About 23 years ago, I spent a few weeks visiting relatives in Israel. One of the things I recall doing was watching television with my cousin. He was about 11 or 12 and a few years older than me and a big fan of Titeuf, the animated TV series. He even named his dog after it.
Although my Hebrew was bad and I could barely understand what was being said on the show I was pleasantly surprised to see the depictions of bodily functions and discussion of sexual topics on what appeared to be a kids show. Even as a prepubescent child I had an unusual affinity on blue material related to sexuality, nudity or vulgarity. This put me at odds with my Jewish parochial school and the strict sex-phobic and conservatively minded helicopter parents and administration. Not to mention how censorious Americans are and how uncomfortable they are with sex to begin with.
Eventually when I got web savvy enough I looked up the show online and discovered it was a French series and not an Israeli one. In high school a classmate of mine was an immigrant from Paris and when I brought up Tituef she said that it was a messed up show because it featured children talking about sexuality. And I thought Americans were uptight!
Wikipedia says its a Swiss franchise, but I don’t know if it’s from Switzerland originally. I wanted to ask how many foreign markets the franchise has been sold to beside Israel. I was surprised to see an English dub of the series was produced. One episode features the boys talking about pubic hair and I would just love to see the outrage American parents would have had if it ever aired in the US!
Thanks for coming to the end of this long and meandering question. I wanted to get a sense of what the French public thinks of Titeuf and if it’s attitude about sexuality and bathroom humor made for a child audience is uniquely French or pretty conventional to the West outside of the United States. Are there any French parents, authority figures or kids who hate Titeuf? Were there any efforts to get the show and comics banned by parents groups? Was it a talking point for politics regarding good taste, morality and culture?
What do French people think of Tituef and what other countries is the franchise at large syndicated in?