Tusktastic! Hip, hip hooray! Get ready for a thumpin' day!
Babar and the Adventures of Badou is a Canadian-French-Luxembourgish computer-animated children's series produced by Nelvana. It aired new episodes from 2010 to 2015 on YTV and Treehouse TV in Canada and Disney Junior and Qubo in the United States, running for a total of 65 episodes over 3 seasons.
Babar and the Adventures of Badou is a Sequel Series taking place many years after the original Babar Animated Adaptation produced by Nelvana way back in 1989. Serving partly as a reintroduction of the king of the elephants to a new generation of children, the show focuses on Badou, the 8-year-old grandson of King Babar and son of Babar’s now-adult son Pom (who is now Celesteville’s chief architect). Alongside a host of completely new characters and a few familiar faces from the original show, Badou has fun with his circle of friends (including Zephir’s daughter Chiku, Munroe the porcupine, Zawadi the zebra, and Jake the fox), solves problems around Celesteville, and explores the surrounding jungles and savannahs. And while he’s at it, the young prince learns many important lessons while also dealing with the occasional antagonist.
Unlike in the original series, Celesteville is not populated solely by elephants and now includes a wide variety of African wildlife among its citizens. Additionally, several voice actors from the 80s cartoon reprise their characters here, including Gordon Pinsent (the voice of Babar himself), Dawn Greenhalgh (Celeste), Chris Wiggins (Cornelius, in his final appearance), and Jeff Pustil (Zephir). You can find episodes on Youtube through the the show's official channel
and Nelvana's Treehouse Direct.
This series provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Ben Campbell, previously known for voicing King K. Rool on Donkey Kong Country, voices Ambassador Crocodylus, another antagonistic crocodile character, in this series.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Lady Rataxes is a lot more selfish and a much bigger jerkass in this series, being more likely to antagonize the elephants of Celesteville when compared to how she was a good terms with them in the original show. Conversely, Rataxes himself is depicted as dimmer and more ineffectual than in the original series, although he still retains his rude and forceful personality.
- Adults Are Useless: Averted. Though the kids often wind up handling things, it's most often a matter of choice rather than necessity.
- Animal Gender-Bender: Miss Strich is a female ostrich with black feathers.
- Anti-Villain: Sleek becomes this over the course of the series. While initially a more straightforward antagonist towards Badou and his friends, she and Badou start to have more friendly interactions towards the end of the show, especially after Badou saves her from Prospero and starts to learn more about her life.
- Arc Welding : Planned from the beginning and done well. After several seemingly isolated episodes an obvious story arc begins and elements introduced in previous episodes become vital to it. It culminates in finding a treasure that was mentioned in a throwaway line in the first episode.
- Battle Cry: Munroe gets "Battle Rattle!"
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Munroe is a pretty good-natured guy, but he won't hesitate to use his "quill-fu" when his friends are in danger.
- Dandi Andi may be an easygoing Nice Guy, but he will remind us that he's a lion.
- Brutish Bulls: Prospero is a ruthless cape buffalo who frequently tries to enrich himself through unscrupulous means.
- Butt-Monkey: Ambassador Crocodylus, and Miss Strich. Zawadi suffers from this too, mostly being accidentally jabbed by Munroe's quills.
- Cats Are Mean:
- Sleek, the black panther who dwells in the deep jungle outside of Celesteville and one of the series' main antagonists. She frequently tries to prey on Babar, Badou, and the others when they enter her territory, seeing their civilized lifestyle as a weakness.
- Kylus, another recurring antagonist, is a rogue lion who tries to take Dandi Andi's place as king of the savannah.
- Character Catchphrase: Many of the characters have one, with "Tusktastic" being one used by virtually all the elephant characters on the show (particularly Babar and Badou).
- Badou: "Nits and gnats!"
- Chiku: "In a monkey minute!"
- Munroe: "They're thrillin' for a quillin'."
- Jake: "Stinkies!"
- Crocodylus: "Muck and mire!"
- Hoot: "No foolin'
- Cool Cat: Dandi Andi the lion rules the savannahs outside of Celesteville and is known for his laidback attitude.
- Cruel Elephant: Blacktrunk, the elephant pirate and one of the show's regular antagonists.
- Evil Poacher: Prospero, a cape buffalo who frequently antagonizes Badou when the young prince runs into one of his smuggling or hunting operations. He targets Sleek in particular, hoping to make some coin capturing and selling her.
- Expressive Ears: Jake the fox kit has these - in particular, his ears will pin all the way back when he's scared.
- Face Your Fears: Munroe does this in 'The Brave Guy', charging what he thinks is a scary monster that he's been in fear of for much of the episode to rescue Badou.
- Fantastic Racism: It's stated several times in the show that "wild" animals such as Sleek absolutely hate "civilized" animals such as Babar. Which leads to...
- Fantastic Slur: "Tame towners." This is so common that even nice-guy wild animal Dandy King Andi uses it in the episode "Council of Crowns". The same episode gives us a counter-insult, courtesy of Lady Rataxes (naturally): "Scruffy wild-lifer".
- Fartillery: Tersh displays an accidental example of this in 'Grotto For One', which knocks Dilash out, who was sitting next to him. A flock of birds also beats a VERY hasty retreat.
- Fastball Special: Babar and Badou both like using their trunks to power this maneuver, whether it's Babar throwing Badou (The Trunk Toss) or Badou throwing Munroe (The Needle Nab).
- Foo Fu: Quill-Fu, the martial art that Munroe uses, which Jabbsi later further instructs him in.
- Furry Confusion: Several characters such as Sleek behave like wild animals (including apparently trying to devour other talking animals), intermixing with the usual civilized Babar cast. While the original animated series featured the occasional non-sentient/wild animal (such as Lady Rataxes' pet warthog), this series seems to put a greater emphasis on such. Gets notable with the lions, which were mostly shown as civilized animals in the original series (complete with bipedalism) while the ones seen here are all wild animals.
- Goo Goo Getup: Munroe at the end of 'Lulu Time'.
- Growling Gut: Happens to Dilash in "Chocolate and Banana Soup" after eating too many bananas.
- Happens to Jake in "Blacktrunk’s Magic Stone".
- Happens to Dilash again, but along with Tersh in "Grotto For One" after eating bananas that gave them gas.
- In "The Brave Guy", the cast is frightened on a nightly basis by loud roars they fear are coming from a monster Queen Celeste told them about in a story. The source of the sound is eventually revealed to be Ambassador Crocodylus' stomach growling; it turns out the monster in Celeste's story was actually inspired by Crocodylus' stomach.
- Happens to Badou in "Monkey Camp" after eating variety specials made from bananas.
- Happily Adopted: Jake, by Cornelius. In "Day of the Jake", we find out that Jake was a foundling, adopted by the lioness trio of Hannah, Ramsey and Skyla prior to being washed toward town by a flood and found and adopted by Cornelius.
- Hates Baths: Jake the fox kit, though he's willing to make the occasional exception. Also...
- Baths Are Fun: In "Soaped!", once they get him into the bubbly fountain...
Jake: Why didn't you tell me taking a bath was so much fun?! - Heinous Hyena:
- Hoot is a notable aversion of this trope. While she is a practical joker, she always means well and is generally friendly. Deconstructed in her first appearance in "Savannah Scramble" where Badou and Jake initially think she is a threat when she seemingly chases them only to learn she means no harm and was just following the scent of Jake's sandwich.
- "Savannah Surfing" has a pair of troublesome hyenas, Yaw and Shani.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: "Tusktastic" and "thumpin," both also used in the program's opening theme.
- The Hyena: Hoot. A given since she is literally a hyena.
- Hypocritical Humor: In "Gone Wild," Miss Strich (observing Badou and Chiku's wilderness survival training) comments on how insects are an "excellent source of protein," then freaks out when she accidentally swallows a fly.
- I Call It "Vera": Prospero refers to his snake-shaped staff as "Sly", even speaking to it on occasion.
- I Can't Hear You: In "Badou's Best Adventure," Badou ventures into the lair of the Spider Queen to return her precious horn to her pile of treasure. He places it on top and she comes running up shouting about thieves. He explains that he's just returning her horn. She holds said horn up to her ear and he explains it again.
- I Just Want to Be Special: In "Copy Cat," Zawadi expresses a desire to stand out from the rest of her herd.
- Improvised Lockpick: Munroe uses his quills to pick locks a number of times in the series.
- Interspecies Romance: Dandi Andi flirts with Miss Strich in "Gone Wild."
- King of Beasts: Dandi Andi is the respected King of the savannah, but he's also friendly and easygoing.
- Lighter and Softer: Being aimed at much younger children and produced in a very different time, this series generally lacks most of the danger and adventure that the original series had.
- Mama Bear: Maw. Threaten Tersh in any way in her presence at your extreme peril.
- The Mole: Ambassador Crocodylus. He doesn't even try to hide it. Babar lets him live in the palace, though, because Failure Is the Only Option for his schemes.
- The Moving Experience: Used in "Operation Secret Suitcase"
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Ambassador Crocodylus, the ever-scheming troublemaker in Babar's palace, and his nephew Dilash (who is The Bully to Badou and his friends and often helps his uncle with his schemes). Averted for his other nephew Tersh (who starts off as his uncle's inept helper but later becomes one of Badou's friends), the crocodile sailor Captain Darling, and the Boss of the Slogs (Crocodylus' boss ironically enough).
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Employed by Ms. Strich in "Bird in the Hand" to thwart Prospero.
- Old Master: Jabbsi. He becomes Munroe's Quill Fu instructor in 'Fu Finder'. However, after this episode and 'The Needle Noggin', he's never seen or even mentioned again.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Prospero loves using these. Averted, in that only those who have no idea what he looks like are ever fooled.
- Put on a Bus: Arthur, Alexander, Flora, Isabelle, Pompadour, Troopadour, Victor, Basil and Madame (Justified that she was very elderly when Babar was a kid and likely passed away since, Cornelius on the other hand has the excuse that Elephants live much longer than humans). In "King Badou vs. The Pirates", Badou tells Pom and Celeste to "say hello to Aunt Flora and Aunt Isabelle" when they go on a trip, while Arthur is mentioned in "The Celesteville Junior Marching Band" as the pilot of the airship carrying the royal marching band.
- Real After All: In "The Wisdom Toad," there's supposedly a toad called the Wisdom Toad that supposedly knows the right answer to everything. However, it turns out that says "Yep" every time a question is posed of it. When Crocodylus tries to use it to trick the crocodiles into making him leader, Badou discovers a whole pond of these toads and finds that some of them say "Yep" and some "Nope." He therefore pulls a swap, swapping the supposed "Wisdom Toad" for one of the ones that says "Nope," so that when Crocodylus asks it if he should be leader, this is what it says. Afterwards, he shows the pond of frogs to the true crocodile leader and everyone present agrees that it was never a good idea to let a toad choose the leader. Everyone clears out except for Badou and Babar, and Badou asks Babar if he thinks it's possible that there could be a real Wisdom Toad. A voice calls out from the pond: "Maybe."
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Babar and Badou, of course. Dandi Andi also frequently keeps the savannahs in order.
- Shown Their Work: This is one of the few works to remember black panthers are just melanistic leopards, with Sleek being designed with visible rosettes.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Squeeze, the giant python who lives in the deep jungles and sometimes tries to eat Celesteville citizens who enter his territory.
- So Proud of You: At the end of "King Badou vs. the Pirates," after the situation with the pirates is resolved, Babar tells Badou "You're going to make a fine king one day, Badou. I am very, very proud of you."
- Taught by Experience: Discussed in "Badou's Best Adventure." Badou is feeling sad and Babar asks why. He says it's because he thinks he'll never be as good an adventurer as Babar and Heropotamus are, that they never make mistakes. Babar explains that the two of them are good adventurers because they've adventured for so long and made a lot of mistakes, which they've learned from.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Munroe and Dilash in 'Jumpball Bu', and Andi and Sleek in 'Kitty Cornered'.
- Time Skip: The series takes place later in Babar's life, after he's become a grandfather (Badou is his grandson). Oddly, Cornelius, who was already an old man by the time Babar was born in the books' conventional setting, is still alive. Pom is Badou's father and makes semi-regular appearances.
- Token Evil Teammate: For a franchise that depicts elephants and lions as mostly good guys, as traditionally portrayed, Blacktrunk and Kylus are notable exceptions.
- Wishing for More Wishes: In "Starbreaker," when Badou and others wish on a wishing star, Jake wishes for a thousand more wishes. Almost immediately after, a meteorite falls from the sky. Jake's incorrect belief that he "broke the wishing star" serves as the basis for the plot of the story.
