

The idea came to me in 1989. I was working at home, looking after my two sons, then aged four and 15 months. I was doing a bit of work on Sesame Street for Klasky Csupó, the animation company I ran with my then husband, Gábor [Csupó]. But I knew I didn’t want to go back to work yet full-time.

One day, Gábor called to say that Nickelodeon wanted to discuss ideas. I thought: “Oh my gosh – all I do right now is watch my kids go to the bathroom. If they could speak, what would they say? Why do they do the funny things they do?”

We had a meeting at home, so I could watch my kids, and came up with the main characters. There was Tommy (one), the leader and the hero; Chuckie (two), the scaredy cat; and Angelica (three), the bully. Every show needs a villain – Angelica was ours. Later, we added in their families, and the neighbours across the street.



At first, Nickelodeon had six to 12-year-olds in mind as the target age group. But, as the series progressed, it began to work on two levels, appealing to adults, too. Visually, we were trying something different. Gábor had grown up in Hungary, and we were both just as interested in European and Japanese illustration as in Disney and American cartoons.

It just exploded. When the show started, we had two employees; when it finished, we had 550.

I remember driving my son to school, and listening as his friend talked him through the entire plot of one episode. And kids would write in and phone constantly – they still do. Kids who are being bullied at school write to say they love Rugrats because it feels like a safe place.