Gilbert.avi

## Background

The Canadian television series Caillou has caused controversy throughout most of its thirteen year run from 1997 to 2010, mainly because of the behavior of the show’s main protagonist, Caillou, who, particularly in the show’s early seasons, was often shown throwing temper tantrums whenever things didn’t go his way. This wasn’t helped by the fact that Caillou’s parents either didn't discipline or punish him in any way if he misbehaved, or didn’t do so effectively.

This, as you can imagine, gave the show a bad reputation early on, so as a result, the people who worked on the show tried to improve and mature Caillou’s behavior in later seasons. Ideas were brought up and scrapped throughout the show’s third and fourth seasons in an attempt to mature Caillou, and some ideas were adapted into episodes.

One idea that was brought up during production for season four and was almost completed into a full episode was of Caillou having to deal with the death of his cat, Gilbert, and subsequently, killing off Gilbert from the show. The episode did not have a confirmed title, yet had its voice work completed and animation more than halfway complete before executives decided to cancel the episode, as they felt that what had been produced was too dark for young viewers and its contents were shelved following their decision. As a result, the incomplete episode was forgotten about for a few years, up until late 2009. Just before production of the show’s fifth and final season was to begin, Cookie Jar Entertainment (the production company for Caillou at the time) had decided to transfer the show’s production for that season to a studio in South Africa, and as a result, decided to lay off several animators for the show that had worked on previous seasons.

One of these animators that was due to be sacked was furious when he found out, and as this guy had worked on the show since at least season two, decided to take revenge on Cookie Jar. How did he do this, you might ask? Well, it turns out he had been one of the animators on the aforementioned lost episode, and decided he would release the episode online as revenge for being fired in an attempt to ruin Cookie Jar's reputation. It's unclear how he obtained a copy of the episode, but when he did, he uploaded it to YouTube on a now defunct channel called “CocaPepsi72” under the title “The Episode of Caillou You Weren’t Supposed To See.” There were a few other videos on this channel, those being a video of a social event on a yacht at Lake Tahoe, a video showing some dirty pipes within an unknown building, and another video of an unidentified man scoring a strike at a bowling alley. None of those three videos viewer counts more than 10 before this incident. The episode was on the site for two days, amassing 25 views and three comments expressing shock and confusion over what they had seen, before it was taken down. It's unknown what happened to said employee, but he was presumed to have been found out and fired after this incident. Despite Cookie Jar’s attempt to cover up the existence of this episode, it has been reported to have popped on LiveLeak for a short time (only to be taken down again), and has even been alleged to have made its way to various torrent sites as recently as 2013, under a .avi file called “Gilbert.avi”.

## The Episode

Now normally, an episode of Caillou would last about five minutes, but due to this episode being incomplete, this episode only ran for about three and a half minutes. Before the episode began, a warning was shown stating: *“DISCLAIMER: The content of this footage is private property of Cookie Jar Entertainment. This footage is not under any circumstances to be released to the public. Anyone caught distributing this footage faces up to five years in prison and/or a $250,000 dollar fine.”*

After this, the episode begins normally with the show’s opening theme song. The first oddity of this episode is that there is no title card for the episode, rather it just jumps straight into the episode. The first shot of the episode shows Caillou’s house as the narrator states “Today was supposed to be an exciting day for Caillou. Caillou was to go with his friend Leo to the county fair for a day. It was to be a very big event.” It then cuts to the inside of the house where the mom is sitting on the table. She then looks to a clock where the time is shown to be 11 AM. “Caillou, Leo and his mom should be here by now!” she said as she called Caillou, who was shown walking down the upstairs hallway all ready to go. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m so excited!” yelled Caillou as he was then shown running to the door. “‘Oh, and Caillou!’ she continued ‘Don’t forget to close the door. Gilbert’s been having a bad habit of escaping from the house lately!’” she said. “Okay, mommy!” Caillou said as he was running. However, he was in such a rush of excitement, that he forgot to close the door.

Gilbert is then shown walking towards the open door. As he sees that Caillou had failed to shut the door, he is shown running outside on the front lawn, while Caillou is shown walking to the street to Gilbert’s right side to look for the car, though he had not noticed Gilbert running out into the road. Leo and his mom aren’t there, though. He is shown looking to the right, in case they had parked somewhere else. The car is not there. He is then shown looking to the left, still no car. However, he sees something else that catches him off guard. It’s Gilbert, walking slowly on the road. “‘Gilbert, what are you doing there!?’ shouted Caillou, ‘You aren’t supposed to be on the road. Get out!’”.

Before he can do anything else, he hears the engine of a car and looks to his right, as a car is shown speeding down the road. “Gilbert, no!” Caillou yells, but it was too late. A quick zoom in of Gilbert looking at the car is shown, while another shot is shown of the car’s front right tire before it then shows Caillou covering his eyes as the sound of a thud and a cat screeching can be heard. When he opens his eyes, he sees the carnage on the road. “Gilbert!” Caillou yells in horror. It then shows a bird’s eye view of Caillou running towards Gilbert, who is shown lying on his side. A puddle of blood can also be seen oozing out of Gilbert's head. It then cuts back to the ground. “Gilbert, you’re hurt!” exclaims Caillou. It then shows a more detailed shot of Gilbert. Alongside the puddle of blood, Gilbert’s face is shown to be badly beaten up from the hit, a part of his fur even had tire marks from the hit.

It then shows Caillou’s mom walking outside. “Caillou, Leo’s Mom is running a bit OH MY GOD!” she suddenly exclaims upon seeing what happened. She runs over to the scene of the accident. “What happened, Caillou?” asks his mom frantically. “Gilbert got outside and went onto the road.” Caillou replied. “You didn’t close the door, didn’t you?” Caillou’s mom asked, rather sternly. “No…” admitted Caillou, reluctantly. “Meow” uttered a faint voice. It was Gilbert. “Oh God, Gilbert’s alive!” exclaimed Caillou’s mom. Miraculously, Gilbert had survived the collision and was just barely giving signs of life. “‘Quick Caillou!’, Caillou’s mom said ‘We need to get Gilbert to the animal hospital right away!’”.

The scene then cuts to the outside of an animal hospital where the narrator states “Caillou and his family took Gilbert to the pet hospital and were waiting anxiously to see if Gilbert was going to be alright.” It then cuts to the waiting room, with Caillou and his family are shown waiting, with worried looks on their faces. Caillou looks to his father and asks him “Daddy, is Gilbert going to be alright?”. “‘I don’t know, Caillou,’ Caillou's dad replies ‘but the doctors are trying their best to save Gilbert.’” “Is Gilbert getting better?” asked Rosie, Caillou’s sister. “‘Yes Rosie,’ Caillou’s mom replies reassuringly, ‘He’s getting the best medical care out there.’”

A vet then comes into the waiting room. He had a sad expression on his face. “Doctor, is Gilbert gonna be okay?” asked Caillou’s mom. “Ma’am, I regret to inform you that your cat Gilbert passed away in surgery a few minutes ago. We tried our best to save him, but his injuries were too great for us to treat. I am so sorry.” The family all had shocked looks on their faces when they heard the news. “No…” Caillou’s mom uttered. Caillou then broke down crying. “Gilbert, why did you have to go?” Caillou asked in between bouts of sobbing. “Gilbert gone?” Rosie asked. “Yes Rosie, I’m afraid Gilbert is gone forever.” Caillou’s mom replied sorrowfully, as she shed a few tears herself. The scene ended.

The next scene cuts to the front lawn of Caillou’s house. “‘It had been a week since Gilbert’s passing.’ the narrator stated, ‘Caillou’s family was preparing to bury Gilbert in a hole that Daddy had dug up in the front lawn.’” The scene then shows Caillou’s mom carrying a shoebox that is acting as Gilbert’s coffin to be buried the hole. Caillou is walking beside her. “Mommy, why does Gilbert have to be buried?” Caillou asked. “‘Well Caillou,’ Caillou’s mom replies, ‘When people and pets die, they have to be buried in the ground.’” Caillou’s mom then places the box into the hole. Caillou is then shown looking down into the hole. “Gilbert, I’ll miss you!” Caillou says while shedding a few tears. It then shows Caillou’s dad filling the hole back up. Once he was done, Caillou’s dad remarks “Well, he’s gone to a better place now.”

It then cuts to a bird’s eye view showing Caillou crying into his mother’s knees while an imagination sequence plays out. It shows Gilbert’s spirit, with angel wings and a halo coming out of the ground. Caillou stops crying and looks at Gilbert’s spirit. Gilbert meows, signaling that he’s going off to heaven and Caillou waves, saying “Goodbye, Gilbert.” Gilbert is then shown flying off to heaven. The episode then fades to black at this point and ends with no credits.

## Conclusions

After much discussion on various forums about the episode, some people have alleged that the episode was originally going to try and teach kids how to deal with the death of pets, though as no other details, voice recordings, scripts, or other footage has been released, this is impossible to verify. This is not helped by the fact that Cookie Jar and its modern predecessor WildBrain deny the existence of this episode, and considering what was made, it’s not too hard to understand why they would want nothing to do with this episode and also why they aggressively tried to cover up the episode’s existence. Some people have allegedly tried to make contact with the show’s voice actors and other crew members in order to gain more information from this episode, with their responses on the episode and its existence all being the same thing. Denial!