Big Brother Caillou (French Title: Caillou Devient Un Grand Frère) is an episode from Season 1 of “Caillou”.
This episode aired on September 26, 1997 on Teletoon and on September 6, 2000 on PBS Kids.
Plot[]
Long before the events of Caillou Makes Cookies, this 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 that 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 her 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 at her, Grandma runs over to see the new baby, and she says, "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 became mad and annoyed 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.
Caillou learns about the good things about being Rosie's big brother.
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 refused, Boris gets up and sets Rosie on a changing table, so that 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. And then, he suddenly grabs Rosie's face, causing her to cry loudly. Boris hears the loud cry and sees Caillou angrily holding Rosie down, his hand still on Rosie's cheek. He scoops up the crying infant and cradles her until she stops crying. Boris asked why he did that. Caillou angrily told him that he hate Rosie because she didn't play with him. Boris tells Caillou that Rosie is too little to play, and he tells him about the good things about being a big brother. Later, Caillou helps Boris change Rosie's diaper, and he begins to like Rosie more. He even got to hold her!
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Boris stops Caillou from pinching Rosie.
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 baby 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. Causing young children to pinch them. After the back lash PBS Kids as well as the defunct PBS kids Sprout, would later pull the episode from airing and would later be banned from airing in 2006 in the United States.
Trivia[]
- The music before Caillou pinches Rosie was used in some episodes in Seasons 4 and 5.
- 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 is also the first episode where Caillou's name isn't the first word in the title.
- This episode was the first episode of the overall series to be produced first, but it ended up becoming the fourth episode of the series in package order. However, it was the first episode to air on television.
- 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 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. And other kids might not.
- Caillou wears a yellow shirt and red dungarees in this episode. He had a similar outfit to Stewie Griffin from Family Guy.
- At the beginning of the episode, Caillou's Mommy wears a blue shirt. For the rest of the episode, she wears a red shirt, which is the same one that she wears in almost every episode.
Goofs[]
- On the cover of the book that the Grandma storyteller shows with Doris holding Rosie, you can see that she still looks like she's pregnant.
- At the beginning of the episode, Caillou talks like a 2-year-old. But after he angrily pinches Rosie, he speaks in complete sentences like he usually does.
- Doris says at the beginning that she'll be at the hospital today. But in the next scene, the narrator says, "A few days later".
- When Doris shows Caillou his baby 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 Boris asks Caillou if he would like to rock her, Gilbert's tail disappears.