Caillou Joins The Circus (Caillou)

"Caillou Joins The Circus" is the eighth episode from the first season of Caillou. It was first aired on September 24, 1997 in Canada and then on September 21, 2000 in United States.

Plot
The episode follows Caillou, who wakes up at one morning and starts getting ready to go to the circus, until Boris comes in and announces that the circus is actually tomorrow. He then begins to cry and tries to forget the bad news by playing with a toy car, but it doesn't work. When Caillou goes downstairs, Boris suggests a circus parade around the house. They have fun, but Doris wakes up from all the noise and marches back to bed.

Why Caillou Wasn't Going To The Circus

 * 1) Misleading title: Despite the title being called "Caillou Joins The Circus", he does not actually join the circus in the episode, in fact, we don't even see the circus outside of his dream!
 * 2) The episode is notorious for having Caillou's most infamous temper tantrum because he thought that the circus was going to be today, but finds out that the circus will be tomorrow. Not next week, not next year, but  tomorrow .
 * 3) *If the circus was cancelled or delayed, then it would've been slightly justifiable for Caillou to get upset, but the fact he got upset that the circus was due for only tomorrow just proves he cannot handle not going to the circus.
 * 4) The episode also suffers from a few animation errors:
 * 5) *In the scene where Caillou throws a tantrum, his toy car loses a wheel, but when the camera is moved, the wheel suddenly disappears for no reason.
 * 6) *Rosie is strangely shown to not be afraid of clowns, unlike Caillou's Halloween and Caillou Is A Clown where she was afraid of clowns.
 * 7) **It is possible that something happened offscreen between these two episodes that caused Rosie to develop coulrophobia (the fear of clowns).
 * 8) Caillou and his crying in this episode are both extremely annoying to listen to, it doesn't help by the fact that the same crying sound effect would be reused in later episodes of the series.
 * 9) Aside from calling out Caillou for his bad behavior, Boris doesn't do anything to calm Caillou down, and neither does he give him any sort of punishment for throwing a fit, which makes them Karma Houdini episode.
 * 10) The episode never explains why Caillou thought he was going to the circus today and it never explains whether Caillou misunderstood the promise his dad made to him regarding the date or if Caillou's dad had to make an urgent schedule change to the date. This confusion is never elaborated on.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) The beginning and the ending are both decent.
 * 2) The quote "Silly old car! Silly! Silly! Sillyǃ WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" is funny (depending on your view).
 * 3) Boris actually reprimands Caillou for his tantrum, as he goes to the bathroom to tell him to "stop all that racket" when Caillou throws his fit, which is a rare moment of him actually scolding Caillou for his actions.

Reception
Caillou Joins The Circus was met with very negative reception from critics and audiences, due to Caillou's tantrum and the misleading title. The episode received a 2/10 on IMDb.

PhantomStrider put this episode at #2 on his worst PBS Kids episodes.

This episode (especially Caillou's temper tantrum) has become a subject for many internet memes, particularly YouTube Poops and parodies of it on the video-making website GoAnimate.

Videos
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The Episode
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Trivia

 * This episode marks the first out of a couple of times where a character is told off for acting up - which is noticeably absent from other episodes featuring inappropriate behaviour.