Caillou

Caillou

Thanks a lot for ruining our ears and little kids' good behavior with your whining.

Genre:	Slice-of-life Comedy
Running Time:	7 minutes
Country:	Canada Quebec
Release Date:	September 15, 1997 - October 3, 2010 (reruns aired until January 5, 2021)
Network(s):	Télétoon (Quebec) Teletoon (Canada) Treehouse TV (Canada) PBS (US)
Created by:	Hélène Desputeaux Christine L'Heureux
Distributed by:	Cinar (1997–2004) Cookie Jar Entertainment (2004–2010)
Starring:	Bryn McAuley (1997-2000) Jaclyn Linetsky (2000-2003) Annie Bovaird (2003-2010) Jennifer Seguin Pat Fry
Seasons:	5
Episodes:	144
Next show:	Caillou's New Adventures

Caillou is a Canadian educational children's television series that was first shown on Télétoon and Teletoon, with its first episode airing on the former channel on September 15, 1997; the show later moved to Treehouse TV, with its final episode being shown on that channel on October 3, 2010. The series is based on the books by Hélène Desputeaux. It centers on a 4-year-old boy named Caillou who is fascinated by the world around him.

Bad Qualities

Almost all of the characters are really poor:
- Caillou himself is an unlikable character. For example, he misbehaves constantly without being told off; in the fourth and fifth seasons, Caillou, despite being significantly better-behaved, is very bland and became a huge Gary-Stu.
  - As a matter of fact, his whining had an effect on kids' behavior.
- His parents, Boris and Doris, are no better. For example, they rarely punish or scold Caillou for his actions, even when he deserves it.
- The rest of the characters are bland and have little-to-no depth whatsoever. For example, Leo and Clementine are generic friends, and Ms. Martin is the generic teacher.
The voice acting ranges from bland to just plain annoying.
The art style is off-putting and questionable. For example, the backgrounds are never fully painted. The color palette is also too bright and unrealistic. Granted, this is likely done to resemble a children's storybook; the first season even features a more realistic art-style in the framing device, but that was dropped from Season 2 on.
The animation in later seasons is horrendous, as it is very stilted and lazy. This was likely done to cut corners and save money.
The show introduced interesting characters like Andy and Alan only for them to disappear later on.
Some questionable-at-best morals; in the banned episode "Caillou Goes Around the Block", for example, Doris allows Caillou to go out on his own, which is a very bad decision.
In later seasons, the morals are shoved down the viewers' throat.
The plots are extremely clichéd and stale as well in the later seasons.
Slow pacing.
Cringworthy theme song despite being catchy.

Good Qualities

Most voice acting is passable at the very least.
- Some one-liners are unintentionally funny like "Your mommy's gone!".
Some episodes are good, such as "Caillou Makes Cookies". The puppet skits for American airings were also pretty good as well.
The animation is actually really good in the first three seasons.
Season 4 and 5 are slight improvements over the first three, but are still mediocre at best, with morals being abused and the animation becoming horrendous.
Andy and Alan are interesting characters, being a good representation for autistic kids and kids with Down syndrome respectively, but are wasted.
- Gilbert is also a cute pet cat.
- Caillou's design is pretty cute as well, but his personality is poorly-executed. Starting in season four, Caillou, despite his Gary-Stuish behaviour, is better behaved.
The theme song is catchy, even if it's cringworthy too.

Episodes With Their Own Pages

Reception

Although the show performed well with its target preschool demographic, Caillou was heavily panned by older viewers and critics alike. The titular character's misbehavior throughout the show has made him an infamous character among older viewers and parents, since Caillou's troublemaking and whining was considered to be annoying and his parents accepting his actions rather than disciplining him didn't clearly show that his actions were wrong and as such he didn't learn from his mistakes. Many parents have even claimed that their children became naughtier when watching Caillou and copying the titular character's behavior.

The series currently holds a 4/10 on IMDb and 4.7/10 on TV.com. On Google, it has a 2.7 audience rating.

Trivia

Over the years, the show has been popularly satirized and mocked on social media and in some forms of entertainment, with numerous parodies and memes based on the show. Two notable examples being grounded videos on websites like Vyond and Plotagon and the premiere episode of Season 19 of Family Guy titled "Stewie's First Word".
Jaclyn Linetsky, Caillou's second voice actor died on September 8, 2003 due to traffic collision.
Bryn McAuley, first voice actress of Caillou, is also Mavis Dracula on the Sony Pictures Animation show Hotel Transylvania: The Series (replacing Selena Gomez from the movie), which aired on Disney Channel in 2017.
After its cancellation in 2010, the re-runs of Caillou still aired on PBS Kids until January 5, 2021 due to complaints about the main character's misbehavior/horrible example that the show received.

Comments

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DuchessTheSponge

one month ago

Score 5

Saitama = Caillou