Western Animation / Timothy Goes to School

Timothy Goes to School main cast^note From left to right: Lilly, Claude, Timothy, Doris, Charles, Yoko. (Not pictured: Fritz, Nora, Grace, The Franks, Mrs. Jenkins)

"Anything can happen, when Timothy Goes to School"

— The show's theme song

Timothy Goes to School is a Canadian animated Preschool Show that ran from 2000 to 2001 for 26 episodes over 2 seasons. Produced by Nelvana, it is the the first Animated Adaptation by the studio to be based on the characters created by children's author Rosemary Wells (who also helped out quite a bit with the series production), with the second being Max and Ruby.

The show follows the day-to-day life of Timothy, a 5-year-old raccoon who begins the series attending kindergarten for the first time. Alongside ten other students who compose the rest of his classmates (all of them being different kinds of Funny Animals and based on characters from different Wells' books), Timothy goes to Hilltop Elementary, where he and his friends are taught by the kind and supportive Mrs. Jenkins. Every episode, Timothy and his classmates learn and play at school, discovering important lessons about friendship, growing up, and other valuable traits and skills for the classroom and at home.

Originally seen as part of the PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch in the United States, Timothy Goes to School later aired on Discovery Kids and TLC during their weekday block "Ready Set Learn" until 2006. In its home country, it originally aired on TVOntario, but later became a staple of Treehouse TV's lineup. Most, if not all, installments of the series are available on DVD, with some being U.S. releases and others being exclusive to Canada, which makes them region 1, but potentially challenging to find. The series was later added to Qubo in the United States and you can see every episode on Youtube through Nelvana's Treehouse Direct channel.

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This cartoon provides examples of:

• Absurd Brand Name: In "The Gift," Nora foregoes her favorite cereal in favor of a brand called Weeds and Seeds in order to get the Free Prize at the Bottom to give to Yoko as a birthday gift, then is disappointed when it isn't what she expected.
• Actor Allusion:
  • This isn't the first time Lisa Yamanaka (Yoko) voiced an Asian character.
  • This also isn't the first time Janet-Laine Green, the voice of Timothy's mom, has done a sweet and caring mother in a Nelvana book adaptation.
• Adaptation Species Change: Grace was a rabbit in the books but a cat in the cartoon
• Adapted Out:
  • Hazel was one of the students in the books but she doesn't appear in the show at all. Nora's sister is also absent even though she was in the original Noisy Nora book (she, however, is mentioned by Nora on the episode "My Family").
  • Violet (Timothy's original first friend) from the original book is absent in the show and later books, being replaced by Yoko.
• Adaptation Dye-Job:
  • Charles' father has brown coloured fur while he was grey in the original Shy Charles book.
  • Nora is an odd example, while she is brown in the original books and in the show, she is sometimes depicted with grey fur instead of brown.
  • On the topic of Nora and Charles fur color in the show and books, in some of the books their ears would sometimes be completely pink or mostly colored gray.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • In the first episode which adapts the original "Timothy Goes To School" book. While not that much changes were made the most notable is the ending. The original ending has Violet (who doesn't appear in the series) and Timothy becoming friends and the last page shows Claude and Grace (a bunny who is also exclusive to the book, not the cat character from the series) laughing at them but both end up ignoring them. The ending in the series shows Timothy and Yoko playing tag after Yoko tells Timothy about Claude's showoff behavior.
  • While not that much changed in the episode "Yoko", the opening in the episode shows Yoko getting ready for school showing her putting on her dress, waking up, and looking out the windows. She also forgets her lunch made by her mother when she is about to get on the bus. The original book opening shows Yoko's mother asking about what she wants for lunch for school and shows her mother making the sushi for Yoko.
• Adaptational Alternate Ending: The show's adaptation of Yoko ends with Timothy and Yoko eating sushi together during "International Food Day" similar to the original book. However, the original version ends with Timothy and Yoko making plans to open a restaurant together the next day on the bus ride home. Alongside the book ending with the two eating Tomato Sandwiches and Dragon Rolls, and having brownies with green tea ice cream.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • In the series some of Wells characters act a lot nicer than in the books that they appeared in.
  • Charles's parents (mainly his father) are much nicer than they were in the original book version "Shy Charles" where his father starts harshly calling him out on his shyness during a game of football causing Charles to cry.◊
  • Claude actually becomes friends with Timothy later in the series while in the original book version he never becomes friends with Timothy and continues to dislike him.
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • Timothy's personality was changed a little on the series. In the original book, he was seen crying a few times and even wishing something bad would happen to Claude.
  • Nora was mischievous in the books (such as Noisy Nora) but is more of a Bratty Half-Pint in the show.
• Aesop Amnesia: Generally averted. When the kids learned a lesson on the show, it tended to stick. For example, in On the Fritz, Fritz realized that there was no mess fairy and he needed to clean up after himself. Him being messy was never shown as an issue again in the series, despite the story's Here We Go Again! ending with Fritz having made another mess with the cleaning supplies in the process of cleaning Timothy's seashells. In Small Change, Nora learns to accept and even like change and she is never shown having an issue with it again. And if Lilly still sometimes forgets things, it can be forgiven, as it's difficult for her, and she does try very hard, sometimes succeeding.
• All There In The Books:
  • Yoko's mother would sometimes bring up the other family members who are still living in Japan along with mentioning her daughter's early memories of living in Japan as a toddler. While we do see a glimpse of Yoko's grandfather in the episode The Taketombo, we never actually see the other family members of Yoko in the show or even see the rest of Japan in general. In 2001, Wells made a book called "Yoko's Paper Cranes" where you can actually see Yoko as a very young kitten still living with her grandma and grandpa along with seeing cranes. We also see Yoko and her grandmother Obaasan feeding cranes, having tea, and her grandfather Ojisaan showing her how to make paper cranes. This is also the only time Yoko's grandmother and grandfather is actually seen until their reappearance 10 years later, in the 2011 book Yoko's Show-And-Tell where her grandparents are visiting Yoko's home for Girls Day.
  • While most fans will remember Fritz bringing up The Mess Fairy, his imagination of it is actually seen◊ in the original book version as a pig. The book also explains how Fritz came up with the mess fairy concept in the first place.

• Alternate Continuity:
  • The Yoko and Friends beginning reader books have many of the same characters, but cast Yoko in central role and eliminate at least a couple of the characters. Certain stories are versions of the TV episodes, but cast different characters in the main roles and have other variations. The Yoko picture books go even further. Mrs. Jenkins is still the teacher, but most of the other major characters from the TV series are absent and Yoko's mother is depicted differently. For example, in the TV show, she reluctantly allows Yoko to bring special toys to school, only for bad stuff to happen to them. In the Yoko's Show-and-Tell picture book, her mother disallows her to bring a special toy to school, but she disobeys and it gets wrecked and has to go to a doll hospital.
  • The original 1981 book Timothy Goes To School takes this further. In it Claude makes fun of what Timothy wears on the first few days of school, like in the series, but to the point that Timothy cries and wants bad things to happen to him. Yoko and many of the other kids also aren't at the school (Timothy makes friends with a bunny named Violet at the end of the story, though), and Mrs. Jenkins is unnamed (in the original version).
• Anachronic Order: The show jumps from one season to another almost at random, but at least can be said that it's not always spring. A special note, though, goes to the fact that The Big Snowfall, which featured Lilly having her first snow day was aired after ''Lifesaver Lilly," in which Lilly rescued Goldie from the cold school building with no power after school was canceled due to a big snowfall.
• Animated Adaptation: Of Rosemary Wells's books which separately starred several of the show's characters, such as Timothy, Yoko, Fritz, Charles and Nora. Recursively, some episodes were loosely adapted as books under the "Yoko and Friends" name, with Yoko as main character, in some cases replacing another character who was the main one in the series.
• Argument of Contradictions:
  • In "Rocky Friendship," Fritz and Charles have an argument that eventually descends into this when they each find a rock at the same time and are unsuccessful in sharing it.
  • Timothy and Fritz have one in "Abracadabra" after Fritz accuses Timothy of teaching Grace his magic trick, until Grace puts a stop to it by revealing that she peeked at Fritz's book.
• The Artifact: The logo for the animated series features Timothy carrying a book in his hand without a backpack◊. In the show, Timothy is actually seen wearing a backpack along with the other students. The logo could also be a reference to the original book, where Timothy is seen carrying a book without a backpack. However since the series was created in 2000, at this point in time this hasn't been in use in school, as backpacks were easier for children to carry instead of a pile of books.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: In Scary Monsters when Nora is afraid of dinosaurs because she thinks they're big and scary monsters, Timothy shows her a fossil of Megazostrodon at the museum, which, while having a big-sounding name is actually very small. It was a nice lesson, but Megazostrodon wasn't actually a type of dinosaur and basically resembled a modern-day shrew. However, given that the characters are children, this can be forgiven; also Nora was generalizing "dinosaur" herself so if Timothy (and Yoko, who found the creature in question in a book) knew she was wrong, he was using her own logic to prove her wrong.
• Ascended Extra: Some of the characters that were in the books have gotten their own set of episodes compared to their roles in some of the books.
  • While Lilly is not seen much in the books, she has around 4 or 5 episodes where she's the main character of the episode or a secondary character. The most notable would be Don't Lose It Lilly and Lifesaver Lilly, both dealing with her forgetfulness problem. The latter is the best example, which takes that issue more seriously, since she really wants to take care of the school's class pet but some of the students think she wouldn't do well as a pet owner despite the fact that Lilly herself owns a pet goldfish named Treasure. She even talks to herself alone on her bed admitting that she's too forgetful to take care of the class pet.
  • Grace also shown up more often than in the books. One of Grace's more notable appearances in the books are the Yoko & Friends books The Secret Birthday and Timothy's Tales From Hilltop School.
• Aside Glance:
  • In the end of the episode Frankless Frank Timothy looks at the audience and says "Here We Go Again" when one of the Franks get sick after the other is now better.
  • In the end of the episode "Shy Charles", Charles looks at the audience after he received a medal for rescuing Timothy from getting locked behind a door.

• Call-Back: When Fritz moves away, two of the characters give him artwork that match their art style displayed in "Paint by Numbers."
• Canon Foreigner: Juanita was exclusive to Animated Adaptation, only showing up in the final two episodes. After the show ended in 2004, Juanita showed up in more of the Yoko & Friends books such as "Make New Friends"◊ and "Timothy's Tales At Hilltop School", which features Juanita making a cameo in one page.
• Canon Immigrant: Juanita was exclusive to Animated Adaptation, only showing up in the final two episodes. After the show ended in 2004, Juanita showed up in more of the Yoko & Friends books such as "Make New Friends"◊ and "Timothy's Tales At Hilltop School", which features Juanita making a cameo in one page.
• Character Action Title: "Timothy Goes To School".
• Character Development: A class-wide example. In "Yoko", the majority of the class outright rejected Yoko's Japanese foods but in "Tea for Two", the entire class is eager for the Japanese tea ceremony Yoko and her mother host and all of them happily taste the green tea served.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Mrs. Appleberry, the substitute teacher and Mrs. Jenkins' assistant on extra-school activities doesn't appear nor is mentioned at all after the episode "Get Well Soon".
• City with No Name: The town where the series is set wasn't ever identified with a name.
• Comically Missing the Point: In "Red Thunder," Henry sets up a biking exercise in which the kids have to navigate through orange cones while also being graded on speed, accuracy, safety skills and overall bikemanship. When the Franks finish their turn, they tell him, "We're done, and we got them all," and Henry can only chuckle as he looks over and sees that they did indeed "get them all" - all of the cones have been knocked over.
  Henry: I-I think you missed the point of the exercise, boys.
• Culture Clash: Mild case between Yoko and Nora in "Tea for Two" where Nora assumes a Japanese tea ceremony will be just like her tea parties. They end up combining ideas slightly when Yoko's mother forgets the traditional sweets and Yoko suggests they serve Nora's treats instead.

• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: The theme tune's melody and some of its lyrics are used for the "Welcome Song" performed occasionally in the series, with a notable occurrence of it being performed in the first episode.

• Establishing Character Moment: In the first episode Timothy is getting ready for his first day of school. When he goes on the bus for the first time, he sees a female cat who kindly says hello to him while the others are mostly quiet. This character is Yoko who would later become Timothy's best friend. In the same scene, before Timothy sees Yoko, he sees Doris, whom Timothy considers to be quite annoying and loudmouthed. In the same episode, when the class introduced themselves, Charles said his name before quickly sitting down in silence, due to his shyness. Lilly was also shown, having to think about her own name for a moment before she responded.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's about a raccoon named Timothy who goes to school. Averted, though, to the degree that at times it was about the activities of Timothy's friends/classmates, with Timothy only barely appearing in certain stories and said activities not always taking place at school either.

• Expressive Ears: Certainly Timothy; his ears can go as far as pinning all the way down when he's really sad about something. Yoko exhibits them too, as well as both of the Franks, Lilly and possibly most of the others as well.
• Facepalm: Nora facepalms in "My Family" after realizing that what she thought was butterscotch pudding she brought from home as her lunch at dessert is actually her little brother Jack's baby food.
• Family Theme Naming: Doris's older brothers have the rhyming names of Boris, Horace and Morris. She also has an Uncle Norris.
• Fantasy Helmet Enforcement: In "Red Thunder," Timothy wrecks his new bike doing a trick that's too advanced for him, but neither he nor any of the other characters would think of riding without their helmets.
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: The Franks are both male dogs while the rest of the female students (Yoko, Grace, and Juanita) are all cats. Most of the cat characters seen in the series are mostly female minus Juanita's father and Yoko's grandfather seen briefly in one episode.
• Feud Episode:
  • In "Abracadabra", Grace peeks in Fritz's book of magic tricks then she steals his talent. Fritz thinks that Timothy told her and he blames him. Later, Grace admits her mistake, and the two are friends again.
  • In "Two Tutu Friends", Doris laughs at an embarrassing moment that happens to Grace during ballet class. When Doris tells the other children, Grace does not want to play with Doris anymore. Later, Doris apologizes to Grace and they become friends again.
• First Day of School Episode:
  • "Timothy Goes To School", based off of the book with same name.
  • "Mama, Don't Go!" is this for newcomer Juanita.
• First Snow: In The Big Snowfall Lilly experiences the joys of her first snow day, having moved from a climate where it was warm and never snowed.
• Food Porn: In the episode "Yoko" just about every food shown during the day when the class allowed any student to try out different foods from different cultures, including Yoko's sushi, despite what the rest of the class had to say. You don't blame Timothy for getting distracted by different smells during that day.
• Foreign Queasine: All of Yoko's Japanese dishes, but especially her sushi, are treated this way by her classmates. Timothy subverts it in the end, finding the sushi at the very least quite tasty. Later, in another episode, the entire class is willing to have the tea Yoko's mother serves.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Well, duh. They're all animals. Timothy, Doris, and Fritz have similar hand/foot structure as Ed, Edd, and Eddy.
• Free Prize at the Bottom: In one episode, Nora decided to forego her normal breakfast cereal in favor of something called "Weeds and Seeds" so that she could get the prize of emerald slippers at the bottom as a birthday present for Yoko. And she was such a good little girl that she actually ate the stuff, only to find that to her disappointment, there was only one slipper, and it was some dinky little thing. Her mother suggested making a necklace out of it and she did, but thought her gift was lame and didn't want to give it to Yoko at first. When she finally did, Yoko was delighted, as the slipper was the mate to one that she already had. In the book version of the story, "Buried Treasure" from the anthology ''Timothy's Tales from Hilltop School," Yoko says that she ate 49 boxes of the same cereal trying to find the other slipper.
• Funny Animal: Pretty much. The characters really don't display much of anything in the way of animal traits other than having Expressive Ears, the only concession being that as mice, Charles and Nora are both rather smaller than the other characters. In "Taking the Plunge," Timothy is even reminded to put on sunscreen, but how does a raccoon covered in fur wear sunscreen? Rule of Funny?
• Furry Confusion: In some episodes, there is a drawing of a non anthropomorphic cat in the classroom. It can be strange to look at the drawings and seeing Yoko, Grace, or Juanita near the drawing. Otherwise, though, this is mostly averted, largely due to the fact that all of the anthropomorphic animals are mammals. Since the only pets seen are a goldfish and a lizard, the potential for furry confusion is lessened.
• Furry Reminder:
  • These are pretty rare, the cast generally behaves like humans. Frank and Frank, who are anthropomorphic dogs, are the only characters where this is treated a bit more loosely. They tend to be rather messy in eating their food, and in Get Well Soon they try to drink water directly out of the faucet at school. When Mrs. Appleberry tells them not to, they tell her that "Mrs. Jenkins lets us do it", only for her to pull out a letter from Mrs. Jenkins— "Dear Frank and Frank, Please listen to Mrs. Appleberry and no drinking from the faucet. Signed, Mrs. Jenkins."
  • Doris will sometimes slap her tail against the ground when she's annoyed or excited.
  • Yoko loves sushi, which contains tuna, that cats really love eating.
  • In the episode where the Franks have a sleepover with Timothy. There is a scene before all of them go to bed where Timothy is seen brushing his teeth. He later makes a growling noise pretending he's a monster with foam from his toothpaste in his mouth. While this is Played for Laughs, it's also a reminder that raccoons also carry rabies.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: For most of the show, this is averted with the students, where there are six boys (Timothy, Fritz, Charles, the two Franks, and Claude), but only five girls (Yoko, Nora, Lilly, Doris, and Grace), but if you add their teacher Mrs. Jenkins into the mix, it plays straight. In the last episode, this plays straight with the students when Juanita is introduced.

• Half Dressed Cartoon Animals:
  • The male cast, except Charles and Timothy when he wore suspenders in the first episode ^note  he also wears these in the original 1981 book and 1998's "Yoko" .
  • In the original book versions of "Timothy Goes To School", and "Yoko & Friends". Timothy's mother is seen wearing slippers while Yoko's mother is seen wearing Getas which is part of her kimono. This is absent in the show.
• Height Angst: In "Measuring Up," Charles suffers a bit of this when Claude calls him a "shrimp" after everyone takes their measurements and he's found to the shortest in the class. Doris cheers him up by telling him that she's the tallest at school, but the shortest in her family and inviting him to play with her at her place after school. Later, Charles chastises one of Doris's brothers when he calls her a "shrimp."
• Here We Go Again!: In "Fritz in the Mess Fairy", the episode has this kind of ending after Fritz realizes there is no Mess Fairy and learns to clean up after himself, the episode ends with him making another mess with the sink while cleaning up Timothy's seashells. Also, in the episode "Frankless Frank" when Frank 1 is sick for the whole episode and Frank 2 has to spend a few days in school without him and after he returns to school, Frank 2 gets sick with the same thing. It's even lampshaded by Timothy at the very end.

• I Ate WHAT?!: In "My Family," Nora is feeling down on her little brother Jack because he's always crying and doing stuff like scribbling on her homework. In the morning, before going to school, she's excited to take a special butterscotch pudding she made with her mother to school. Her mother tells her that it's in the refrigerator in the "green container." She grabs it and puts it in her lunch bag. At lunch, however, when she goes to taste it, she find it doesn't taste at all like pudding and it smells bad too. Fritz looks at it and points out it doesn't really look like pudding either, and Nora realizes that it's Jack's baby food, which was also in a green container. She mutters to herself that she wishes she didn't have a little brother.
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: How the other kids felt about Yoko's oriental cuisine, such as sushi and red bean ice-cream. In the end, Timothy discovers this doesn't apply to him, as he finds sushi delicious.
• Innocently Insensitive: In "Two Tutu Friends," Doris and Grace have lots of fun together at dance class. When Grace slips and falls, she is mortified and embarrassed. Doris, however, doesn't realize this and thinks it's just a funny story, which she tells to some of the other kids the next day at lunch. Grace overhears and is terribly upset and crying, calling Doris a "blabbermouth." Doris, angry, calls her a "crybaby." They give each other the Silent Treatment for a while, until they finally talk it out and Doris apologizes for what she did, as she genuinely didn't realize that Grace was embarrassed about having fallen.

• It Runs in the Family: As seen in the first episode starring Doris. It appears that Doris's tendency to talk loud and get annoyed easily appears to run in her family. As seen by Doris's mother who yells for her brothers to get downstairs but requests Doris to do it for her since she's the loudest.
• Last Episode, New Character: Juanita, a Spanish cat, is introduced in the last two episodes. The show was Cut Short after that so one wonders what the creators were planning to do next.
• Limited Wardrobe: With the exception of the stuff in the first episode with Claude and Timothy wearing special clothes for the first two days of school, and winter clothing / special events, the characters are always shown wearing the same clothes to school. In the "Yoko & Friends" books most of the characters are seen wearing different outfits. Most notable is Lilly whose dress is completely different than her outfit in the show.◊
• Meaningful Name: Nora talks very loud which is reference to the book she debuted called Noisy Nora.

• Musical Chores: In "The Music Tree," Henry appreciates the music coming from the children of Mrs. Jenkin's class as he washes the school bus.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the episode "The Music Tree" Nora can be seen wearing a pot on her head. This is a reference to one of the ways of getting her mother's attention in the original book "Noisy Nora".
  • Fritz once refers to Nora as "Noisy Nora".
  • In the episode "Mama Don't Go" after Juanita's mother leaves the class to get more orange juice. Juanita get's sad and Yoko is the first student to comfort her and tells her to don't feel sad and tells her that her mother will be back. This is a reference to the Yoko & Friends book called "Mama Don't Go!"◊ where Yoko is thrown in the same situation as Juanita (even though this is a contradiction in the animated series, since Yoko's mom was not shown in her first day of school).
• Never Say "Die":
  • In "Lifesaver Lilly", Doris begins to suggest that Goldie the goldfish might be dead, but is interrupted by Lilly coming in with Goldie before she says it.
  • In "Scary Monsters", Timothy actually says "They died a long time ago" referring to the extinction of dinosaurs to his friends due to Nora's fear of dinosaurs.
  • In "The Big Snowfall", the Franks say that fish under a frozen lake become fish sticks. Lilly gasps in concern, but Timothy reassures her by saying that only the lake surface gets frozen and the fish still live below.

• Noodle Incident: The first episode establishes that Timothy and Doris have already met, however, what kind of interaction they had to make Timothy not very enthusiastic about Doris being his classmate is never explained, and is forgotten after the episode.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: In "The Taketombo," the Franks are sad and muted at dinner because having broken Yoko's taketombo. When Big Frank tries to get them to guess what they're having for dinner and they don't really respond, he comments that it's "stewed brontosaurus with Brussels sprouts on the side." This is met with a sort of general "that's nice" from both of them.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted: The Franks have the same name, as does their father.

• Retro Universe: Standard for a Rosemary Wells-based work; the cars look vaguely 50s/60s-ish, as do the clothes the characters wear, in addition to living in what looks like a small, rural town from that time. The characters also use old-fashioned rotary telephones. But it's still implied to be taking place in the late 90s/early 2000s.

• School Play: The name of an episode and a "Yoko and Friends" book where Mrs. Jenkins' class did one about dental hygiene. Parts were assigned randomly— Yoko was chosen to a be a cavity, but didn't want to be. In the end, she found a way to enjoy the part when she used her violin to create a sound effect suitable for a cavity.
• Short-Runner: Since it was a weekend show, it only had 2 seasons with 13 episodes.

• Slumber Party: Timothy and the Franks have one in "The Sleepover" because Big Frank had to use the bulldozer.

• Stock Animal Name: The pet goldfish given to Mrs. Jenkins's class in "Lifesaver Lilly" is named Goldie. Averted though with Lilly's own pet fish, Treasure.
• String-on-Finger Reminder:
  • In "Don't Lose It, Lilly," Lilly has one on her finger because Miss Jenkins, the teacher, says that it'll help her remember where she put her things. However, when Charles asks her if it works, she admits it hasn't yet. Later in the episode, as she and Charles are being drenched by a rainstorm, she remembers that it was to remind her to bring her umbrella.
    Charles: (ears dropping) Good remembering, Lilly.
  • In "Having a Wonderful Time," Lilly ties a red ribbon around her finger to remind her to bring an extra blanket and a snack for the school field trip to Hilltop Park. Grace tells her that she needs more than that, but not to worry because she'll bring enough for everyone. That evening, as she talks with her mama before bed, she has a red ribbon around one of her fingers too. That morning, Lilly has the blanket and extra snack before getting on the bus, so her mama takes the ribbon off, complimenting her on her good remembering.
• Suddenly Speaking: Charles never talked in the original Shy Charles story, and some of the Yoko and Friends books. He's more vocal in the show compared to his debut appearance.
• Surprise Party: In "Mama, Don't Go," new girl Juanita at Hilltop School doesn't want her mama to leave. The surprise party is how Juanita is eventually convinced to let her mother leave; it's her mother's birthday and the class needs her to leave so that they can put together a surprise party for her. Juanita actually tells her mother straight-up that she needs to leave for a while and then come back so that they can surprise her.

• Take a Third Option: Fritz and Charles find a strange rock at the same time; Fritz wants it for his collection, whilst Charles wants to build a castle with it. They spend most of the episode bickering about it, but they eventually decide to use it together.
• Talent Contest: One is held in "Talent Show." Timothy is assigned to be the Master of Ceremonies and when Grace gets hurt, she becomes his assistant.
• That Cloud Looks Like...: Timothy and Charles to do this in "Taking the Plunge" while relaxing in the swimming pool. They see one that reminds them of a cowboy hat, another of apple pie and one that looks like the school bus driver, Henry. Another sudden "cloud" actually turns out to be Doris doing a cannonball into the pool. It's reprised at the end of the episode.
• Title Character: Yoko is the title character of the show's second episode.
• Title Theme Tune: "Anything can happen when Timothy goes to school!"
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Doris and Grace, when they go to their ballet dance classes together. Doris is the more Tomboy-esque of the two, while Grace is more girlish.
• Unmanly Secret: When Timothy has a sleepover with the Franks in "The Sleepover," he hides his stuffed penguin toy, Pengy under his bed. Frank 2 tries to get something under the bed at one point almost sees it only to be interrupted before he can. At the end of the story, Timothy sneaks out of bed and tries to get it back after lights out, only to find that Frank 2 had hidden his own stuffed bulldog toy, Bully, under the bed in their bag near the beginning of the episode which was what he was trying to get. Frank 1 complains that everyone at school is going to laugh at them, but Timothy brings out Pengy and they promise each other that they won't tell anyone. Both Timothy and Frank 2 are then shown sleeping soundly, but Frank 1 looks around, scared, apparently missing his own stuffed toy, whatever it might be.
• Valentine's Day Episode: "Be My Valentine", as the title would suggest.
• Vocal Evolution:
  • In the episode where the school is having a day where two team members race, both Claude and Grace's voices sound deep and a little older.
  • Lilly's voice in "Lifesaver Lilly" when she gets very upset or depressed sounds more monotone and serious. Most notable in the scene where she admits she's too forgetful to take care of their class pet.
• Where The Heck is Hilltop School?: No clue. Given the show's focus and somewhat short run, it's somewhat understandable that the location of the school and the characters' homes wouldn't be identified. At best, we can assume that it's somewhere reasonably northern, but not ultra-northern, as it's cold enough for a good, school-canceling snow to not be unusual in the winter, but still gets good and warm in summer.
• Welcome Episode: Happens twice in the show. Most notable in the last two episodes where Juanita just moved and later becomes a new student.
• World of Funny Animals: A pretty obvious example of this trope.
• World of Mammals: It seems non-mammal animals are not anthropomorphized in this show, if Nora's pet lizard is any indication.
• You, Get Me Coffee
  • When Timothy decides to work with Claude for a team project on the television series involving making a model space shuttle, Claude asks him to do the sweeping up and doesn't let him do any of the work on the project. The space shuttle turns out great and wins a star for the best class project, but Timothy doesn't take any joy from it, finding comfort instead in talking with his friend Yoko.
  • In Timothy Takes the Cake, a story from the book Timothy's Tales from Hilltop School, Claude pulls the same thing on Timothy, this time having him clean up muffin tins during a baking project. This time, however, Claude's attempt at baking alone fails and he wonders what he did wrong; what thing he left out of the recipe. Timothy tells him "Me!" and together they manage to do some good baking.

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