Eliot Kid

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Eliot Kid
Out of all the god awful French cartoons, this one probably takes the cake. Then again, the cake is imaginary.
Genre: Adventure
Animation
Children
Comedy
Running Time: 13 min approx.
Country: France
United Kingdom
Release Date: January 9, 2008 – February 1, 2009 (France)
March 3, 2008 – 2012 (United Kingdom)
Network(s): TF1 (France)
Cartoon Network (USA)
CBBC (United Kingdom)
ABC Me (Australia)
Created by: Sebástian Dorsey
Distributed by: Cake Entertainment
Starring: Barbara Scaff
Jodi Forrest
Christine Flowers
Leslie Lanker
Matthew Geczy
Seasons: 2
Episodes: 104


Eliot Kid is a French-British animated children's television series produced by Samka Productions, Safari de Ville, and CBBC. It was directed by Giles Cazaux. Voice direction was conducted by animation voice director, Matthew Géczy. The French dub was conducted by Kris Benard. The show ran from January 9, 2008, to February 1 in France whilst it lasted from March 8, 2008, to 2012 in the United Kingdom. During its run, 2 seasons and 104 episodes were produced. It aired on TF1 and Cartoon Network in France, Qubo in the USA, CBBC in the United Kingdom, and ABC Me in Australia.

Premise

Eliot Kid is your average 6-year-old with a huge imagination, creating up blockbuster film scenarios, from simple decoding viruses and stopping closet monsters to full-on stopping his cousin from marrying spies and saving his friend from getting turned into a boy by his witch aunt. Along with his friends, Kaytoo and Mimi, come with Eliot to join him on his imaginative adventuresǃ

Why It's Unimaginative

  1. One of the main problems with this show is that most of the characters are mostly either bland and/or unlikable, due to being poorly written. The characters end up making a whole cast of mediocre and overall boring-ness of a show since they receive very little to no character development at all.
    • The main titular character, Eliot, is an unlikable, immature, and stupid protagonist and a blatant Gary-Stu who is loved by his friends that face zero consequences for their unjustified actions and is a God-like saboteur. He also does terrible things for the pettiest things (usually due to his imagination). He also can be a noticeable Karma Houdini at most points. Note that these are only some examples; you can find more examples on his other page.
      • In "Wedding Impossible", he first locks Jeffery in the cellar because he thought he was a spy. Then, he tries to sabotage the wedding by locking his mom in her room, making Mimi put glue in front of Jeffrey's room, and Kaytoo ruin the car, and finally steal Jeffery's suit. This is extremely mean-spirited, and he doesn't even comeuppance, only a talk to.
      • In "The Bathroom Monster", Eliot goes into the girl's bathroom to fight the "monster", and then floods the sinks to "fight" it.
      • In "The Teeth Have Ears", he thinks his tooth filling is used to spy on him, and thus, as a result, he acts like a nuisance at the lunch table, refusing to eat his dad's lunch, "la-la-la"ing when his mom talks, and hanging up Suzie's phone, landing in his room. He then sneaks out and ends up destroying his filling. Finally, at the dentist, he destroys everything in the dentist because he thought the dentists were spies. And once again, he gets off scot-free with only a talk to.
    • As said above, Eliot's friends Kaytoo and Mimi are Karma Houdinis, who despite helping Eliot in his plans, really only Eliot gets punished. And whilst possible they are punished off-screen, it's still anger-inducing. They also are very generic friends, with Kaytoo being a cliche black friend and Mimi being a cliche hard-to-understand braced person. Mimi also has a crush on Eliot, but that leads to barely anywhere.
    • The rest of Eliot's family isn't that much better, especially Jeremy, his dad, who is your cliche "idiot crazy inventive dad" that has been used in way too many shows. He is also treated as the Butt-Monkey of the show because his inventions are always going awry because of Eliot and his imagination, with major examples being in "The Villainous Vacuum" and "Eliot Against The Bananas".
    • Most characters are very cliché and stereotypical as well, with little to no personality, other than being a kid/teen. The show's page on Wikipedia itself describes the characters as having one-dimensional personalities:
      • Max, Eliot's rival (cliché enemy)
      • Loretta, a girl who is in love with Eliot (cliché love-interest)
      • Jade, a babysitter who babysits anyone like Eliot (cliche babysitter)
      • Victor, a boy in glasses (cliché nerd)
      • Michael, a boy who is fat and wearing overalls (cliché chubby kid)
      • Marcus, a boy who always wears his coat (cliché... of nothing.)
    • Even likable characters have little to no personality or expressions, becoming bland side characters that are forgettable such as Isabelle being your too simple mother, Max being your too cliché enemy (as stated above), and Suzie is the stereotypical older sister.
    • Alex, the main antagonist of the final episode, is nothing but just a carbon-smug older copy of Eliot.
  2. The show is beyond formulaic as the plots for each episode are nothing more than Eliot, Kaytoo, & Mimi having an imagination about something happening that leads them into trouble, which gets tiresome and cliché fast. Because of this, viewers of the show will most likely get border and border as the series moves on since, unlike other formulaic shows, like Phineas & Ferb or Scooby-Doo it is way too predictable that Eliot and his friends will imagine a normal situation and get in trouble for it. It doesn't even go off the main formula as well, unlike the other shows, which at least sometimes got creative. The only time this was done was in the finale, "Life Without Mimi", which is the main reason that was a great finale (see RQ#5).
  3. Mediocre and cheap flash animation and character designs, which look more like they'd fit in a preschool or kindergarten show. This is especially shown as the characters barely move that much, only with stiff limb movements, clearly trying to save money. The animation gives other lazy stiff flash animations from shows like Seasons 4-6 of Johnny Test, Kid vs. Kat, and Almost Naked Animals a run for their money. There are also frequent animation and continuity errors, such as Eliot's mouth not moving properly when he talks in this scene. Speaking of lip-syncing, the lip-syncing besides that is very awful and bland.
    • They also reuse certain animations, for example, in "Wedding Impossible", they reuse the same animation of Eliot locking a door with a key.
  4. Weak and unlawful-appealing background designs, which as said above, look like they'd fit in a show fit for preschoolers or kindergarteners. Sometimes the backgrounds and characters sync up poorly as well.
  5. Terrible to average voice acting, with some major examples including Barbara Scaff as Eliot Kid, who sounds more like a pre-teen rather than a 6-year-old, and Christine Flowers as Mimi, who sounds ear aggravating. In one episode, there's a monster whose voice is defiantly aggravating, which gets worse since he ends up singing, putting out ear damaging "singing" that will only make you go deaf.
  6. Misleading premiseː Because of the show's premise, the show might make you believe that Eliot is a kid who goes on wild adventures with his friends when in reality, it is about an immature mean spirited child with an overactive imagination who likes to "save the day" when in reality he always into trouble with two of his Karma Houdini friends.
  7. The show has some pretty bad morals for your parents like:
    • Being a jerk
    • Lying
    • Bullying
    • Cheating
    • Not learning your lesson
    • Getting into trouble
    • Being a Karma Houdini
    • Disobeying parents
  8. The episodes' scenarios in the plot can get bad or dumb at many points (see WINI#16), and especially mean-spirited, such as locking people in basements because their "spies" (Wedding Impossible), attempting to "de-code" someone's chickenpox (The Virus Code), and even flooding sinks to "fight" a monster (The Bathroom Monster). This was later improved in Season 2, though not by much. Along with that, many scenarios are overused and rehashed across the show, such as catching spies (Wedding Impossible, The Teeth Have Ears, etc.), stopping "witch Aunt Margot" (Aunt Margot, Shrinking Mimi, etc.), destroying Jeremy's machine because of a misconception (The Villainous Vacuum, Eliot Against The Bananas, etc.), and even more concepts they overuse in the show, which is already bad enough since as said, the formula for each episode is always the same.
  9. The theme song, whilst catchy, is mediocre at best because it repeats the same "bum but be bum bum" tune. Along with that, its ending was slightly abrupt and seemed unfinished.
  10. The sound designs are really poor and basic and it makes the show look more like (for the millionth time) a preschool show or a Hero 108 wannabe.
  11. As stated in WINI#3, the character designs are bland and mediocre, which include Mr. Leon, Mimi, Eliot, Jeremy, Suzie, Isabelle, and the worst offender Ms. Briggitte. The designs are very stiff, with their main problems coming from weirdly proportioned bodies, unnecessary details, etc. Most of them as well look like bad rejects from other shows, like Eliot and Isabelle for example, and Jeremy especially looks like a close reject of Lawrence Fletcher from Phineas & Ferb.
  12. The pacing of many episodes is very bland and annoying, cause either it goes too quick or too slow. The slow pacing is probably the most noticeable, making most episodes boring wastes of time, whilst it can be fast-paced for some reason, like the montage in the final episode.
  13. The logo of the show is beyond mediocre, as it is a childish way of showing Eliot is imaginative with how the letters are arranged in "ELIOT". Also, having the "O" being the main character is overdone, which was probably noticeable after Johnny Test.
  14. It tries too hard to appeal to modern-day children, but often fails, such as using slang or seeming to be "relatable" in some way.
  15. The pilot (which was also a trailer in some variations), "The Wonderful World Of Eliot Kid" did not do the show justice, as it was notably worse than the actual show. The monster in it as well was rehashed in another episode.
  16. The imagination chase scenes are extremely weak such as Eliot Kid and his friends escaping the guards while protecting his dog Salami.
  17. "Wedding Impossible" isn't the best way to start the show and has an unnecessary reference to the 1996 film Mission Impossible. The episode is about Eliot thinking his cousin is gonna marry a spy, and as shown by WINI#1, Eliot's actions make the episode awful. The ending was at least decent, however (see RQ#5).
  18. A few of the dialogues and quotes in the show can be extremely confusing and lame (especially when it tries to be modern), or rather weak and unfunny, and not how normal humans interact, such as these lines:
    • ”She loves me, She loves me not.”
    • ”But mom, I got rid of all of the monsters!”
    • "Eliot, wait! No Eliot! Open up! Open the door!"
  19. Some of the plots don't even make any sense or form a story at all, usually due to pacing. And even when the plots do have some semblance of a story, they often are ridiculous. For example, there's an episode where Eliot finds and creates an underwater monster in the city's new pool, visualizing an army of creatures lurking beneath the city, and another where Eliot's Aunt Margot visits, whom he thinks is a witch who wants to transform his parents into poodles, which gets Eliot in trouble and get punished, too. What even are those plots?
  20. The English voice cast got assembled with some of them are Barbara Scaff, Mike No Name Nelson, and Mirabelle Kirkland, with Alistair Abell, Leslie Lanker, Christine Flowers, Jodi Forrest, and Matthew Geczy also starring, which is a miscast of the English dub of the show.
  21. The French dub has even worst voice acting especially in the pilot, although this might be due to the French accents.
  22. There's almost no lesson in some episodes; most of the show is exposition and the characters cope with their imagination and thought bubbles. And when it does try to teach a lesson, it fails SO BADLY. Is it sound to you?
  23. The show often uses concepts from other notable shows to the point where one may mistake it for a rip-off. For example, the concept itself may be seen as a rip-off of Mona the Vampire and Captain Flamingo, even though it's not, since both star over-imaginative kids going on adventures to be heroes (except in this show, the "hero" only ruins everything).
  24. Some episode concepts could have been good but were executed very poorly, such as having Eliot think his Aunts a witch or worrying that mankind is going backward.
  25. The humor in the show (especially in the French dub) is generic, unfunny, weak, awful, and troublesome. One example is Eliot's dad trying to make square pancakes at the beginning of "Wedding Impossible", or the very bore-some running gag of Eliot getting in trouble and him trying to go against it.
  26. For whatever reason, it's Caillou but done worse.
  27. With all being said, there of course are multiple mediocre/awful episodes.
    • Wedding Impossible (which was a poor way to start the show, as mentioned above)
    • The Bathroom Monster
    • Kung Fu Kid
    • Aunt Margot
    • The Broken Toy
    • Freddy Has Disappeared
    • The Villainous Vacuum
    • The Werewolf
    • The Little Bunny That Grew
    • 20,000 Leagues
    • Eliot Against The Bananas
    • The Virus Code
    • The Teeth Have Ears
    • Eliot The Kid
    • The Ghost Hunt
    • Cyborg
    • Game Over
  28. "It wasn't my fault!"
  29. Overall, this show is forgettable and represents how sour and unmemorable most French animation is, especially with other infamous French cartoons.

Imaginative Qualities

  1. The show's concept of a boy going on adventures with his friends due to his big imagination but getting into trouble is a very interesting idea but is sadly executed poorly due to the various flaws mentioned above.
  2. Some character designs are at least decent.
  3. There are some likable or decent characters (even if bland), such as Isabelle Kid, Suzie Kid, Mr. Leon, and Eliot's enemies Igor and Max.
  4. Eliot does get comeuppances for most of his actions, although he never learns from them.
  5. The show improved in Season 2, though not by much to redeem the show entirely.
  6. Also, Eliot and his family got better in later episodes, especially Jeremy.
  7. The show has some good or decent episodes like:
    • Igor
    • Eliot's Nightmare
    • Only When I Laugh
    • The New Kid In School (probably the best episode)
    • Halloween
    • Snowman (a decent way to end season 1)
    • Wanted! Salami
    • Mimi's Secret
    • Eliot in Love
    • Life Without Mimi (which whilst not perfect, was a great way to end the show, and used the imagination cliche rightly)
  8. Despite mainly having bad lessons, it does have some good morals at heart.
  9. The animation, despite being mediocre, can be passable at some times.
    • The trailer pilot also has much better animation, despite its noticeable flaws.
  10. The imagination sequences are pretty good, despite being awful camera work and bad sound effects.
  11. The creators of the show thankfully apologized after getting negative reviews, implying they regret making this.
  12. There are some good endings of episodes, even mean-spirited ones, usually where Eliot saved them from getting into trouble such as:
    • Wedding Impossible
    • Mimi the Mermaid
    • The Mummy's Curse
    • Game Over
    • The Great Dog Competition
    • Mission: Earth
    • Eliot Superstar
    • Igor
  13. As said in WINI#9, the instrument of the theme song is catchy, and the theme song's animation itself was pretty good.

Reception

Eliot Kid received mainly mixed-to-negative reviews. It does still have its fans and people who praise it, saying it was a childhood classic, whilst others mainly dislike the show due to having unlikable characters, mediocre and cheap art style, and being a bad influence. It currently holds a 4.5/10 on IMDb and a 90% on Google.

Trivia

  • The show also aired on Disney Channel on some occasions (most likely in Asia, and Europe).
  • As of 2020, the entire series is available on YouTube.
  • The company behind this is also responsible for another mediocre French cartoon, Invisible Network Of Kids.
  • The series had the same cantidity of episodes and seasons as Sally Bollywood: Super Detective.

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