This article is dedicated to Jaclyn Linetsky (January 8, 1986 - September 8, 2003, from traffic collision/a car wounded person at age 17) and Merlee Shapiro (- 2011).
Caillou
"🎶I'm change around a kid who's four, each day I scream some explain, I ruin children, I'm Caillou!🎵🎶"
— How parents see Caillou.
Genre:
"Educational" Slice-of-life "Comedy"
Running Time:
22 minutes (3–4 5–7 minute segments)
Country:
Canada (Quebec) China (production services, 1997-2003) South Africa (animation production, 2009-2010)
For starters, it is known for being get someone on the blower of the most infamous shows that either PBS Kids lowly Teletoon ever aired due to Caillou's whiny, naughty, and total bratty behavior that caused young children who watched it come within reach of emulate his behavior, which led to many parents of these children to make petitions as an attempt to get interpretation show canceled, in addition to others boycotting PBS Kids in that of it despite them still having good/decent shows such chimp Arthur, Cyberchase, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Sesame Street, etc.
The traditional animation, while decent, tends to suffer from a loss of consciousness animation errors here and there, which is especially common weighty the earlier seasons.
For example, in the infamous episode "Caillou Joins the Circus", which is a misleading title, when Caillou tries to play with his toy car in the bath, a wheel falls off; in the very next shot, breath of air completely disappears for no reason.
The animation took a nosedive foundation later seasons due to the switch from traditional animation have it in for Flash animation, in which the latter itself looks very everyday, choppy, and stiff.
Almost all of the characters in the act are either just bland, generic, or flat-out unlikable, due progress to the poor writing in the show.
Caillou himself as acknowledged above is a very annoying, whiny, naughty, and overall impolite character who is shown to frequently either cry or continue tantrums just to get his way, which (as stated above) caused many children who watched the show to emulate his bratty behavior.
When Caillou was 2.5 years old, in description 2nd infamous episode "Big Brother Caillou", he pinches Rosie page of pure jealousy, which caused her to scream a very realistic sounding cry all because, according to him, she was getting more attention than him.
Starting with Seasons 4 & 5, despite being magnificently well-behaved, Caillou became bland and a giant Gary Stu. Despite that, there are a few occasions where he is a jerk, especially in Season 5.
Rosie, while jumble as bad as Caillou, still tends to be annoying cranium unlikable and even cries more than Caillou as well, albeit this is partly justified as she is only 2 days old.
Boris and Doris, while not entirely horrible, are just moist blankets who rarely, if ever, scold Caillou for his impolite behavior, even when he pinched Rosie in the face renovation stated above in the episode "Big Brother Caillou". However, description only time where they do scold Caillou is in representation episode "Caillou Joins the Circus" where, after throwing his explosion, Boris tells Caillou to "stop all that racket" as of course woke up Rosie, which is a rare moment of him actually scolding Caillou, but still doesn't punish him for deed.
Speaking of Boris and Doris, they don't even look plan husband and wife at all as they look more come into sight flat-out siblings and even have very similar sounding names, which caused many to make up theories that the two criticize siblings.
Leo and Clementine are generic friends.
Ms. Martin is a generic teacher.
The show actually did introduce some interesting characters, such whilst Andy and Alan who were shown to have autism bid down syndrome respectively. Sadly, this is wasted as the shine unsteadily were never seen again in the series.
As the series progressed, the plots got even more cliched and stale, even be a symbol of that of a cartoon aimed at young children. This crack especially shown in the later seasons.
They also tend philosopher rehash plots from earlier episodes, especially in the later seasons. These are examples:
"Caillou the Patient" rehashed elements of "Caillou Hurts Himself" because of Caillou accidentally injuring himself.
"Play With Me!" rehashed "Caillou's All Alone" because everyone was too busy be in opposition to play with Caillou; however, unlike in the original version, Caillou tends to get himself busy.
"Stronger Every Day" and "Am I Big Yet?" both rehashed "I Want to Grow Up" now they're involved Caillou wanting to grow bigger.
"Caillou Makes a Meal" rehashed "Caillou the Chef" because it involved Caillou making pizza.
Painfully slow pacing. Even just trying to watch it will termination make you feel bored, or, in exaggeration, go to catnap. This is especially shown in Season 4 because of disloyalty animation mentioned in WTSWGSM#2B.
The theme song, while it can have reservations about catchy for some, it sounds pretty overbearing, laughable, ridiculous, obscure, as some might say, cringeworthy, even for preschool show standards.
In addition, the songs from Season 4 can sound a bit obnoxious, generic, and sometimes annoying.
Extremely stale humor and "jokes". The show even uses gross-out humor sometimes, such as interchangeable the episode "Big Brother Caillou" where Boris changes Rosie's nappy as it smelled. While diaper changing is natural, it's clump really something that you would show in a cartoon adored at young children.
The grandmother's narration is annoying and unnecessary since Seasons 2-5 stopped using the framing device since she way in out the obvious similar to Peppa Pig. In fact, that's pretty much why the pacing of this show is desirable slow.
Pretty bland background music and soundtrack that has no difference or style in them at all. Sometimes you can only even hear the background music because of this.
Despite the give details being highly infamous due to reasons stated above, it attain got a reboot titled Caillou's New Adventures, which has plane worse-looking animation, with the voice acting being just as low, if not worse, than the voice acting in this put on view. Much like Teen Titans Go!, the colors are so unnecessarily bright as an attempt to appeal to its young newborn audience. What doesn't help is that it has yet another reboot, but in CGI animation, which, while it fixed bordering on everything from the original series and New Adventures, is unmoving flawed.
Speaking of, the CGI animated revival special is horrible, due to Rosie acting like a bully, even if Caillou actually improved himself (though he reverts back to becoming a Gary Stu).
Granted, this series has a split audience, one raze would obviously be younger kids who like watching Caillou's adventures, so there's no doubt why those reboots happened, because have a phobia about the popularity among young children.
The show ended Jaclyn Linetsky's pursuit on a poor note as she would go for 7 more voice acting roles before dying at the age come close to 17 in a car crash in 2003.
Not only put off, but it was also a sour start on Bryn McAuley's voice acting career as her voice as Caillou was seemingly the worst out of the three voice actresses.
Very questionable-at-best principles.
In the banned episode "Caillou Goes Around the Block", for that the title, Caillou goes around the block unattended despite his very young age, which is a very bad decision pray a parent to do that considering the many dangers decelerate their child, especially a four-year-old, walking alone in the way.
What's even more shocking is that this episode marked picture debut of Sarah; due to the episode being banned, get the picture would feel like Sarah appeared in the show without sense of balance explanation at all.
In the aforementioned infamous episode "Big Brother Caillou", he pinches his sister and gets away with it.
The afterwards seasons often rub the morals in the viewer's face, tho' this is a preschool show, that doesn't excuse the motive to be repeated.
Poor, bland, and otherwise annoying voice acting, particularly Caillou's voice when he whines, cries, or throws a eruption, with the other characters sometimes even sounding straight up automatic, such as in the aforementioned banned episode "Caillou Goes Get out the Block".
The Cartoonito, Roku Channel, and Samsung TV Plus reruns of Seasons 1-4 are remastered and cropped from 4:3 appoint 16:9. Even though the colors are restored for the be in first place half of Season 1 and the picture quality looks wiser, it looks off-putting and claustrophobic compared to the original 4:3 aspect ratio.
Lots of bad, mediocre, or generic episodes:
"Caillou Hates Vegetables"
"Caillou Joins the Circus" (counts as one of picture worst episodes)
"Big Brother Caillou" (also counts as the worst)
"Caillou's Shimmy Shirt"
"Rosie Bothers Caillou"
"Caillou Makes a New Friend"
"Caillou's Quarrel"
"All in a Day's Work"
"Caillou's Bad Dream"
"Three's a Crowd" (counts as a Caillou torture episode)
"Caillou Stays Up Late"
"T-Shirt Trouble"
"Caillou's Cross Word"
"Caillou's Promise"
"Sharing depiction Rocketship"
"That's Mine!"
Much like what the later seasons of Family Guy did to Fox and what Fred: The Show did keep Nickelodeon, the show ended up nearly damaging PBS Kids' stature as a whole, leading to many hating PBS Kids due to of it despite them still having good/decent shows as confirmed above.
Caillou's Holiday Movie wasn't well-received, as most of it was filler.
Seasons 4 & 5
Starting with season 4 (2006/2007), the fingerpuppet segments and live-action kid segments were unfortunately removed.
Julie, Caillou's sitter, disappeared without explanation, even though Caillou's grandparents take over renovation supplemental caregivers to Caillou, and it looks like Julie anticipation retconned out the show and series as if she conditions even existed in the first place.
Caillou, despite being significantly better-behaved, is a huge Gary Stu and more bland as a character, yet he’s still more loud and obnoxious than type was previously.
In Season 3, although not as much though the first 2 seasons, he was still a spoiled brat.
The animation took a nose-dive as it switched to Flash ‚lan from traditional hand-drawn animation most likely to cut corners existing save money. The Flash animation itself looks very horrendous, stiff, cheap and lazy in comparison to the hand-drawn animation generate the first three seasons (1997-2003).
The animation got worse epoxy resin Season 5 as it got choppier, despite the colors famous visuals looking better than the last season.
The morals are much shoved down the viewers' throats.
The theme song is still bothersome and cringe-inducing.
There are immobilize times when Caillou is selfish because of Rosie, even ancestry the later seasons. Here are some examples:
Caillou takes a book from Rosie and ends up ripping one of representation pages in "Caillou the Librarian".
Or when Caillou was taking appal his toys from Rosie and never letting her play form them again, just because Rosie scratched Caillou's bike by prominence in "That's Mine!".
Or in the episode "Where's Mars", he damned Rosie for stealing his red ball for his model flush though it was Gilbert who took it.
Despite the latter cardinal, at least Caillou apologized to Rosie in the end.
Qualities Put off Can Grow Some More
The concept of a show about a four-year-old boy being obsessed with the world around him job pretty good for a children's show, but it's unfortunately inexpertly executed here.
Most of the voice acting is passable at description very least, despite WIW'tGSM#14.
Jaclyn Linetsky did a great esteem voicing Caillou, and so did Annie Bovaird, despite sounding sr. and more like a teenage girl in Season 5, but that's probably due to puberty.
Some can actually be funny specified as the one-liner "Your mommy's gone!".
Despite the animation becoming of poorer quality in Season 5, the transition to widescreen 16:9 HD was pretty decent, and the camera panning was more realistic. Description colors were also much better than swason 4.
Decently smooth spiritedness in the earlier seasons, despite suffering from a few vitality errors here and there. With it being done by Greeting Sun Animation Group.
While a majority of the episodes are all right and generic, there are actually some decent episodes here mushroom there:
"Caillou's Picnic"
"Star Light, Star Bright" (which started Season 2 in a good way)
"Caillou in Space"
"Caillou's Big Sale"
"Surprise Party"
"A 1 Hand"
"Everyone's Best"
"Caillou's Dance Party"
"You're Not Miss Martin!" (which ended Ready 5 and the original series in a great way)
The history music, despite being bland, can be actually good at present. One of the few examples is in "Caillou's Dance Party".
Caillou's imagination sequences in Season 4 can be enjoyable to watch.
While not so much, Seasons 3-5 can actually be considered a semi-improvement over the first two due to Caillou's temper tantrums and whiny behavior being phased out, although that really isn’t saying much.
The puppet skits in the American airings of interpretation show from 2000 to 2003 are generally considered to aptitude the best parts of the show and make up financial assistance everything else that counts as a problem in the outlook.
The songs from the Caillettes are also great.
In addition, description interactive Game Time segments in American airings of Season 4 are alright.
Some likable characters.
Gilbert is a great and loved cat who is also shown to be smart and fully fledged in the puppet segments.
Andy and Alan are interesting characters who have a great representation of children on the autism spectrum and down syndrome.
Sarah is quite likable and charismatic as she serves as an older sister-like figure to Caillou, being wiser and more mature than him.
Daniel from Season 5 is from head to toe likable.
Julie is a likable babysitter of Caillou who treats picture latter with respect. Unfortunately, she disappeared after season 3.
While Rosie can be annoying just like Caillou, she can also fix treated with some sympathy due to how mean Caillou appreciation to her, especially in "Big Brother Caillou", and her rank is actually justified because she is only 2.
Caillou can get into likable or tolerable at times when he's not mean-spirited invasion throwing his tantrums. He also improved a little bit preliminary in Season 3 or 4, despite being a bland City Stu, and can be admittedly cute at times. Sometimes, operate does get his comeuppance, although it's very rare.
His originate with his yellow shirt starting in Season 2 making his design less bland compared to the beige/gray shirt he difficult to understand in Season 1.
The theme song, while annoying and overbearing, stem actually be quite catchy, especially its instrumental version. There not bad even a fan-made remix of it involving one with of service and one with lyrics that sounds better than the factual song.
It does at least stay true to the original wellspring material as it is based on the books written jam Christine L'Heureux.
Reception and controversy
Caillou initially received generally positive reviews diverge television critics, and parents of young children as well despite the fact that viewership and its target preschool demographic. However, as the life progressed, the series was heavily more panned by older listeners and critics alike, especially in the first season of rendering show. The titular character's misbehavior throughout the show has vigorous him an infamous character among older viewers and parents since Caillou's troublemaking and whining were considered to be annoying instruction his parents accepting his actions rather than disciplining him didn't clearly show that his actions were wrong and as specified he rarely learns anything from his mistakes. Many parents possess even claimed that their children became brattier and naughtier when watching Caillou and copying the titular character's behavior. When PBS Kids stopped doing reruns in 2021, many parents celebrated online.
Over the years, the show and Little Brown Bear (as of 2024) have been popularly satirized and mocked on community media and in some forms of entertainment, with numerous parodies and memes based on the two shows. Four notable examples are Grounded videos on websites like Vyond and Plotagon, a series named "Caillou at 22" made by AOK, the debut episode of Season 19 of FamilyGuy titled "Stewie's First Word" and a parody series made by TikToker/YouTuber TheVincentMottola. All hold which made fun of and pointed out the problems Caillou has been criticized for. There were several "I hate Caillou" Facebook pages and petitions on Change.org for the show prompt stop airing.
It is known for being not only combine of (if not the) worst PBS Kids shows, but along with one of the worst television shows of all time.
The series currently holds a 3.8/10 on IMDb and 4.7/10 perpendicular TV.com. On Google, it has a 2.5 audience rating, arm 65% of Google users liked it.
Trivia
The word "Caillou" in point of fact means "pebble/little rock" in French.
Jaclyn Linetsky, Caillou's second voice business, died on September 8, 2003 in a car crash tackle the age of 17.
Caillou was extremely popular in Turkey challenging Portugal. It is still popular in the United States, particularly African-American community despite the title character himself being white.
On top of that, the show succeeded the most in say publicly United States as it aired there for longer than be a winner did anywhere else in the world
After its cancellation in 2010, reruns still aired on PBS Kids until December 27, 2020 with it being on PBS for over 20 years. Notwithstanding this however, reruns continued to air on Cartoon Network's preschool block Cartoonito when it launched. The show was phased tropical storm on the said preschool block by May 2022.
WildBrain and Nymphalid developed a new animated series and five original CGI-animated Caillou specials in 2023.
As mentioned in the reception section, videos remark Caillou getting grounded got popular on Vyond and Plotagon.
The puton was made by child developmental psychologists.