| “ | Twelve kids later and we still got the heat. | „ |
| ~ Tom Baker to his wife, Kate. |
Thomas "Tom" Baker is the main protagonist of the 2003 remake of Cheaper by the Dozen and its 2005 sequel. He is the father of the Baker family.
Tom Baker gets his dream job to coach his alma mater's football team. Meanwhile, his wife Kate also gets her dream of getting her book published. While she's away promoting the book, Tom has a hard time keeping the house of 12 kids in order while at the same time coaching his football team, as the once happy family starts falling apart.
He is played by Steve Martin, who also portrayed Lucky Day in The Three Amigos.
History[]
Cheaper by the Dozen[]
Tom Baker is a football coach at a small rural college in Midland, Michigan, where he met his future wife Kate and had 12 kids (Nora, Charlie, Loraine, Henry, Sarah, Jake, Mark, fraternal twins Jessica and Kim, Mike, and identical twins Kyle and Nigel). Kate has written her story into a book and hopes to send it to her friend to publish the book. Tom unexpectedly receives an offer from his old friend and football teammate Shake McGuire to coach at his alma mater in his hometown of Evanston, Illinois. Tom accepts the offer, and he and Kate begin making plans on moving back to Evanston. The kids find out and demand the move be put to a vote, even though Tom says it won't have any power. He loses the vote, even after he and Kate join, but goes ahead with the move anyway, claiming there will be more money and that they will be a "happier and stronger family". The atmosphere at the Bakers' new house is tense and the situation at school is even worse.
At the new house, the Bakers have their eldest daughter Nora and her boyfriend Hank (whom the kids dislike due to his arrogance and hatred of children) and soak his boxers in meat, and unleashing the dog Gunner on them. And Norah storms out. Tom scolds the younger kids for their naughty prank.
Later, the Bakers meet next-door neighbors the Shenk family consisting of Bill, Tina and their only son Dylan. After a series of mishaps, Dylan invites the younger kids to his birthday party. Shortly afterwards, Kate tells Tom that she's leaving on a book tour, leaving Tom in charge of the kids. Tom finds this almost impossible to handle. He tries to hire a nanny, but nobody is willing to work with 12 kids. Trying to balance his job as a father and a football coach, he brings his football players home with him, but that doesn't seem to help much either. When things get completely out of control (having fights in school and not doing chores), Tom grounds the kids from attending Dylan's birthday party, despite that the kids already got enough presents for him. While his back is turned however, the kids attend their anyway.
At Dylan's party, Jake tells him to go get the football they got for Dylan so they can play with it. When he does, he knocks some of the presents over, and the Brazilian mud viper they also got for him escapes. The resulting panic causes Tom to realize the kids have gone, and to enlist the players to round them up. He tries to take Sarah out of the bounce house, but during the chaos, a helium tank falls on the bounce-house, causing it to overinflate, then explode, sending Tom and several kids flying through the air. While the football players catch Sarah and the other kids, Tom lands on top of Dylan, breaking his arm and is taken to the hospital as Tina tells Tom that his kids are banned from playing with Dylan.
When her book is ready to pick up for publication, Kate is required to do a national book tour to promote it. Tom thinks that he can handle everything in the family's household while Kate is away, so he decides to hire the family's oldest child, Nora, and her self-absorbed boyfriend, Hank, to manage the children. When Nora and Hank arrive, the children plan to make Hank the target of their prank by soaking his underwear in meat and assisting the Bakers' pet dog, Gunner, to attack him by chewing his bottom, prompting him to refuse to assist in babysitting. As a result, Nora drives off with Hank, while Tom lectures them for their prank. After Kate departs for her book tour, Tom realizes that he cannot handle the children on his own after a chaotic night. In reply to this revelation, Tom tries to hire a housekeeper, but nobody is willing to work with a family as large as the Bakers, so Tom decides to bring the football players from work into the family's house for game practicing in the living room to prepare for the Saturday night football game as the children perform chores and their household games. However, the children start causing trouble at school. Kate overhears from the children about the chaos and cancels the book tour to take charge of the situation. Kate's publisher decides to create an additional promotion for her book by inviting Oprah Winfrey to tape a segment about the Bakers in their home instead.
Despite much coaching from Kate, the Bakers are not able to demonstrate the loving, strongly bonded family that Kate described in her book. When Mark becomes upset that his pet frog has died, a heated fight erupts moments before the segment starts, leading the cameramen to call Winfrey to cancel it. Mark runs away from home, prompting the Bakers to find him. When Norah tells Hank that her brother is missing, Hank is too busy watching his commercial to help, making Nora realize that Hank is nothing but a pompous jerk and storms out on her own.
During the search Tom indulges a hunch that Mark is trying to run back to the Bakers' old home, and eventually finds Mark on an Amtrak train departing from Evanston, Illinois to Midland. Reuniting with the rest of their family, the Bakers begin to address their issues with each other, and Tom ultimately resigns from his position at his alma mater with Shake.
Cheaper by the Dozen 2[]
Two years after Tom Baker resigned from his head coaching position, his family began to undergo many changes, beginning with Lorraine's high school graduation and internship with Allure magazine in New York City. Nora is now married to Bud McNulty and pregnant with their first child, with the intent to move to Houston, Texas because of Bud's new job.
Feeling the family is breaking apart as the children grow up, Tom persuades them to take one last family vacation at Lake Winnetka, a fictional lake in Wisconsin. The family finds that their old cabin is owned by a man named Mike Romanow. Tom's old rival, Jimmy Murtaugh, his new wife Sarina, and his eight kids Calvin, Anne, Daniel, Becky, Elliot, Lisa, Robin, and Kenny stay at the lake for the summer; Jimmy is also friends and neighbors with Mike.
Jimmy constantly flaunts his wealth and success to Tom, as well as the accomplishments of his children, often suggesting to Tom that he is less successful because of his parenting style. They get into many incidents, several of which are accidental: Mark accidentally sets off a backpack of fireworks, causing widespread panic, especially when it is thrown into a boat, igniting its engine and causing it to explode, he and Kenny crash into a tennis court with a golf cart, and Sarah is caught shoplifting from a gift shop.
Jimmy again brings up the topic that Tom needs to be stricter with his kids. This angers Tom, and he and Jimmy decide to settle the matter at the Annual Labor Day Family Cup. Tom trains the kids for days, not realizing they are miserable. Sarah and Elliot go to the movies to see Ice Age, but are spied on by their fathers, resulting in them getting into an altercation and humiliating their children. Upon returning to the Bakers' cabin, Sarah is furious and refuses to compete for Tom in the Cup. The other children are also angry with him for spying on Sarah and ruining the entire trip because of his competitiveness with the Murtaughs. Kate laments that his and Jimmy’s conflicting parenting styles have torn the two families apart.
The next morning, Tom goes to the Cup to compete with Kyle and Nigel, the only two still willing to go. However, after discovering an old "Team Baker" flag, Kate and the other kids show up, forgiving Tom and willing to compete again. After the events, however, the Bakers and the Murtaughs are tied for first; a tiebreaking canoe race is announced, in which every family member must compete.
During the canoe race, Nora goes into labor. The Murtaughs want to help, but Jimmy, sensing the opportunity to defeat Tom once and for all, refuses. The Murtaugh children jump out of the canoe to help the Bakers. While arguing with Sarina, Jimmy reveals that he was jealous of Tom being the popular one when they were younger. Eventually, Sarina convinces him to help and the two families work together to get Nora to the hospital. Bud, Lorraine, who is the baby's godmother, and Kate go with Nora to the delivery room, while Tom, Jimmy, Sarina, and the rest of the kids stay in the waiting room.
While talking with Jimmy, Tom realizes that he has to let his kids grow, but wherever they go, they will always be together as a family. Nora then gives birth to a baby boy whom she and Bud named after his maternal grandfather Tom, who has shown them that "there is no way to be a perfect parent, but a million ways to be a really good one."
Bud announces that he and Nora have bought the cabin back at the lake. Nora, Bud, and baby Tom leave for Houston a few days later, and the family enjoys the rest of their vacation.
Trivia[]
- Rick Moranis, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Steve Carrell, Dan Aykroyd, Dustin Hoffman, Kurt Russell, Tim Allen, Tom Hanks, the late Robin Williams and George Wendt were all considered for the role of Tom Baker before Steve Martin was cast.
- His personality is very similar to Lynn Loud Sr. from The Loud House as well as David Read from Arthur and Tom Harper from Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn.
Gallery[]
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