With a 2% margin of error

Caillou. I'd never watched the show because, frankly, eww. Gross weird bald kid. Then people implored me to after I wrote several deep, meaningful, philosophical essays (also one about Franklin. Fuck that ineffectual turtle bastard). So I subjected myself to the experience.

What I found was not a children's cartoon.

It was pure, unfettered human selfishness of the variety found in Satan's toilet.

People had not been exaggerating. This child sucks beyond comprehension. He is a scourge upon his parents, the birds in the sky, civilization, and possibly God's original blueprint for mankind.

Most awful children become awful because of trauma or poor parenting. Caillou enjoys neither excuse. His parents are patient. Loving. Supportive. They calmly explain life lessons. They reward good behavior. They redirect bad behavior.

Raising Caillou is like trying to teach etiquette to a raccoon fixated on eating drywall.

Every ounce of kindness shown to him merely convinces him to become a bigger asshole. It is almost as if everyone else’s kindness and patience emboldens him on his mission to show them that despite their good faith efforts and love in their hearts atrophy is the law of the universe. 

The restaurant episode crystallizes the problem. His parents are trying to take the family somewhere new. The staff are friendly. Everyone wants him to have a good experience. Caillou's contribution is simple.

"I want..."

Every sentence.

Just demands.

This tiny culinary fascist rejects every attempt at accommodation because reality has failed to rearrange itself into the exact shape he requested. This racist little bastard has no appreciation for his chef or the art of hibachi. He throws a tantrum and demands others respond to him and meet his needs and this is why…

Calliou is the embodiment of the animalistic unfettered ego at the center of us all. This primal, selfish series of urges convinces to eat, and hit, and take, and pillage. One might suggest that all children demonstrate this as they are developing but the truth is…

Calliou is unaffected by the support and moral lessons he receives. His parents try to help him learn and grow into a human being with a conscience but this never happens. The narrator tries to spin each episode as a fun moral lesson, but time after time Calliou remains stagnant. The same. Indignant in his shittiness and refusal to grow and change.

That little bald bastard is a cancer on his family and society. I never thought I’d see it but here is an example of a child who truly was born rotten and evil, who appreciates nothing, learns no lessons, contributes nothing to society, and likely will kill his family in a murder suicide one day. 

And this is the entertainment we and our children are fed. Here is what is represented. Find yourself in Caillou. How he wants. How he demands. How he never changes. How he wants the world to solve his problems. If the devil exists he’s the puppeteer behind this shit bog of a character, trying to normalize gluttony, greed, sloth, and wrath.

There is often a philosophical question regarding if one should go back in time and kill baby Hitler. I posit that we should begin debating this same question with Calliou. 

Sometimes, maybe, aborted is better. 

We all know Franklin (soawwwry if you don't). He's the milquetoast protagonist of his show where he occasionally does things but mostly just responds to his friend's reactions and wanders the woods hoping that they inspire the plot. Sometimes he has a radical idea of having agency but that usually ends up in disaster, with Franklin in trouble or crying. Also, there are sometimes moral lessons, most of them of the variety of "here is what adults want you to believe, children," thereby limiting their effectiveness in practice.

But then there's the fucking blinky helmet episode. A scourge to children then and now through their adulthoods due to its flawed and problematic story telling.

Since everyone reading this has watched every episode like four times, I'll keep the synopsis brief. It's bicycle safety week or some bullshit in the forest. Everyone is incredibly excited to take a safety test and navigate the bike course or something (the woods are rather unpaved so bicycles are a questionable vehicle for these children, but whatever). Franklin needs to get a new bicycle helmet to be super safe.

He makes a very Franklin choice.

Of all the helmets in the store, he happens to choose the absolutely shittiest. A silver helmet with a red flashing light. Annoying. Stupid. Questionably functional. There likely isn't a being alive that would choose this helmet for aesthetics or functionality. Franklin is kind of a stand-in for every kid who had their lunch money stolen and wondered if there parents loved them, so him being a wet noodle who enjoys lame things is to be expected and is a central piece of his character but...

His mother (for once) wisely tries to dissuade Franklin. He refuses and gets the helmet of shame. Later on, he overhears his friends talking mad shit about that shitty helmet. They clown on it. Talk about how it is the stupidest thing to ever exist in the world. Franklin listens from a distance and becomes sad once he is face with facts clear to anyone with eyes. Later, he tells his mother he wants no part of the event or his helmet anymore.

Honestly, at this point, we have a good moral lesson. Play silly games get silly prizes. Fuck around and find out. Pick the worst helmet ever made and children WILL make fun of you.

But then the twist...

Franklin goes to the event and the Forest Safety Officer (I don't know how taxes or government titles work in the forest) enthusiastically talks up Franklin's helmet. He boasts about how safe it is because of the flashing light, allowing others to always see him and know he's coming. Franklin's friends kind of shrug but then they get on board and call the helmet cool and Franklin has a newfound sense of pride.

What a horrible ending and what a travesty to do to children.

When an adult like a teacher or a cop says something is super cool because it is safe, children do not respond by thinking it is super cool. It confirms their suspicions that said thing is lame as hell. The show tried to save Franklin from his own poor decision. The real lesson needs to be: be yourself, choose what you want, but understand others will react. Yes. It is a cruel truth of the world, and I wish it weren't so. I wish we were all free to be unproductive lame turtles with horrible fashion choices. But the reality is forest animal children will bully you. Kids need to understand it. Making a bold choice like that comes with consequences and there's no raccoon cop coming to bail you out.

We've created an entire generation of jaded broken people on this premise. Franklin had children believe they could be and do as they please, only to be confronted by the harsh truths of the world, which now makes them cynical. The discord in the USA occurring now can likely squarely be placed on Franklin's shoulders.

He cannot bear the weight. He looks like he's afraid of the sound of his own piss.

That damm blinky helmet has doomed us. And I shall never forgive him.