Big Brother Caillou

Big Brother Caillou (French Title: Caillou Devient Un Grand Frère) is an episode from Season 1 of “Caillou”.

This episode aired on November 18, 1997 on Teletoon and on September 6, 2000 on PBS Kids.

Plot

Way before Caillou Makes Cookies, The episode begins with Caillou as a toddler and his pregnant mommy, Doris in the backyard. Caillou asks if the baby is coming today and Doris says she is going to go to the hospital later that day, and that his grandmother will look after him. Doris and Boris leave for the hospital and Grandma comes to watch Caillou. Caillou can't wait to meet Rosie for the first time on Rosie's birthday. Soon, the car appears in the driveway and Caillou excitedly runs for the door. Doris shows Caillou his brand-new baby sister, Rosie, but before Caillou can get a good look, Grandma runs over to see the new baby, saying "Oh, she's just beautiful! She's absolutely adorable!" Doris and Boris reply with "Isn't she gorgeous?", "She's my special girl!", and Rosie started crying, wailing, and screaming.

Caillou is angry and spoiled that no one is paying attention to him, thinking they only care about Rosie now. He goes to his room, sits on his bed, and then throws his ragdoll onto the floor in anger, wanting nothing to do with it anymore.

Later, a downhearted Caillou walks into Rosie's room where Boris and Rosie are in a rocking chair. When Boris asked Caillou if he'd like to rock the baby, Caillou angrily responds with a huge "No!" Boris gets up and sets Rosie on a changing table so he can get a diaper from the linen closet. While his dad is busy, Caillou scoots a chair over to the changing table and climbs onto it. Caillou grabs Rosie and kisses her, then he suddenly grabs and pinches Rosie's cheek, causing her to cry loudly. Boris hears the loud shrieks and sees Caillou angrily holding Rosie down, his hand still on Rosie's cheek. He scoops up the bawling infant and cradles her until she stops crying. Boris asked why he did that. Caillou angrily told him he didn't like Rosie because she didn't play with him. Boris tells Caillou that Rosie is too little to play, and tells him about the good things about being a big brother and Caillou helps change Rosie's diaper and he began to like Rosie more, he even got to hold her!

Controversy and Ban

Many parents and critics at the time of the episode's original air were outraged and disturbed by a brief scene within the episode where Caillou pinches Infant Rosie on the cheek in a surprisingly disturbing scene. Many parents said the scene was "disturbing and violent" for children to watch especially on a show such as Caillou. as well as the scene setting a "bad example" for children, especially for those with infant siblings. After the back lash PBS Kids as well as the defunct PBS Sprout, would later pull the episode from airing and would later be banned from airing in 2006 in the United States.

Trivia

• The tweet reads: "caillou was one evil ass mf".
• This is the only episode that takes place when Caillou is two and a half years old. This makes this episode a prequel to other Caillou episodes.
• This episode was the first episode of the overall series to be produced first but ended up becoming the 4th episode of the series in package order. It, however, was the first episode to air on television.
• This episode took place before "Caillou Makes Cookies" because Rosie makes a cameo in that episode.
• In the United States, this episode was banned from PBS Kids (formerly PTV) and Sprout (now Universal Kids) in 2006 because Caillou violently pinched Rosie.
  • Caillou furiously pinching Rosie's cheek, however, is less harmful than what he does in the original book that the episode is based on, where he gets even more violent and angrily bites Rosie.
  • Despite the episode being banned, it airs on Cartoon Network's new preschool block Cartoonito, however, the scene where Boris asks Caillou to pass the diaper and the scene Caillou pinches Rosie was edited out as a safety precaution, they were concerned that kids might imitate the pinch scene at home.
• Caillou wears a yellow shirt and red dungarees in this episode. He had a similar outfit to Stewie from Family Guy

Goofs

• On the cover of the book that the Grandma storyteller shows with Doris holding Rosie, you can see she still looks like she is pregnant.
• At the beginning of the episode, Caillou talks like a 2-year-old. After he angrily pinches Rosie, he speaks in complete sentences like he usually does.
• Doris says at the beginning she'll be at the hospital today, but in the next scene, the narrator says "a few days later."
• When Doris shows Caillou his sister and says "This is Rosie," her lips don't move.
• Gilbert is seen in this episode, so Caillou's family has had him before Rosie had been born. Doris even says to the cat, "so you've been feeling a bit left out of things too, have you Gilbert?" However in the episode "A New Member of the Family", Gilbert becomes Caillou's pet after Rosie has already been born.
• Gilbert's tail is seen when Boris is rocking Rosie in the rocking chair, but just right after he asks Caillou if he would like to rock her, it disappears.