Kaeloo

Kaeloo
A promotional poster for the third season.
Genre	Animated sitcom Surreal comedy Fantasy Slapstick Black comedy Adventure Parody
Created by	Rémi Chapotot Jean-François Henry
Written by	Rémi Chapotot Jean-François Henry
Directed by	Rémi Chapotot Antoine Rota (S1–2) Philippe Rolland (S3–4)
Voices of	Emmanuel Garijo Philippe Spiteri Rémi Chapotot Dorothée Pousséo Féodor Atkine Valentin Papoudof Emilie Rollot
Narrated by	Emmanuel Garijo Rémi Chapotot
Theme music composer	Franck Marchal
Composer	Franck Marchal
Country of origin	France
Original language	French
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	241 (list of episodes)
Production
Producers	Lionel Fages Bruno Le Lever Majid Loukil
Running time	7 minutes 26 minutes ("Et si on jouait à l'episode très special")
Production companies	Cube Creative Blue Spirit (seasons 1–2) Xilam[1] (season 5)
Original release
Network	Canal+ Canal+ Kids Télétoon+
Release	6 June 2010 (2010-06-06) – 13 April 2023 (2023-04-13)

Kaeloo is a French computer-animated comedy television series created by Rémi Chapotot and Jean-François Henry and produced by Cube Creative, with the participation of Canal+, CNC, Comptoir du Son and Xilam (season 5). The series, comprising 241 episodes across five seasons, aired from June 6, 2010, to April 13, 2023,^[2] on Canal+, Canal+ Kids and Télétoon+, and also started airing from September 2017 on C8.^[3]

The show centers around the adventures of a group of anthropomorphic animal friends, Kaeloo the frog (Kaelou in the pilot), Stumpy the squirrel, (Moignon in the pilot), Quack-Quack the duck, Mr. Cat the cat, and as of Seasons 2 and 5, Pretty the rabbit, Eugly the rabbit, Olaf the penguin, Game Rule and Stumpy's seven sisters, who live on a planet known as Smileyland (Pays Trop Mignon in French, which means "Very Cute Country") and play games to keep themselves from getting bored. Things always go wrong due to Stumpy's ineptitude at almost everything, Quack-Quack's addiction to yogurt, Pretty's unkindness (in the earlier seasons), Eugly's emotional vulnerability, Olaf's desire to take over the world, Mr. Cat's constant cheating and abuse of the others, and Kaeloo's ability to transform into a hulking toad monster named Bad Kaeloo (Bad Kaelou in the Pilot) when angered.

• Kaeloo (Kaelou) (voiced by Emmanuel Garijo in French and Andy Chase (Pilot), Doug Rand (Season 1) and Vincent Tong in English) - the titular character and main protagonist. She is a female, cheerful, energetic and fun-loving but emotionally unstable and short-tempered tree frog who's always looking for games to play with her so-called "buddies" and often proposes suggestions to make everyone happy. While normally gentle and loving by nature (though she does have several crueler moments), when pushed too far, Kaeloo enters an intense, upset-fueled rage that transforms her into the hulking "Bad Kaeloo". Even though he is a horrible creature, throughout the series, it is heavily implied that Kaeloo may have a crush on Mr. Cat, who also happens to have a crush on her. Kaeloo is gender-ambiguous in the French dub of the show; no one knowing her gender is a running gag, and it's implied that she is non-binary and goes by she/he pronouns. She is re-written to be female in most of the other dubs of the series; however, the Italian, Serbian and Hindi dubs, and the first 10 episodes in the English dub have her re-written as male, with the former three dubs editing out any suggestive scenes between her and Mr. Cat. Her catchphrase is "Hello, buddies!".
  • Bad Kaeloo (Bad Kaelou) (voiced by Emmanuel Garijo in French and Doug Rand (Season 1) and Ian Hanlin (Season 5) in English) - Whenever Kaeloo gets angry or frustrated enough, she transforms into this form, a male, hulking and brutish yet slow-witted toad. While she has stated in an early episode that the transformations must be triggered by anger, she has been seen in several episodes deliberately taking this form to cheat at games that require a level of physical prowess or to intimidate others. The transformations seem to be accompanied by a profound drop in intellectual capacity and reasoning, later followed by remorse once she returns to her "normal" form. This implies that Bad Kaeloo's actions are usually beyond her conscious control. It is hinted at in one episode that this personality will become the dominant one later in her life, though another episode set in the future contradicted this. While remaining impulsive and brutal throughout the series, Bad Kaeloo gradually becomes calmer, kinder, more gentle, and less fond of mindless acts of violence, and by season 5, Kaeloo can control her transformations much better by subconsciously communicating with Bad Kaeloo through a bubble that appears next to the head of the one in control.
• Stumpy (Moignon) (voiced by Rémi Chapotot in French and Doug Rand (Pilot and Season 1)) - an extremely dim-witted and accident-prone red squirrel, fascinated by video games and comic books, alongside explosions, superpowers, intergalactic wars and anything remotely dangerous. He has little-to-no sense of reality, is often delusional, not very bright and immature, and generally comes up with the craziest ideas or reasonings, but generally means well. Stumpy aspires to be like his idol and role model, comic book hero Mr. Coolskin. He hates books without pictures, being made fun of, other people touching his things, and washing. Whenever he doesn't understand something (which is often), is afraid or otherwise agitated, he spouts gibberish as his neck spasms erratically (implied to be because of a disorder like Tourette's). His catchphrases are "That's nuts!", "Cool!" and "I hate your guts."
• Quack-Quack (Coin-Coin) (voiced by Rémi Chapotot in French and Doug Rand (Season 1) and Vincent Tong (Season 5) in English) - a diaper-wearing, stitch-covered duck who is incapable of speech, only able to say his name, though everyone seems to understand what he is saying most of the time. "The Origin of Quack-Quack" details his backstory; whilst still in his egg, his parents were killed by a hunter. He was taken into a laboratory (where he spent most of his life as a lab animal) as a duckling by scientists, and repeatedly subjected to all sorts of strange experiments. He was made indestructible (explaining his numerous stitches), intelligent (at least when it comes to academic subjects like math and science), extremely lucky, addicted to yogurt, and multitalented. Eventually, he escaped from the lab, and he and his siblings settled in Smileyland. The others hatched before him, leaving behind nothing but their eggshells and a postcard attached to his egg that states "Wait for us in Smileyland". Kaeloo came across Quack-Quack's egg, named him, and went to introduce him to the rest of the cast, unofficially "adopting" him. He is afraid of three things: doctors, never finding his creator and expired yogurt. He is Stumpy's best friend, Eugly's girlfriend and Mr. Cat's favorite punching bag, due to the fact that the tests conducted on him when he was younger rendered him able to survive any injury, no matter how torturous or extreme (for example, he can be hurt, but he can't actually die even if blasted with a bazooka, decapitated, set on fire, having his head blown off, dismembered, zombified, etc.).
• Mr. Cat (Monsieur Chat) (Hector) (voiced by Philippe Spiteri in French and Christian Erickson (Pilot), Mike Powers (Season 1) in English) - the main antagonist/anti-hero, a greedy bengal cat, who's a psychotic, perverted, self-serving, egotistical, hypocritical, sadomasochistic alcoholic and an intelligent cheater, always wants to win, and is even willing to cheat to do so. He especially enjoys torturing Quack Quack with his arsenal of weapons, which upsets Kaeloo and is the usual cause of her transformation into Bad Kaeloo. Despite (or perhaps because of) Kaeloo's transformations, he seems to have developed a crush on her; the feeling is reciprocated, and while they are not officially a couple, the other characters often talk about their feelings for each other and about them becoming a couple. As a result of this crush, he occasionally tries to make romantic advances towards her, which she rejects; in cases where Kaeloo makes advances on him, he also rejects her for unknown reasons. Despite all of the factors mentioned above, he is Kaeloo's closest friend, confidante and remains loyal to her even when others, including Stumpy and Quack Quack, turn against her. It is implied in several episodes that he had an extremely difficult past and had terrible relationships with his family, especially his brothers. Over the course of the series, he steadily becomes much nicer as a person, though he never completely sheds his cynical and tough edge. His catchphrases are "What do you mean, [information of choice]?!" and "What is this nonsense?".

Later seasons of the show introduce new characters:

• Pretty (voiced by Dorothée Pousséo) - a pink rabbit fashionista who is obsessed with fashion, beauty and all things stereotypically "girly". She is selfish, narcissistic, aggressive and regularly puts down those around her for petty reasons. Pretty has a crush on Mr. Cat (not that the feeling is even close to being reciprocated) and will go to extreme lengths to woo him. In season 5, Pretty befriends the four main characters, stops bullying them, and gets over her crush on Mr. Cat.
• Eugly (voiced by Rémi Chapotot) - Pretty's fraternal twin sister and polar opposite. Unlike Pretty, Eugly is ugly and fat, but has a very nice personality. Her immense strength makes her capable of intimidating or physically assaulting people, but she rarely does so of her own accord, usually only under Pretty's orders. Eugly is very emotional, and will burst into floods of tears at even the slightest insult. She eventually becomes Quack Quack's girlfriend. In season 5, Eugly leaves Smileyland to attend an art school, and her role is reduced to occasional cameos as a result.
• Olaf (voiced by Féodor Atkine) - an insane, Russian-accented emperor penguin who would like to take over the world and cover it with snow and ice, but is ultimately ineffectual. He is "married" to an ice cube named Olga and has a robot fridge named Serguei. In season 5, Olaf has a calmer and gentler personality, and is now an artist, which he enjoys using to express his emotions.
• Olga - Olaf's "wife", an ice cube. She was once gigantic, but gradually began melting from heat, so Olaf put her under a glass dome to prevent her from evaporating completely. While she seems to be not much more than an inanimate object, in the episode "Si on jouait au réchauffement climatique", Quack Quack speaks with Olga's "consciousness".
• Serguei - A sentient robotic fridge who serves as Olaf's henchman. It resembles a penguin, can move and perform all sorts of actions, but is speechless. Olaf can climb inside and use it as a mecha to compensate for its small size.
  • Mini-Serguei - A smaller variant of the more commonly-seen Serguei, Olaf's mini fridge can be seen in the last two episodes of season 2 and throughout season 4. A Mini-Serguei also serves as a keychain in one episode of season 3.

• Ursula (voiced by Sophie Michard) - A black cat, Stumpy's long-distance girlfriend who he met online, and one of the few people to actually treat him well and see what's in him beyond his unattractive looks and stupidity. She is mostly just mentioned in passing conversations between the other characters, or in the rare event she is physically present in the episode, offscreen. In the first season, Ursula's existence is often questioned. Indeed, we never physically see her and she is only mentioned by Stumpy. We can assume that Stumpy met her on Fakebook and that he saw her for the first time in reality in the episode "Let's Play Hot – Cold" where, thanks to Kaeloo's advice, he seduces her. But, since no one else has seen her face to face, the other characters come to wonder if Ursula is an imaginary girlfriend. This uncertainty remains in season 2 where in the episode "Si on jouait à la boom", she does not come to the Valentine's Day party, much to Stumpy's dismay. Pretty even claims that she does not exist, "like his sister". It is only in season 3 that Ursula's existence is confirmed when she appears in person at the end of the episode "Si on jouait à chercher Ursula... désespérément" (albeit offscreen), where we learn that she is very beautiful.
• Kevin, Kurt, Karl, Klaus, Karine, Krystal, Kilian and Kimiko (all voiced by Emmanuel Garijo) - Kaeloo's cousins, who are all toads. With the exception of Kevin, they (especially Kurt and Karl) are all exceedingly cruel and love to make jokes at other people's expense. We never see or hear of Kaeloo's parents.

• The Sheep (all voiced by Rémi Chapotot, Valentin Papoudof, Sarah Teyssier-Miko, and Adrien Antoine) - Mute until season 4, the sheep sometimes participate in the main four's games, albeit usually unwillingly. They are often mistreated (burned, exploded, etc.) by Mr. Cat, Stumpy and rarely by Eugly or Pretty. In the episode "Si on jouait à saute-mouton", they transform into aliens that Stumpy fears. In the episode "Si on jouait à avoir de nouveaux amis", Kaeloo tries to integrate the sheep into their games by befriending them. For the first three seasons, the sheep were just regular, non-anthropomorphic sheep that couldn't talk and served as little more than props. In seasons 4 and 5, they are more active, animated, and capable of speech. Hervé is the leader of the sheep and the one who talks the most.

• The Rules of the Games/Game Rule (La Règle du Jeu/M. Règle) (voiced by Valentin Papoudof in French and Travis Turner in English) - A floating robot-alien that acts like a personification of the concept of rules and the overarching antagonist of season 5, having been sent to fix the other characters' blatant disregard for rules when they play games. A flying exclamation mark with the ability to shapeshift, Game Rule takes games very seriously and imposes bizarre penalties on people who break the rules, but is friendly and cheerful towards those who follow the rules properly. In the original French dub, Game Rule is referred to with female pronouns, but in the English dub, they are non-binary and referred to by neutral pronouns.
• Law and Order - Game Rule's demanding and strict parents, who are revealed near the end of the series. Game Rule is concerned about pleasing them and meeting their high expectations, even if it may come at the expense of their own happiness.
• Stumpy's sisters (all voiced by Emilie Rollot) - In the first four seasons, a running gag was that everyone (occasionally including Stumpy himself) didn't know if Stumpy's siblings were real or not, and jokes would often rely on their existence being ambiguous. Starting in Season 5, the existence of them (seven younger sisters) is finally confirmed, and the gag is retired as a result. In order, they are:
  • Checkout (Ardoise) - The helpful one who is good at handling finances and marketing.
  • Moldie (Cramoisie) - The abrasive bully-in-the-making who likes insulting and harassing others.
  • Lavenblah (Lavanade) - The quiet one with supernatural powers.
  • Me-Me (Nombril) - Stumpy's younger sister who always wants people's attention, especially his. Her catchphrase is "Stumpy, do you see me?".
  • Snitchy (Poucave) - An inquisitive child who aspires to become a journalist, which she practices for by spying on people to write about them.
  • Purplish (Violasse) - The one who carries a balloon everywhere and has terrible luck that constantly lands her into bad situations.
  • Vitamin (Vitamine) - Stumpy's sister who is so hyperactive that she moves at super speed and cannot interact with the world around her.
• Stumpy's Parents - Stumpy's mother and estranged father. The audience knows little about their identities, and most of what the audience does know of Stumpy's mother in particular is from what Stumpy says, which is implied to be disproportionately skewed to make her look worse than she actually is, though she is at least caring enough to stop him from juggling chainsaws in "Let's Play Circuses". Seasons 2 and 5 reveal that Stumpy's parents never married and the father was a "scary" alcoholic who used to come home red in the face. He eventually left the family, leaving his girlfriend (who works three jobs to earn enough money to provide for her family, and thus does not have the ability to spend time with her family) to raise their eight children alone.
• The Cat Family - Mr. Cat's parents, Al Chatone (voiced by Philippe Spiteri) and Lola Felicia (voiced by Rémi Chapotot), and his two older brothers. They are strongly suggested to have been abusive to Mr. Cat, who eventually ran away from home to escape their abuse, meeting and befriending Kaeloo, Stumpy and Quack Quack along the way. "Let's Play with Snitchy" depicts that the mere sound of Lola's voice on a phone call is enough to make Mr. Cat have a panic attack strong enough to have to flee the scene, screaming to get away from her all the while. Al is stated to be an alcoholic gangster in "Si on jouait à il fait quoi ton père?". Mr. Cat's brothers used to violently abuse him for being their mother's favorite child. They never appear physically in the show and are only mentioned in passing by Mr. Cat.

The launch of the series was made on June 6, 2010 as part of Canal+ Family's Cartoon+ block. The show is also broadcast on Canal+ and Télétoon+. Kaeloo is also distributed outside Canal+ Family. The series has received good reviews, with Télérama considering it "hilarious" and TV 2 Weeks as "a fast-paced cartoon and humor pest, which accomplishes the feat to entertain young and old".^[4]

Kaeloo: Hide 'n' Hunt was released on Region 4 DVD by Beyond Home Entertainment on 1 December 2011.^[5] It contains the first 13 episodes of the English dub of Season 1.

As of 2025, the remaining four seasons of the show have not been released on DVD.

As of 2025, the show is not available in the United States, Spain, Latin America, Germany, Romania, and the Netherlands.

A mobile video game adapted from the series titled Kaeloo Rush was released on Android on July 18, 2016. In this game, Kaeloo must protect Quack-Quack and Smileyland at large from Mr. Cat's ammunition. The game contains 40 levels. Unfortunately, it has been unavailable in France since 2023 for unknown reasons.

Two sequels, Si on jouait au photomatou^[7] and Si on jouait au zikbox,^[8] mini games developed by Cube Creative and Télétoon+, were released in 2017.

Kaeloo is a comic book series based on the cartoon of the same name. The first issue, titled Let's Play..., was released in July 2018.

• Official website Archived 2023-10-01 at the Wayback Machine
• Kaeloo at IMDb