Tom: Offended? The guy at the thrift shop clearly said: "no nips, no problem."
Dakota: I think, as we get older, one thing you are going to look back on is which adults you listen to.
Ten Year Old Tom is a Max adult animated sitcom by Steve Dildarian that is a Creator-Driven Successor to his previous series, The Life & Times of Tim. The show is about a ten-year-old named Tom, an average kid who must contend with the well-meaning but questionable guidance of the adults around him. Like with the previous show, much of the humor comes from Tom ending up in increasingly awkward situations that no kid should be in.
This show provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Usually averted in the case of Tom's mother, who is mainly shown as a somewhat blunt and extremely irresponsible but well-meaning mother. However Tom reveals in group therapy that she occasionally plays "funny punishments" when he misbehaves. Including: showering him in gatorade so he will be sticky all day or making him run around the neighborhood in his underwear. Everyone is suitably disturbed by it, even Dakota's mom.
- Advice Backfire: As the show's official description states, much of the show is about the strange and eccentric adults around town giving Tom well-meaning advice. Only for said advice to be terribly misinformed or Tom misinterpreting what they mean.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Mainly dowplayed. Tom is seen by the people around him as a weird, dumb loser. Despite that, Tom has genuine friends and is usually treated the same by everyone else (outside of Dakota's mom). In fact, it seems like the adults give Tom too much attention as he is their go-to kid for whatever scheme or event they have in mind. There are times that show Tom is very much capable of being fairly well liked if it weren't for unlucky circumstance.
- Dakota's mom is a straight example. She is widely hated by everyone in town (including her Henpecked Husband and possibly her own daughter) due to her snobbish, obnoxious, and elitest mentality. The feeling is mutual in that she pretty much hates everyone in town, especially Tom.
- Ascended Extra: Tom's uncle Bill becomes a main character in season two after he moves in Tom's house.
- Ass Shove: Discussed. When the bus driver reveals that the steroids Tom have taken were actually mentos, Tom says that is impossible — because he has been shoving them up his butt every six hours.
- Black Best Friend: Nelson, who consistently helps and supports Tom with whatever issue he is dealing with.
- Bolivian Army Ending: "Tom Urinates on Boston" ends with an entire crowd of angry baseballs fans chasing after Tom after he accidentally urinated on Babe Ruth's baseball mitt.
- Butt-Monkey: Tom is hit with all sorts of bad luck and is usually dragged by the many adults in his life to whatever Zany Scheme they are pulling off. He is also widely seen as a loser by his peers and his home life is not the best. His dad abandoned him and his mom, while well meaning, tends to be neglectful or ignorant of his needs. Any time something good happens to him, you can bet that something is going to push him back to square one.
- The only people who arguably have it worse than him are the school faculty. All of them are shown to have miserable and cruddy lives and their guidance to Tom often drags them into worse positions as well.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': No matter how many plans or schemes Tom and his family would make to get ahead in life, make quick buck, or to avoid something they do not want to do, they all fail and often end up in even worse situations than if they had done nothing at all.
- Continuity Nod: Tom occasionally mentions how he can play the bassoon from the first episode.
- Cool Uncle: Tom's Uncle Bill tries to be this but it usually doesn't work out, save for a few occasions.
- The Ditz: Tom is widely known by everyone for being a dumb kid. He has poor grades in school, often misreads advice and social cues, is extremely gullible and naive, and has a nasty tendency of not thinking anything through with his plans.
- Downer Ending: Most episodes end with Tom in a bad/humiliating situation or losing everything he has worked for.
- Failure Is the Only Option: All of Tom's plans and schemes backfire on him and those around him.
- Gasshole: Invoked. In order to get out of the school's new carpool plan, Tom's mom buys a fart sound device for Tom to use to trick the kids that he is a Gasshole so they won't ride in their car. However, instead of being grossed out by Tom and get out of his mom's carpool, the kids get concerned about Tom's health as no normal kid should be farting that much and the school nurse believes that Tom is dying.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The school principal genuinely cares about Tom. Despite having instances where he can be cruel or mean towards Tom, he admits that he sees all of his students as family. The season two finale cements this, when he (along with the school nurse) fly themselves to Cancun after hearing that Tom went missing.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Season two dishes them out to a few characters who wronged Tom.
- In "Tae Kwon Do" Tom suffers a humiliating Curb-Stomp Battle against the hands of the school janitor. At the end of the episode, the janitor again tries to fight Tom, only for Tom to initiate a Groin Attack and the janitor collapses in pain.
- In "Shopping Cart Hit and Run" one of Tom's friends puts him in a Frivolous Lawsuit over a bunch of watermelons landing on his head (while pretending to be handicapped from injuries). By the end, Tom accidentally hits him in the eye with a wine cork and then gets continuously hit by a grocery store's automatic door.
- "History Week" has the principal trying to make Tom his fall guy (for the second time in a row) before stuffing him in a cabinet. Later on he makes Tom write a speech about him to win the favor of the parents. Tom gets some severly misinformed information from a supposed school librarian and accidentally makes the principal a social pariah who has his office burned down.
- After two full seasons of mostly unwarranted hatred towards Tom, Dakota's mom finally gets her due in "Sweet Home Cancun". Tom ruins her Cancun vacation, gets her banned from any alcoholic beverages, unwittingly buys her a scam timeshare, and gets her credit card declined.
- The titular crossing guard in "Crossing Guard" who drove Tom's face in the mud and gave him a ticket. Through Tom's (well-meaning, but extremely poorly thought out) actions, she loses her job and gets beaten up and then hospitalized by Randy's dad.
- An early example would be in "A Daffodil for Terrence", where a jealous Mr. B recasts Tom's role for himself and ends up getting booed by the audience as they wanted Tom to be on stage to make fart jokes.
- Lighter and Softer: While Tom is an all-around Butt-Monkey who almost never wins, the show heavily downplays the sadistic, cringe-inducing, vulgar, and adult nature of The Life & Times of Tim. Tom's treatment is also not as bad as Tim's and has him occasionally getting away from bad situations.
- Little "No": Essentially Tom's Catchphrase at this point to whatever insane plan someone wants Tom to do.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Mr. B, when he ended up in the bad part of town wearing nothing but a bathrobe near Tom while carrying a hard drive that says "pics of little kids". When in reality he was in a rush and was about to give Tom a drive containing all the pictures for the school year book.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: All the adults in town (and Tom) were invited to the school nurse's wedding, except for the Manchild bus driver.
- Never Trust a Title: Many episodes in season two barely revolve around their titles. For example:
- "The Nurse's Baby" seems to be about a gender reveal party for the Nurse's baby, but spirals into a story about Tom destroying the town lake with pollution and needing to find a way redeem himself.
- "Bowling League" shows Tom in a boweling team with his friends, only for it to actually involve a motivational speaker dying and Tom needing to become a better bassoonist in order to honor his memory.
- Nice Guy: Tom is a really nice fellow who shows no true animosity towards anyone. However he is often pressured by those around him to perform actions that make him seem like a grade A Jerkass. Such as when Tom's friend, Nelson, encouraged him to give a roast to the school principal that was so hurtful, he quit his job in despair.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Tom has a tendency to make already bad situations even worse. Such as when he became the school's treasurer and ended cooking the books. Once exposed, the principals encourages Tom to shred all evidence that he did. Only for Tom to mistakenly shred the school's permanent records and forcing all the kids to repeat their grades.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Any time the school principal supports Tom in any endeavor ends bad. Such as when he commissioned Tom to paint a mural for the school to show the board, believing that he was a good artist. Tom hires another artist to paint the mural, which depicted the principal getting raped by the school mascot. The board is so offended of what the principal had apparently bought that they decide to permanently display the mural in school, as punishment for wasting school funds and so that all future generations will know how much of a loser he is.
- No Name Given: Most of the adults go unnamed. Tom's mom, the school principal, the nurse, Dakota's aprents, the ice cream man, and more, remain nameless. Mr. B remains somewhat as an exemption.
- Later on, when some of them are named, most people stil refer to them by their titles.
- Pet the Dog: Despite being mildly disliked by almost everyone, whenever Tom appears to be in a medical crisis or is in a grave situation, everyone (especially school faculty) becomes unnaturally more caring and compassionate to him. It's a shame that every case of this is an extreme misunderstanding where Tom does not actually need the help or medical attention.
- Poor Communication Kills: So much of Tom's problems could have been avoided if he was much better with his words and if he tried to explain himself more.
- Running Gag: Tom and his mom saying that his dad ran away to Myrtle Beach.
- Satellite Character: Something that Nelson admits. Without Tom, he can barely hold a conversation with Dakota or the bus driver unless it is directly about Tom's actions.
- Sour Supporter: Nelson always helps Tom but is not afraid to call out his stupid actions or whenever he acts like a loser.
- Status Quo Is God: No matter how much Tom tarnishes his reputation by the end, the next episode always has him back in square one.
- The Stoic: Just like his previous counterpart, Tom reacts to most upsetting things with mild inconvenience or annoyance.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: The season two finale ends relatively... fine for Tom. After being deported into Mexico, effectively being enslaved as a cabana boy in a resort, and becoming The Scapegoat in his relative's timeshare scam, Tom ultimately gets out of it no worse for wear and allowed back into New Jersey. The only trouble being that all his friends, family, and anyone who remotely likes him are still in Mexico searching for him, having no idea that he is already back home.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Mr. B becomes much more antagonistic and mean to Tom in season two.
- Unlucky Everydude: Tom is a somewhat dim, but mostly normal kid who has bad things happen to him all the time. Although sometimes he brings it on himself.
- Weirdness Magnet: Tom attracts all sorts of eccentric people and always end up in bizarre situations through contrived coincidences.
- "Tae Kwon Do" examplifies this. In the span of a single school day, Tom wrestles the school janitor, kicks a kid in the face, almost gets spanked by the principal, and then accidentally moterboats the cafeteria lady. Even Nelson is amazed by how much strange situations he can get in.
