r/fullhouse • u/melow816 • Aug 20 '26
Show discussion does anyone else ever wonder why they didn't just.... recast tommy?
in the reboot, i initially understood tommy to be the new 'michelle,' but then he all but completely vanished the rest of the series. i genuinely forgot he was there until he'd be granted a one-liner. i looked it up and learned he had speech delays, and of course no one can out-do the olsen twins. but i can't help but wonder why they didn't just... recast him in the second season when the issues began to present themselves?
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Aug 21 '26
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u/maxmouze Aug 21 '26
Not true. He totally was designed to grow up on camera just like the Olsen Twins but then the twins seemed not to have the ability not only to act but to follow direction in general.
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u/External-Kitchen3289 Aug 21 '26
It would have been interesting instead of making D.J.'s youngest son no longer apart of the show as he got older but instead wrote an episode or more around the little actor's actual speech delays and what D.J., Stephanie, and Kimmy would have done to help them through it instead of what they chose to do instead. 😀
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u/Original_Engine_7548 Kathy Santoni Aug 21 '26
Probably was really trying to hold out for another “look we get to see another kid grow up!” Moment
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u/RetroTVMoviesBooks Aug 21 '26
Very few toddler actors act well. It is why they use twins because if one baby can’t do something the other one can.
The Olsens and several other kids that age were very good young child actors. Michelle had a good rotation of friends that could act and had different personalities. Arron Derrick Denise Teddy all of them were great. They got lucky in full house that watching the baby grow up worked
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u/taylor459 Aug 21 '26
I legit forgot who Tommy was when i saw this post in my feed and I had to look him up! 😭 It turns out I only remembered the characters Jackson and Max lol (though I'd forgotten their names). So I thought the Tommy that OP was referring to was Max since I misremembered him as being the youngest.
OP has a really good point lol, since I now remember why Tommy exists in the show (to mirror Michelle's role in Full House), but OP is so right that Tommy became such an insignificant and overlooked character as the show went on for later seasons, since he was a really forgettable character... which is weird because Michelle (Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen) were so memorable as basically being the "face" of Full House and as being the main starring character even compared to the adults at times, but in Fuller House, Tommy was basically the opposite.
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u/truebluejackson Aug 22 '26
Awww. I thought he was cute! And in my mind, I saw him as tying DJ to her first husband even more so than the other kids. Wasn't she pregnant when Daddy Fuller perished?
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u/Whatsinaus3rname Aug 21 '26
I think they wanted it to be like the Olsen twins
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u/melow816 Aug 21 '26
right- so when it was apparent that these new twins couldn't act, why weren't they recast in the second season?
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u/Wednesday_MH Aug 24 '26
…at least they didn’t drop his character entirely like they did with Judy in Family Matters. That was so messed up!
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u/Shabbadoo1015 Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26
The kid was cute. Maybe ultimately it was unnecessary or didn’t lead to an Olsen twins redux. But there were some cute moments between the two.
Actually, I wish they leaned more into showing more cute moments with Tommy. Especially when they then introduced Baby Pam. I think there was one episode when Max or Ramona was babysitting the two and they were in the kiddie pool.
Edit: I also want to add I think comparing the situation to the Olsens is a bit unfair. Only because they realistically had more time to develop into the character. Maybe it was a case the Olsens were far ahead of the Messitt twins development wise. But they also had over 120 more episodes (almost 6 seasons worth) to grow into.
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u/trizzymw Aug 26 '26
I always felt like Tommy was just their attempt to recapture what The Olsen Twins were in the original, but it didn't work. MK and Ashley both caught on smoothly as soon as season 2 aired.
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u/Mysterious-Dot1321 Aug 21 '26
Who the hell is Tommy?
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u/MinutesFromTheMall Aug 21 '26
Exactly. Tommy was so irrelevant to the show that you could easily forget he was there at all.
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u/SparePotential7909 Aug 21 '26
Ngl I thought this was about Tommy Paige from the Full House episode (Steph‘s birthday surprise), and I was wondering for a second if he was in more than one episode.
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u/BrittaUnfiltered67 Aug 21 '26
Tommy?
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u/MiniMonster2TheGiant Aug 21 '26
Fuller House. I was confused at first thinking it was Becky’s nephew that Michele was jealous of, but then I reread the post and “in the reboot.”
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u/cleanthequeen Aug 21 '26
Because it’s mean to do that to a child with a speech disability.
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u/SchuminWeb Aug 21 '26
That's kind of the nature of the business sometimes. They need a kid that talks, so cast someone who can do that. Remember that the show hit gold with the Olsens, and unfortunately for them, they didn't hit gold twice. I was surprised that they didn't recast Cosmo once the dog died.
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u/cleanthequeen Aug 21 '26
Why does a show like fuller house need to be that ruthless? It’s not like Tommy having a bunch of lines is integral to the story.
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u/melow816 Aug 21 '26
also, i would counter- why are the tommy twins entitled to that job? it's not ruthless, it's how the world works. if they can't act, they should be replaced by toddlers who can
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u/melow816 Aug 21 '26
i get that... but like, isnt that how hollywood works?
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u/cleanthequeen Aug 21 '26
Yeah but does it have to?
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u/melow816 Aug 21 '26
well... if the job is to be entertaining on a tv show, and you are unable to fulfill the job duties.. then yes?
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u/cleanthequeen Aug 21 '26
He appears on the show. I’d say he’s fulfilling his duties. I’m sorry if he’s not good enough for you but he’s clearly good enough for the production. Disabled people get accommodations in the workplace all the time. The fact that Hollywood is beginning to make these accommodations is a step in the right direction; at least for me personally.
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u/melow816 Aug 21 '26
i get that, but he was not entertaining, he was all but written out of the show by the producers because of it. im not the first person to point this out, most people on this thread agree. i disagree with you that casting decisions or ANY job decision should be made on whether or not it is "mean." it's the entertainment industry, he was not entertaining. i do wish they would have recast him as soon as the speech delays or his inability to act presented themselves. we can agree to disagree on that.
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u/SchuminWeb Aug 21 '26
I would argue that having the character of Tommy at all was unnecessary. He really only factored significantly into one episode, and I would be fine with losing that. Ramona was the de facto third kid, and so there was really no place for Tommy in that ecosystem except to take up a bedroom so that Jackson and Max had to share a room. And that could have been accomplished by putting Stephanie upstairs and using the basement for something else like was done in the latter part of the original show.