JTT: A Trip Down Memory Lane

By CC Staff

I was just rewatching an episode of Veronica Mars (which, if you don’t know, is my favorite show) that featured the fine acting stylings of one Jonathan Taylor Thomas, or JTT to those in the know. Needless to say, he hasn’t aged well. He’s not quite a Fred Savage but he is by no means a Jerry O’ Connell.In his episode of VM, he is sporting this strange post-apocalyptic lost in the cement jungle half-mullet that really sort of traumatized me.

This sad encounter made me want to remember a happier time in the mid-nineties when JTT was all dimples and dreams and, of course, my heart’s most fervent desire.

Let’s start in 1994 when I watched the Lion King about 25 times not because I really loved it, but just to hear JTT’s angel voice as Young Simba. No, he didn’t actually sing the songs, but he didn’t have to, because every word was, in itself, like a song.1995 may have been the best year of my life so far because that was the year that Jonathan released both Man of the House and Tom and Huck .

Of the two, Tom and Huck is by far my favorite, but let me just say that Jonathan is NOT attractive in this movie. He is going through what appears to be a girl‘s awkward stage (this did not afflict Brad Renfro, but he had his own problems). But I am no fair-weather lover and so, even before I fully understood the implications of the wet t-shirt, I watched and rewatched the scene in Tom and Huck where JTT, as Tom, emerges from a creek with his white shirt clinging to the bulging outlines of his baby fat. I think that maybe that is the moment that I discovered sex.

I didn’t own Man of the House but it came on every other day on HBO, so I didn’t really have to. JTT is marginally better looking in this movie, but something about it just didn’t do it for me as much as Tom and Huck did. Maybe, on some unconscious level, I understood that there was something fundamentally creepy about grown men and little boys dressed up like Indians in the woods? But, at the end of the day, any movie that features JTT in a montage set to “Gonna Make you Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by C&C Music Factory is alright in my book.

I’m going to skip The Adventures of Pinocchio because he is only in the movie at the end and is a f*cking wooden marionette up until then which is, in itself, also inherently creepy.

JTT’s best movie by far is 1998’s Wild America. Just when I get turned off by a scary puppet version of JTT, he reels me back in, fresh from the ravaging affects of puberty. Not only was he looking FINE (if a little underdeveloped for a 16 year old), he was flanked by the still hot Devon Sawa and the broodingly handsome Scott Bairstow (who has had some legal issues in the last couple of years).After Wild America, showbiz was not too kind to our friend Mr. Taylor Thomas. He had a lot of television appearances after Home Improvement ended including a super awkward turn as a bad guy on Smallville (JTT? A Bad Guy? Not buying it). The last real gig that the IMDB lists for Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a role in the short film Tilt-a-Whirl in 2005. He had the coveted role of “Customer #3” alongside world wide superstar Justin Guarini.

He may be dead in the hearts and minds of moviegoers, studio heads, and all the fans who used to love him but not to me. Never to me. Especially when I watch that episode of Veronica Mars.

If you still need a refresher course on JTT, here is my favorite JTT tribute video on Youtube