TIL there are multiple episodes of Caillou where his behavior was so awful that PBS Kids banned them from being re-aired.
Banned episodes
And yes, I'm also shocked and saddened that there is a Caillou fandom site.
reading that list, they just didnt like airing normal but negative young-chlid behavior. gotta keep it sterile, dontchaknow
no taking toys, no throwing tantrums. no pointing out when your parents are exhausted.
I agree with what you're saying in principle, but I don't think toddlers need realistic depictions of toddlers on TV to emulate.
i thought the point of the show was to depict real world solutions to those problematic behaviors, which the show seemed to do well. it wasnt just kids being jerks and 'fini'
I mean, it doesn't really matter if you don't think toddlers need realistic depictions, if it's running that means that toddlers are watching it or the parents of toddlers want realistic depictions.
What should they be watching? Superheroes? Other toddlers that behave like perfect angels? I'm sure there are enough other options out there, if they were watching those all the time then the realistic depictions wouldn't be on air still. I remember watching Caillou and that was like 25 years ago, so obviously it's probably doing something right.
One episode he punches a baby. That is like number 1 on the list of things you don't punch. There are the obvious examples of types of babies that are ok to punch. E.g. zombie, demon, Hitler, etc.
Punching a knife might be worse
A baby made of horribly caustic acid that is actively moving toward other babies, and all you have available to stop it is punches. Good to punch, or bad to punch? 🤔
(The baby is much faster than you. It will reach the other babies before you can. It is about to pass you, though it hasn't yet done so, and all you have time to do is to give it a quick, decisive strike to knock it off-course)
You're welcome, dear lemming.
I am confused.
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Me too, all the time.
“Caillou” is what we would call out our kids for being whiny. We used him as an example of how not to act and would call our kids “Caillou” when they started getting out line. Surprisingly effective.
Cailou is a little whiny brat and always has been. I hated that show when my son was younger.
We stuck with Blue's Clues.
That said, my wife and I were convinced that Steve had severe brain damage and was living in his own inner world. When he "went off to college," he was actually being institutionalized.
You have to entertain yourself somehow with this stuff when you have to sit through it every day.
At least she wasn't into Barney or Teletubbies.
Blues Clues was good. We banned Barney from the git go. We loved Wow wow Wubsy, Wonderpets and The Backyardigans. I didn’t mind those at all.
These days at least we have streaming services. If you can get them hooked on the good stuff (eg Bluey) or the tolerable stuff (eg Octonauts) you can (mostly) get away from the worst stuff (Cocomelon and it's million somehow even more cheaply made derivatives).
Steve had severe brain damage
I read that before! It really puts an interesting spin on the show and it's fun to think about.
His mom tho.
They had to be careful how they drew her in swimwear or doing yoga, sadly.
P.S. Caillou means pebble en français.
I'm not going to question this image…
I am. Wtf. 🤨
I mean, it says that he acted like prick but always learned his lesson in the end, what's the issue?
Toddler brains are usually not developed enough to go, "oh! Okay! I get it now!" from a TV show.
Because a lot of kids wouldn't watch the whole episode and think the first part is how they're supposed to behave... Kids don't have a very long attention span and caillous visuals were kinda odd. I remember feeling as a kid "These edges of the screen really take me out of the immersion", or at least the kid-equivalent of that feeling.
Chosing not to air is not the same as a ban.
"Banned from being re-aired" is the same as "choosing not to air."
If it's an official decree, then it must be in writing somewhere. The fanwiki is very short on references. One could assume it's all speculation. Probably just self-censureship rather than a ban.
Makes fucking sense. We made the mistake of letting our 4 year old watch that show, he 17 now. But damn he would start acting all whiny and shit and became total brat. We quickly cut that show out of his watching habits. Funny me and his mom said his mother was a whore. Because his sister hair and his friends dad have the same hair color. We also joked that Caillou was dying from cancer why his parents and grandparents allowed him to be a little shit.
This list is just on a wiki with no sources, so unless the individual articles have that source, the source is as good as "I made it the fuck up".
There are plenty of other articles talking about it. They just generally don't list which episodes were banned or why.
For example:
Four early episodes of “Caillou” have been permanently banned from PBS Kids because the kid is such a demon seed: lying to his mother, tormenting the family cat, swatting his baby sister with a book. Even in later versions, where his bad behavior was toned down after criticism from parents, he’s thoughtless, selfish and impulsive.
https://www.freep.com/story/life/family/2015/08/21/kids-watch-tv/32143669/
The Detroit Free Press isn't in the habit of making things up.
Thanks for verifying that. Fandom has a documented history of pushing objectively false information, so it's reasonable for people to be skeptical of any unsourced posts on that site.
I hate to tell you this, but there's a neologism for exactly this kind of problem called citogenesis, and the Kansas City Star's (the Freep is just republishing this) lack of a source here makes me worried that their source is basically just user-generated content they found online and thought looked plausible (this Fandom article proceeds that Star article by about 7 years, so at least it's confirmed it wasn't this one). There are numerous times when this has happened because of Wikipedia alone. For instance, a couple months ago, Rachael Lillis, the voice actress for Misty, died. Want to know what happened? The first outlets to report her death – effectively glorified blogs like CBR etc. – said she died at 46. Their source? In all likelihood, her IMDb page. This escalated up to more and more credible sources, and eventually, USA Today, BBC News, etc. all started reporting 46.
Well the NYT actually bothered to reach out to her family, and they confirmed she died at 55. CBC News independently reached out and also verified that age. Some outlets corrected their articles, but if you look up Rachael Lillis' obituaries, you'll find a good chunk of them still report her as having died at age 46.
That aside, my actual concern is echoed by @Chozo@fedia.io's comment, namely that a Fandom article without a source is almost as good as worthless.
Stop doing that.
All episodes of Caillou were banned in my house. That little shit taught my son how to whine.
My kids never got caillou but they still figured out the whining bit.
That's called being a kid.