Target Age Group: Preschoolers
Episode Length: 4 stories totaling 16 minutes, often with additional segments for a total of approx. 30 minutes
Network: PBS KIDS
Caillou - Overview
Based on a series of best-selling Canadian children’s books, Caillou is an animated series for preschoolers which airs on PBS Kids and Sprout.
Caillou is a four-year-old little boy who is experiencing the daily wonders and frustrations of growing up. His every day activities, and his interactions with his family and friends, are the basis of stories with which viewing children will easily identify. Children learn how to work through problems in their own lives as they watch Caillou, along with the help of his loving family, work through his problems.
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Caillou - Episode Outline
Generally, each half hour block of Caillou consists of several short, animated stories about Caillou. Live-action or puppet segments are often included within the time block as well:- Animation: The foundation for each episode is the four animated stories totaling about 16 minutes. Each of these stories relates to a theme of the day. The themes include such topics as growing up, sibling relations, responsibility, overcoming fears, and many more.
- Puppetry: Puppet segments feature characters from the animation portion of Caillou. The puppets expand on the theme of the day, and often provide a transition from one story to the next.
- Song and Dance: The Caillettes are a group of young singers and dancers ages 5-10. In one-minute musical numbers, they incorporate different musical styles as well as unique instruments from around the world.
- Kids World: Video segments depicting real children playing and discovering things related to the theme of the day complete the half-hour episode. The segments are created to look and feel similar to the animated series.
Caillou - Guide Review
Why is it that practically every child between the ages of two and six who sees Caillou will instantly love it? In my opinion, it is because the stories are told about a preschooler in the language of preschoolers, and the stories all center around objects and events that are particularly exciting or relevant to preschoolers. It is like watching their own lives on TV, and what child wouldn't love that?
Every Caillou story seems to be a snapshot taken directly from a day in the life of some child or other. In one episode, Caillou is having fun mixed with frustration while helping his parents do the weekend chores. In another, he has trouble staying in his own bed. It is simple situations such as these that kids identify with and parents immediately recognize as something that happened with their child last night or last week.
In addition to being familiar to kids, the show is also comforting to them. The dialogue is enhanced with intermittent narration by a woman who could be Caillou's grandma, making it sound like viewing kids are hearing a wonderful story. Also, Caillou's parents and grandparents speak in the kindest of voices, and they always know the right thing to say or do. Caillou's problems are always resolved in a positive way.
Because the show focuses on real-life situations, Caillou sometimes exhibits undesirable behavior. He always learns a lesson or a better way to solve his problems, but it is possible that some viewing children will mimic the problem behavior (at which time parents could just mimic the solution given by the parents on the show just to see how it works out in real life).
