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Toopy and Binoo (French: Toupie et Binou; January 3, 2005 – December 29, 2006) is a Canadian flash-animated series aimed towards children ages one through eight, produced by Spectra Animation and broadcast by Treehouse TV and PBS Kids in English and Télé-Québec in French. It is based on the children's book Toupie et Binou. Another television series was produced as a live action spin-off show titled Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom, produced by Echo Media, the successor to Spectra Animation. The show, featuring the characters as puppets, was developed into a mobile app which is still available for iOS.

A total of 175 episodes were produced overall during its original run.

On May 26, 2021, an 80-minute feature film of the show, titled Toopy and Binoo: The Movie, produced by Echo Media and Sphere Films, was announced, and was slated to debut as part of Corus' fall lineup for 2022. It was released in theaters in Canada on August 11, 2023 instead. The original voice actor of Toopy, Frank Meschkuleit, reprised his role as the titular character. It will also be set to air on Treehouse TV and ICI Radio-Canada Télé, and is planned to be released on Crave.

Plot[]

Original series[]

Toopy loves life. Every little thing — from talking socks to magic carpets. But most of all, Toopy loves his best friend Binoo, who's not just sweet and adorable but smart, too, although he seldom speaks. For Toopy and Binoo, life is delightful and simple. Everything swings between surprises, pleasures and zany situations. Binoo loves to follow Toopy on incredible imaginary adventures. For them, the sky is the limit.

Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom[]

Main article: Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom

The episodes for Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom tend to follow a continuous plot in every episode. Toopy and/or Binoo will either come up with an idea for a game or end up running into a problem in their house, and will either use the bed from their bedroom or the bathtub to travel to varying locations. Episodes of this show often include other characters who do not speak. By the end of each episode, Toopy and Binoo end up back in home, in their bedroom, about to head off to sleep. Toopy would briefly turn on the light, remembering or planning something new for him and Binoo to do, before heading off to bed.

The characters are charming and endearing. The kindness, respect, and gentle aspects of childhood friendship are emphasized as the friends explore and discover the world around them with their colorful adventures. Toopy and Binoo allows for learning in a non-didactic manner. Individual segments are approximately five minutes in length, but are frequently grouped together as one thirty-minute episode, both on television and DVD releases. The six 30-minute episodes, aired in 2006, have other characters talk besides Toopy.

There are also short 2-minute episodes that are seen on the website in the second season, where, there are either "Magic You", "Captain You" or "Fabulous You" segments, featuring Toopy and Binoo as space captains, fairies, or as superheroes who make things right by using magic (Toopy sometimes ends it by doing the same thing that's wrong on himself which he doesn't even notice), and they use the magic wand from "Godmother Toopy", explore things in their house and pretend to find out what they are, and Binoo sometimes reveals what they are, such as a pillow, where they use the same uniforms they had in "Strange New World", but instead, the object they find is the entire form of the planet, and help their friends when they have nothing to play with by playing games they can use with themselves. They use the same uniforms they had in "Super Toopy", but Binoo looks a lot like Super Toopy, also. The segments encourage viewers (referred to in the show as "Magic You", "Captain You", or "Fabulous You") to participate in the adventures and use their imaginations. Each DVD that has two half-hour specials has two of each of these three short mini-episode adventures, starting in this order: "Magic You", "Captain You", and then "Fabulous You".

History[]

Toupie et Binou was the original title of the children's books collection written by Dominique Jolin; the books also appeared in English translation as Washington and Deecee.

Binoo then appeared in a small book series of his own. Echo Media (previously known as Spectra Animation) then brought them to television, both in English and French versions, dubbing their English names to Toopy and Binoo.

The first two seasons have been broadcast in over 179 countries and dubbed into 30 languages, 1 million DVD's have been sold and the show's YouTube videos have reached nearly 350 million views, for a total of 1.35 billion minutes viewed.

A third season of the television series, entiltled Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom is produced in live-action, with the characters featured in animated backgrounds. It debuted on April 7, 2013 on Treehouse TV in Canada and has not been shown on PBS Kids. Due to it being live-action, the show's production staff was mostly changed, while also introducing a new set of writers to the show's writing staff. Two Toopy and Binoo live shows, Marshmallow Moon and Fun and Games were presented across Canada and sold over 250,000 tickets.

As mentioned above, a feature film produced by Echo Media and Sphere Films, Toopy and Binoo: The Movie was released on August 11, 2023. It will also be released on Crave, and it will air on Treehouse TV in English and Ici Radio-Canada Télé in French.

Characters[]

Voice director: Kathleen Fee

  • Toopy (voiced by: Frank Meschkuleit) – Toopy is a funny, polite, friendly, optimistic, impulsive mouse whose insatiable zest for life is matched only by his love for his best friend, Binoo. He wears a red-and-yellow T-shirt, and is one of the stars of the show. He always has something to say, and has a wide imagination and takes Binoo to imaginary places created by the both of them and loves many different things, such as going on adventures with Binoo. Toopy is shown to really enjoy life in the show, and in some of the episodes likes to laugh. Several episodes and the movie, however, hint that Toopy can be rather narcissistic, stating that he is "the best" at doing many simple things. He is the only one to have a voice actor in the show up until the mini-movies, who also voices every character in Dragon (until the rebooted version, in which Dragon and the Narrator became the only two central characters to share the same voice actor).
  • Binoo (voiced by: no one) – A small white stuffed cat who is one of the stars of the show and does not have a voice actor (the Italian dub of the show depicts him to have a voice actor, despite being a silent character). Binoo is a lovable cat who is logical, sensible, patient, and thinks before he acts. Binoo is devoted to his best friend, Toopy. He communicates with signs and is friends with Toopy. He also has a stuffed toy called "Patchy-Patch" that he accidentally loses in "Where's Patchy-Patch?" and in the movie, and is also shown to own an orange teddy bear in "The Lost Bear". He enjoys Patchy-Patch, reading books, and going on adventures.

Many episodes of the show feature a variety of other characters who also appear in the live-action show, Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom. They do not speak in dialogue, much like Binoo does; however, this seems to change in the mini-movies, where Frank Meschkuleit will voice all male characters. In almost all of the mini-movies, Jennifer Seguin voices certain characters. In "Binoo the Brave", Holly Gauthier-Frankel, who served as voice director in the show's movie, had voiced Mr. Dragon as a princess, as well as the white sheep.

Episodes[]

Main article: List of Toopy and Binoo episodes

Broadcast[]

In Canada, Toopy and Binoo did not premiere in the original Canadian English language. It first premiered on January 3, 2005 on Télé-Québec, in Canadian French. The dub was also aired in France on Tiji and on the Malagasy TVM channel in Madagascar, Africa. The English debut of the series premiered on Treehouse TV in September 2005, as announced by Spectra Animation, as a part of the fall 2005 lineup. Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom, the spin-off show, debuted on April 7, 2013 on Treehouse in English, coinciding with the channel's rebrand, and it aired on Ici Radio-Canada Télé in French. Both channels have since ceased reruns of the show in 2017 and 2018, respectively, although the animated series briefly came back to Treehouse TV in March 2019. Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom has not been aired in reruns since. The movie aired in December 2023.

In the United States, the series was shown on PBS Kids. In the United Kingdom, the series was shown on Tiny Pop. In Singapore, the series was shown on Okto when it was known as Kids Central. In Australia and New Zealand, the series was shown on Playhouse Disney, which has since become Disney Junior.

In early 2013, an official Toopy and Binoo YouTube channel was created, and it began uploading the show's episodes to YouTube, starting with "Sock Safari". The mini-movies were uploaded between 2015 and 2017, as well as music videos composed of various episode clips, with the French versions of "Binoo's Tall Tale" and "Three Wishes" being uploaded onto the English-language channel in early 2015 and late 2023, respectively. More recently, episodes from the spin-off show, Toopy and Binoo Vroom Vroom Zoom, were uploaded in late 2023.

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