''The Tofus'' (french: Les Tofou) is an

animated sitcom An animated sitcom is a subgenre of the sitcom that is animation, animated instead of live action and is generally made or created for adult animation, adult audiences in most cases. ''SpongeBob SquarePants'', ''The Simpsons'', ''South Park'', and ...

produced by

SIP Animation SIP Animation (known as Saban International Paris until 2002) was a French animation studio, and a former subsidiary of Saban Entertainment. By 2009, the company had produced over 390 hours of animated content. Despite the name, the company was n ...

and

CinéGroupe CinéGroupe is a Canadian animation studio based in Montreal, Quebec. The company was founded in 1974. Its shows and films have been seen in over 125 countries. Notable franchises from CinéGroupe include: ''What's with Andy?'', ''The Kids from R ...

. The animated series is a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

of the

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

lifestyle epitomized by its title family, which consists of Mom, Pop, Chichi, Lola, and Buba. The show is set in the fictional town of Beauvillage, and lampoons many aspects of the

environmental movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists a ...

, including

environmental organizations An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environment ...

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

, and

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...

. Since its debut on September 6, 2004 on

Teletoon Teletoon (stylized as TELETOON) is a Canadian English-language specialty channel owned by Teletoon Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of Corus Entertainment. Its name is a portmanteau of "television" and " cartoon". The channel primarily broadcasts ...

in Canada, the program has aired twenty-six episodes consisting of fifty-two segments over two seasons.

Premise

Environmental activists Mom and Pop Tofu, concerned that their family is suffocating from urban routine, decide to move to a

farmhouse FarmHouse (FH) is a social Fraternities and sororities in North America, fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate ch ...

in the town of Beauvillage and embrace a more natural way of life, much to the horror of their pre-teen children, Chichi and Lola. They would rather watch TV and go shopping than amuse themselves with Grandma Buba's animals: Cracker the Rooster, Curly the Sheep, and Suzie the Goat. The siblings must cope with their parents'

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

-friendly world vision and the humiliation that results from their efforts to encourage others to protect the environment. The neighbourhood that the family settles in is filled with electronically able individuals, contrasting the Tofus' all-organic lifestyle. Unlike her mechanical-genius brother Chichi–who believes in peace within the family–Lola is more cynical and averse to being deemed oddballs in their new home. She occupies herself with her attraction to Billy Hubbub, the boy next door, despite his parents objections.

Characters

Chichi (Aaron Grunfeld) : Meek but smart. Has a crush on a local teen named Candy. Good friends with Candy and Phil. Lola (Brigid Tierney) : Loyal to her brother, best friends with Lily. Has a crush on her neighbour, Billy Hubbub. Mom (Maria Bircher) : She's a zen mother trying to keep her house in line. Pop (Marcel Jeannin) : He's considered oblivious a lot of the time which ends up proving false since he's usually fairly early in discovering what's going on in his house. He is also something of a handy-man, as he is often seen inventing machines made of environmentally friendly material, or otherwise run on clean fuel. Buba (Sonja Ball) : Lola and Chichi's grandmother. She's the one who grew up in the farm land and it's the life she knows. April (Jesse Vinet) : She is a girl who often hangs around the Tofu household. Since her parents work in the emergency ward, she is often left lonely and so grew attached to the more attentive and sincere Tofus. She also developed a quick attraction to Chichi, giving him pet names like 'Chichi honey-bun'. William "Billy" Hubbub (

Daniel Brochu Daniel Brochu (born February 28, 1970) is a Canadian actor. Early life Brochu came from a single parent family, like his character Buster Baxter on ''Arthur''. Career Brochu is best known for voicing Buster Baxter in the PBS TV series ''Arthur' ...

) : Son of Titus and Beth Hubbub, he's Lola's next door neighbour and biggest all-time crush. The only real thing keeping him from pursuing her is disrupting the families, who will often determine that they don't want the polluter's and the biodegraded's kids together. Titus Hubbub (

Harry Standjofski Harry Standjofski (born May 22, 1959) is a Canadian actor as well as a theater director and playwright. He has appeared in films such as ''Guy X'', ''The Aviator (2004 film), The Aviator'', ''Protection (2001 film), Protection'', ''X-Men: Days of ...

) : Master of Alarms, Titus is Billy's father and number one hater of the Tofu family. He is also their next-door neighbour. Elizabeth "Beth" Hubbub (

Pauline Little Pauline Little (born c. 1958) is a Scottish-born Canadian voice, film, and television actress who currently resides in Montreal, Quebec. She voices the twins Lotus and Jasmine in ''The Little Flying Bears'', Maya in ''Maya the Bee'', Francine i ...

) : She runs the restaurant Burger Palace and this tends to cause a lot of conflict between the families since the Tofus don't like that she uses artificial ingredients. Phillip "Phil" (

Jason Szwimer Jason Szwimer (born December 20, 1991) sometimes mistakenly credited and known as Jason Szwimmer, is a Canadian voice actor. He was the voice of Dora Winifred Read on ''Arthur''. He provided the voice of Elf in the Télétoon TV series '' Caillou ...

) : The neighbour on the other side of the Tofu household. He is Chichi's best friend and confidant. Lillian "Lily" (Kayla Grunfeld) : Lola's best friend and confidant. She is a bit quirky, being a hopeless romantic and a boatload of advice. Cherie (

Sarah Allen Sarah Allen is a Canadian actress. She studied acting at the National Theatre School of Canada and graduated in 2002. ''Being Human'' Allen is perhaps best known for playing vampire Rebecca Flynt on SyFy's '' Being Human''. For the role ...

) : Lola's rival and the

queen bee A queen bee is typically an adult, mated female (gyne) that lives in a colony or hive of honey bees. With fully developed reproductive organs, the queen is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive. Queens are developed ...

of her school. Nicolas "Nick" : Chichi's rival. The leader of the team of the bullies at Beauvillage. Susan "Suzie", Cottontail "Curly", Cracker : Buba's farm animals. Suzie is a goat. Suzie likes to eat everything and accidentally destroys it. Curly is a sheep with a lot of hair. Cracker is a rooster. Beatrice (Cary Lawrence) Kris (

Michael Yarmush Michael Lawrence Yarmush (born June 19, 1982) is an American actor. He is known for providing the original voice of Arthur Read in the PBS children's animated television series ''Arthur''. Early life Yarmush was born in Miami, Florida, the son o ...

)

Episodes

Season 1: 2004

Season 2: 2005

Production

''The Tofus'' was co-produced by

and

. It was directed by Bruno Bianchi, and produced by Bianchi and Danielle Marleau with the assistance of several other executive producers out of Maple Pictures Corp., and scripted by twenty-six writers, including series creators Fabrice de Costil and Bertrand Victor. All the scripts were story edited by Florence Sandis in charge of the script directing. Original music was composed by Alain Garcia and

Noam Kaniel Noam Kaniel, also known as Noam, ( he, נועם קניאל; born August 18, 1962) is an Israeli musician, singer and composer, who has sold over 8 million records, and is known for composing or performing the theme songs of many animated series ...

. Each episode of ''The Tofus'' was budgeted at US$230,000, and each thirty-minute time block was divided into two fifteen minute-long episodes. The first episode of France 3's French-language version of ''The Tofus'' premiered on January 3, 2005. As Fox Kids Europe was renamed Jetix Europe in July 2004, the program was broadcast under the new brand

Jetix Jetix (stylized as JETIX) was a children's entertainment brand owned by The Walt Disney Company. The brand was for a slate of action/adventure-related programming blocks and television channels. Jetix programming mainly originated from the S ...

when it arrived in other European countries in 2006. There were five main cast members who voiced ''The Tofus''. Aaron Grunfeld performed the voice of Chichi, while Brigid Tierney performed the voice of Lola. Maria Bircher played Mum, Marcel Jeannin voiced Pop, and Sonja Ball took the role of Buba. Voice direction was overseen by Terrence Scammell.

Development

The show's development was first revealed in April 2002 under the name of ''Tofu Family'', when Saban International Paris (before their renaming to SIP Animation in October) announced that they had pre-sold the series to

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

in the United Kingdom to air on their

CITV CITV (short for Children's ITV, also known as the CITV Channel) is a British free-to-air children's television channel owned by ITV plc. It broadcasts content from the CITV archive and acquisitions, every day from 6 am to 9 pm which ...

programming strand, while

France 3 France 3 () is a French free-to-air public television channel and part of the France Télévisions group, which also includes France 2, France 4, France 5 and France Info. It is made up of a network of regional television services providing ...

was attached as well. The show was originally put into production solely at SIP. By March 2003, the production for the series was started, and it was confirmed that

and

Fox Kids Europe Jetix Europe N.V. (formerly known as Fox Kids Europe N.V.) was a European television broadcasting company that owned children's television channels and programming blocks across the Europe and Middle East, such as Jetix and Jetix Play. History ...

had joined in the production for the series as well. By June 2003, SIP announced that

in Canada would co-produce the series and that Fox Kids Europe's broadcast deal also included merchandise rights and a first broadcast window on their Fox Kids channels worldwide except in the UK and France, due to the existing deals with ITV and France 3 respectively.

Reception

''The Tofus'' was generally well-received by viewers. It has been called "a modern gloss on the classic family sitcom

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

aptly skewers the granola-munching righteousness of the eco-hippie archetype," and has been commended for its use of ecology as a unique background theme. ''The Tofus'' also received top audience ratings among the

Youth Programs in 2005.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tofus, The 2000s French animated television series 2004 French television series debuts 2005 French television series endings 2000s Canadian animated television series 2004 Canadian television series debuts 2005 Canadian television series endings English-language television shows French-language television shows French children's animated comedy television series Canadian children's animated comedy television series Environmental television 2000s Canadian satirical television series New Age in popular culture Teletoon original programming French satirical television shows Animated satirical television series Animated television series about families Television series set in the 1990s