Kaeloo

Premise

The show centers around the adventures of a group of anthropomorphic animal friends, Kaeloo the frog (Kaelou in the pilot), Stumpy the squirrel, (Moignon in the pilot), Quack-Quack the duck, Mr. Cat the cat, and as of Seasons 2 and 5, Pretty the rabbit, Eugly the rabbit, Olaf the emperor penguin, Ursula the black cat, The Sheep, Game Rule and Stumpy's seven sisters, who live on a planet known as Smileyland (Pays Trop Mignon in French, which means "Very Cute Country" in English) and play games to keep themselves from getting bored. Things always go wrong due to Stumpy's ineptitude at almost everything, Quack-Quack's addiction to yogurt, Pretty's unkindness (in the earlier seasons), Eugly's emotional vulnerability (even though she is big, weighs 10 tons, and went to art school in season 5), Olaf's desire to take over the world, Mr. Cat's constant cheating and abuse of the others, and Kaeloo's ability to transform into a hulking toad monster named Bad Kaeloo (Bad Kaelou in the Pilot) when angered.

Characters

Main

Kaeloo (Kaelou) (voiced by Emmanuel Garijo in French and Andy Chase (pilot), Doug Rand (Season 1), Matthew Géczy (Season 2) and Vincent Tong (Season 5) in English) - The titular character and main protagonist. She is an energetic and fun-loving but emotionally unstable and short-tempered tree frog who's always looking for games to play with her so-called "buddies" and often proposes suggestions to make everyone happy. While normally gentle and loving by nature (though she does have several crueler moments), when pushed too far, Kaeloo enters an intense, upset-fueled rage that transforms her into the hulking "Bad Kaeloo". Kaeloo has dissociative personality disorder and is gender-ambiguous in the French dub of the series; no one knowing her gender is a running gag, and it is implied that she is non-binary, intersex, or genderfluid. Kaeloo tends to prefer female pronouns, while Bad Kaeloo prefers male pronouns. Kaeloo is re-written to be female in most of the other dubs of the series; however, the Italian, Serbian, Hindi and Season 5 English dubs, and the first 10 episodes in the Season 1 English dub, have her re-written as male.

Bad Kaeloo (Bad Kaelou) (voiced by Emmanuel Garijo in French and Doug Rand (Season 1) and Ian Hanlin (Season 5) in English) - Whenever Kaeloo gets angry or frustrated enough, she transforms into this form, a male, hulking and brutish yet slow-witted toad. While she has stated in an early episode that the transformations must be triggered by anger, she has been seen in several episodes deliberately taking this form to cheat at games that require a level of physical prowess or to intimidate others. While remaining impulsive and brutal throughout the series, Bad Kaeloo gradually becomes calmer, kinder, gentler, and less fond of mindless acts of sadistic violence, and by season 5, Kaeloo can control her anger and transformations by subconsciously communicating with Bad Kaeloo through a bubble that appears next to the head of the one in control.

Stumpy (Moignon) (voiced by Rémi Chapotot in French and Doug Rand (Pilot and Season 1), Andy Chase (Season 2) and Cole Howard (Season 5) in English) - A dim-witted and accident-prone red squirrel, fascinated by video games and comic books, alongside explosions, superpowers, intergalactic wars and anything remotely dangerous. He has little-to-no sense of reality, is often delusional, not very bright and immature, and generally comes up with the craziest ideas or reasonings, but means well.

Quack-Quack (Coin-Coin) (voiced by Rémi Chapotot in French and Doug Rand (Season 1) and Vincent Tong (Season 5) in English) - A duck who is incapable of speech, only able to say his name, though everyone seems to understand what he is saying most of the time. "The Origin of Quack-Quack" details his backstory; whilst still in his egg, his parents were killed by a hunter. He was taken in by scientists who experimented on him, increasing his intelligence and making him indestructible.

Secondary

Pretty (voiced by Dorothée Pousséo in French and Barbara Weber-Scaff (Season 2) in English) - A pink rabbit fashionista who is obsessed with fashion, beauty and all things stereotypically "girly". She is selfish, narcissistic, aggressive and regularly puts down those around her for petty reasons. Pretty has a crush on Mr. Cat (not that the feeling is even close to being reciprocated) and will go to extreme lengths to woo him. In season 5, Pretty befriends the four main characters, stops bullying them, and gets over her crush on Mr. Cat.

Eugly (voiced by Rémi Chapotot) - Pretty's fraternal twin sister and polar opposite. Unlike Pretty, Eugly is ugly and fat, but has a very nice personality. Her immense strength makes her capable of intimidating or physically assaulting people, but she rarely does so of her own accord, usually only under Pretty's orders. Eugly is very emotional, and will burst into floods of tears at even the slightest insult. She eventually becomes Quack Quack's girlfriend. In season 5, Eugly leaves Smileyland to attend an art school, and her role is reduced to occasional cameos as a result.

Olaf (voiced by Féodor Atkine in French and Matthew Géczy (Season 2) in English) - A Russian-accented emperor penguin who would like to take over the world and cover it with snow and ice, but is ultimately ineffectual. He is "married" to an ice cube named Olga and has a robot fridge named Serguei. In season 5, Olaf has a calmer and gentler personality, and is now an artist, which he enjoys using to express his emotions.

Olga - Olaf's "wife", an ice cube. She was once gigantic, but gradually began melting from heat, so Olaf put her under a glass dome to prevent her from evaporating completely. While she seems to be not much more than an inanimate object, in the episode "Si on jouait au réchauffement climatique", Quack Quack speaks with Olga's "consciousness".

Serguei - A sentient robotic fridge who serves as Olaf's henchman. It resembles a penguin, can move and perform all sorts of actions, but is speechless. Olaf can climb inside and use it as a mecha to compensate for its small size.

Mini-Serguei - A smaller variant of the more commonly-seen Serguei, Olaf's mini fridge can be seen in the last two episodes of season 2 and throughout season 4. A Mini-Serguei also serves as a keychain in one episode of season 3.

Release and reception

The launch of the series was made on June 6, 2010 as part of Canal+ Family's Cartoon+ block. The show is also broadcast on Canal+ and Télétoon+. Kaeloo is also distributed outside Canal+ Family. The series has received good reviews, with Télérama considering it "hilarious" and TV 2 Weeks as "a fast-paced cartoon and humor pest, which accomplishes the feat to entertain young and old".

DVD release

Kaeloo: Hide 'n' Hunt was released on Region 4 DVD by Beyond Home Entertainment on 1 December 2011. It contains the first 13 episodes of the English dub of Season 1.

As of 2026, the remaining four seasons of the show have not been released on DVD.

International broadcasts

As of 2025, the show is not available in the United States, Canada, Spain, Latin America, Russia, Turkey, Luxembourg, Germany, Romania, and the Netherlands, due to dubbing issues and concerns about the show being suitable for kids to watch due to black comedy being present in some episodes.

In other media

Video games

A mobile video game adapted from the series titled Kaeloo Rush was released on Android on July 18, 2016. In this game, Kaeloo must protect Quack-Quack and Smileyland at large from Mr. Cat's ammunition. The game contains 40 levels. Unfortunately, it has been unavailable in France since 2023 for unknown reasons.

Two sequels, Si on jouait au photomatou and Si on jouait au zikbox, mini games developed by Cube Creative and Télétoon+, were released in 2017.

Comic book

Kaeloo is a comic book series based on the cartoon of the same name. The first issue, titled Let's Play..., was released in July 2018.