Western Animation / Pinky Dinky Doo

Now that's something you don't see everyday.^note Left to right: Mr. Guinea Pig, Pinky and Tyler.

(Pinky, tell us a story!)
"Pinky's got a story she wants to share with you!
Pinky Dinky Doo
Never at a loss for words she pulls out of the blue...
Pinky Dinky Doo"

Pinky is a seven-year-old girl who lives in Great Big City with her parents, her four-year-old little brother, Tyler, and their pet, Mr. Guinea Pig. When a problem arises, Pinky dances her way to a cardboard box called her Story Box with Tyler and Mr. Guinea Pig and uses a piece of chalk and her imagination to tell a story. In the second season, Pinky uses the Story Pad, a notebook in which Pinky draws pictures for her newer made-up stories, whenever the Story Box is not available. After Pinky tells her story and solves the problem of the day, kids are invited to play an interactive game on the Cheese Sandwich toy, where they review details about the story.

This series was created by Jim Jinkins, who originally made up Pinky's adventures as bedtime tales for his children. The first season was a co-production of Cartoon Pizza, Sesame Workshop, CBC, and Discovery Kids. In the second season, the Canadian studio Keyframe Digital and Abrams Gentile Entertainment signed on as production companies. The show aimed to enhance preschool-aged viewers' early literacy.

From January 17, 2016 to January 2, 2021, it was rerun on HBO Family. The series was later made available on HBO Max from its launch on May 27, 2020 until January 2, 2021.

---

Pinky Dinky Doo provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The second season is done with hints of very, very, VERY obvious cel-shaded CGI.
• Alliterative Name: Bobby Boom, and Daddy Dinky Doo.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Mr. Guinea Pig is blue.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Tyler comes off as this to Pinky at times.
• Art Evolution: The second and final season switched over from flash animation (via Adobe Flash) to computer animation (via 3DS Max), with the characters being animated via a 3D rig as opposed to being completely 3-Dimensional. As a result, the characters' skin tones are much lighter and less saturated. However, even with the animation switch, the show continued to have a lot of Flash-like qualities to it.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In "Tyler's Tall-O-Meter", Tyler uses the titular machine to increase Pinky's height. However, she keeps getting taller and taller until her head practically breaks out of the atmosphere. Somehow, she can still breathe.
• Birthday Episode:
  • "Tyler's Great Big Solo" for Mommy Dinky Doo
  • "Pinky Dinky Doo and the Party Animals" for Kingsley the T-Rex
  • "The Horn and Antler Club" and "Happy Burp Day" for Daffinee.
• Character Catchphrase: Lots!
  • Pinky has "Yessarooni Positooni!", "Now THAT'S something you don't see every day.", and "I love to make up stories. I'll bet you can make up a story too."
  • Tyler has "Wait a minute, Pinky!"
  • There are also catchphrases in the form of a song: "If I have a problem and don't know which way to go, I think and think and think and think and suddenly I know!"
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Most of the episode titles.
• Charlie Brown Baldness: Pinky's dad is bald with a few strands of hair on his head.
• Cool Big Sis: Pinky is this to Tyler most of the time.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: Princess Volume from the episode "Tipsy Topsy" looks like a miniature version of Daffinee, but as her name suggests, has a very loud voice that could shake a whole room up. Fortunately, she learned to control the volume of her voice by the end of the story.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Stinky Pinky Doo", Tyler tries to flush an unseen character named Johnny's favorite cap down the toilet after the latter called his socks stinky.
• Edutainment Show:
  • This show helps viewers increase their vocabularies with its Great Big Fancy Word, which is featured several times during the episode. It also addresses problem-solving skills as well as the basics of narrative stories—character, dialogue, plot, details, main idea, and sequence of events.
  • In each episode, there is also a "Great Big Fancy Word", which varies with each episode, but when somebody is about to say the word, Mr. Guinea Pig will blow a trumpet and then the character says the word.
• Embarrassing First Name: The episode "Pinky and the Grumpy Alligator" had Pinky find a new home for an alligator named Aloysius after he gets made fun of in the sewers for his name, which the others joked about by calling him names like "Suspicious Aloysius" and "Alo-wishy-washy".
• Expository Theme Tune: The theme song explains the premise of the show.
• Failed Attempt at Scaring: In one episode, Tyler dresses as a banana for Halloween and wants to be scary, but everyone just finds him cute. A guy dressed as a vampire tells him to make a "scary noise", so he shouts, "Bleeeeyy!" but it doesn't work.
• Fake Interactivity: The Game Time segments have this.
• Fanfare: Mr. Guinea Pig plays this on his trumpet whenever someone is about to say the Great Big Fancy Word.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Daffinee and Pinky, as shown in "Stinky Pinky Doo". Daffinee made fun of Pinky's stinky breath before, but when Daffinee ripped her skirt, Pinky gave Daffinee her jacket to tie around her waist so people won't see her underwear. They've been great friends since then.
• Fooled by the Sound: In "Pinky and the Grumpy Alligator", Pinky and her father hear Aloysius the titular bad-tempered alligator stomping and snarling. Her dad wonders if it's Pinky's stomach.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The characters.
  • Sanguine: Pinky Dinky Doo - she's always happy and excitable
  • Phlegmatic: Nicholas Biscuit - he's also cheerful, but is more subdued than Pinky
  • Melancholic: Tyler Dinky Doo - he's always complaining about a problem he has, prompting Pinky to tell a story to solve it.
  • Supine: Bobby Boom - gentle and agreeable
  • Choleric: Daffinee Toilette (sometimes) - very bossy and aggressive towards others.
• Framing Device: All episodes are framed by Pinky and Tyler telling the story together.
• Gassy Gastronomy: In "Pinky Stinky Doo", Pinky's family has burritos for breakfast. Pinky later ends up laughing so loudly that she ends up farting, which her classmates refuse to let her forget. In the episode adaptation, however, this is changed to giving her bad breath instead.
• Genki Girl: Pinky is full of enthusiasm a lot, especially in the 1st season.
• Good Parents: Pinky and Tyler's parents are loving and patient.
• Grand Finale: "Pinky's Silliest Story/Tyler's Big Idea". Arguably, "Pinky's Silliest Story" fits more as the show's finale than "Tyler's Big Idea". The episode story surrounds Pinky's family taking turns continuing a story by using random objects they find in a basket, and their story is actually an expanded version of the show's title sequence. At the beginning of the episode, we do also see televisions outside the house showing clips of previous episodes.
• Halloween Episode: "Tyler Dinky Doo's Big Boo!"
• Happily Married: Pinky and Tyler's parents.
• Informed Attribute: According to this, Pinky's dad is a cartoonist, but we never see him acting as such in the show itself. However, there is a dad cartoonist on another Cartoon Pizza show, called Stanley.
• Informed Species: Mr. Guinea Pig looks nothing like a guinea pig.
• Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Averted with Bobby, who is in a wheelchair but is treated as an equal.
• Ironic Name: Even though the main protagonist's name is "Pinky" and her hair is pink, she doesn't even like the color pink. Although she is aware that her hair is pink and her name is Pinky, despite her dislikes, she still gets used to it and she doesn't even mind those that like the color pink.
• Lead Drummer: In the episode, "Think Pink", Pinky can be seen playing the drums in the made-up story.
• Leitmotif: Daffinee had one in the first season.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Daffinee can be spoiled and rude at times, but she's mostly kind to her friends (especially in the second season).
• Medium Blending: The show uses a mix of 2D animation and real-life images, making it look like a collage, not unlike another show that aired on the same network in the U.K.
• Ms. Imagination: Pinky, who loves making up wacky stories. Her stories always have the solution to the episode's main problem.
• My Nayme Is: That's "Daffinee", not "Daphne".
• New Year Has Come: The show has two New Year's episodes that are both in episode 51: "Great Big New Year" and "Pinky's Happy Doo Year".
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The episode "Pinky's Perfect Present" features a rapping horse called P. Diddy Pony, supposedly based on P. Diddy, the nickname for rapper Puff Daddy.
• Once per Episode:
  • Pinky and Tyler sing "We're Going To The Story Box" as they dance over to the Story Box before Pinky starts the story of the day.
  • During the made-up story, Pinky must Think Big, at which point her head swells up like a balloon and she comes up with an often wacky solution to the problem. While Pinky usually does the thinking, there are occasional times when Tyler does it, and even Mr. Guinea Pig does it in "Shrinky Pinky".
• Painting the Medium: Mr. Guinea Pig plays a trumpet every time someone is about to say the Great Big Fancy Word of the day.
• Phonýmon: Tyler is a big fan of Moo Moo Miggy Monsters toys.
• Picky Eater:
  • In "Try It, You'll Like It... Pretty Much", Tyler is subjected to butternut squash for dinner, which he thinks looks disgusting but he doesn't know what it tastes like, although decides not to try it anyway. Pinky tells a story about herself going to another planet to taste out-of-this-world food in a contest made by aliens, which all looks very off-putting. However, she gives all of the foods after hesitation a try and finds them all to be very good. Tyler learns that even disgusting-looking foods can be tasty.
  • In "Pinky Dinky Rex", Tyler seems to forget he learned the above example as he's hesitant on trying the foods at his friend Lulu's house, whose family are vegetarians. Pinky tells him a story where the Dinky Doos are T-rexes, and Lulu's family are apatosaurses. Lulu invites the Dinky Doos over for dinner and to Daddy's shock, the ribs served at the dinner aren't real meat. He starts crying, but afterwards takes a bite and finds to love non-meat ribs.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Pinky and Tyler, Daffinee and Nicholas.
• Pink Means Feminine: Daffinee wears a pink dress and is girly, but while Pinky has pink hair she openly states to disliking the color.
• Polka-Dot Disease: In one of Pinky's stories, she and her friends get the "polka dot pox", a disease where they break out in multicoloured polka dots.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Daffinee is the girly girl, rich, snobby, and arrogant Red Oni, while Pinky is the Genki Girl, optimistic, agreeable, and sweet Blue Oni.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Mr. Guinea Pig.
• Ridiculous Procrastinator: Pinky, Nicholas, Daffinee, and Bobby in "The Pinkys Rock!". They are supposed to perform in a concert, but they keep wasting their time instead of practicing. In fact, the episode's main vocabulary word is "procrastinating".
• Rich Bitch: Daffinee can act like this at times.
• Running Gag: Mr. Guinea Pig playing the trumpet whenever the Great Big Fancy Word of the day is mentioned.
• Shaking the Rump: Pinky, Tyler, and Mr. Guinea Pig shake their rears before they go into the Story Box.
• Smelly Feet Gag:
  • In the first episode, Tyler is grossed out when the characters in Pinky's story eat the food that they all had on their feet, but Pinky tells him since it's a made-up story, there's no germs or stinky feet to worry about.
  • Tyler's problem in "Stinky Pinky Doo" is being offended when a kid at school calls his lucky socks stinky, which results in him attempting to flush that kid in question's hat down the toilet. At the end of the episode though, Tyler does admit his socks do smell.
• Smurfing: Pinky uses the verb "zip-zam zoom" to refer to a character on her stories doing something very fast.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: In the episode "Pinky and the Grumpy Alligator", New Transfer Student Johnny Gelatinhead is grumpy and very rude. Tyler even lampshades it. This inspires Pinky for a tale with a Grumpy Alligator, Aloysius, who needs help to get to the zoo but scathingly rejects it. Both Johnny and the alligator move to a new place and are jerkasses because other people made fun of their names.
• Stage Magician: Nicholas performs magic tricks as "The Great Biscotti".
• Strictly Formula: Every episode follows the same structure. Pinky goes about her business, then Tyler shows up with a problem. The two dance and sing their way to the Story Box where Pinky uses chalk to tell the story related to Tyler's problem. Pinky will "Think Big" at some point of the story to come up with the answer, and Tyler ends up learning the moral afterwards. Pinky and Tyler then play two games about the story's events with the audience, and it all ends with Pinky telling the latter that they can make up a story like her.
• Title Theme Tune: Pinky's got a story she wants to share with you... Pinky Dinky Doo. Never at a loss for words she pulls out of the blue... Pinky Dinky Doo.
• Toilet Humor:
  • In spades, with one good example being one of the books the show is based on called "Pinky Stinky Doo". In it, Pinky eats a burrito and farts at school.
    • Similarly, the episode "Stinky Pinky Doo" has Pinky's classmates smelling her bad breath.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Pinky and Daffinee.
• Unconventional Food Usage: In one of the books, Pinky makes up a story where she and her classmates make shoes out of food, then later eat the food. This grosses out Tyler, but Pinky handwaves it by saying, "It's a made-up story, so you don't need to worry about dirty food."
• Wacky Sound Effect: Animal sounds are oftenly used to accentuate surprise or desperation, the most common being a chicken and a duck. That, and a duck quack accompanies a character hitting something (e.g.: Pinky hitting the ground after thinking big).
• Youthful Freckles: Pinky and Tyler both have them.

---