Timothy Goes To School (2000-2002)
Now don’t laugh (too much) but this is a children’s cartoon series that I came across within the past few years, and despite the fact that it’s pretty much aimed at toddlers, I did enjoy it. I am now well past the age that I regularly watch the children’s channels such as CBBC and CITV, and I have definitely never taken much notice of the ones even further along the Freeview channel list, how any of them could compare with the likes of Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon from many years ago. I’m sure today’s five-year-olds are fond of them, but they don’t mean much to me nowadays.
But one day when I was channel hopping (because that’s what I do all day), I did come across a cartoon on Tiny Pop in the evening that I thought was rather interesting, which made a change from the odd computer-generated shows that they usually seem to feature. So I thought that whatever people may think about it, I might as well share the story of this one and try to bring some more attention to it. 
Timothy Goes To School is a show of Canadian origin based on a series of books by Rosemary Wells, that featured the adventures of a young raccoon (I bet you never thought there was another cartoon starring a raccoon out there) starting out at Hilltop School. As the episodes pass, we see Timothy do various things such as learn how to make friends, interact with his teacher Mrs Jenkins, draw pictures, play with toys, and so on. It did remind me a little of when I started out at school, although I’m fairly sure that my classmates weren’t various mice, cats, foxes, and so on. 
Timothy wasn’t the star of the show for me though. Also featuring were twin bulldogs called Frank and Frank. It just amused me that they both had the same name, which I thought was rather unusual, but nobody in the show seemed to. This exchange sums them up really, when being taught about the responsibility of looking after a goldfish: Frank #1: “you mean like walking it?” Frank #2: “and giving it a bath?” Claude: “um… it’s a fish.” Frank #1: “oh right… no bath”. They are also fond of sport, speak in unison, and their dad is called Frank too! 
We also saw some of the children at home, and met a few of their relatives, including Timothy’s parents. Where did his orange marble go. There were 26 episodes of Timothy Goes To School that contained two stories each, I’m fairly sure that there has been no DVD release in this country, although it was repeated very frequently on Tiny Pop for a while. I’m sure if it had been on the TV when I was much younger it would’ve been one of my favourites.
ADAM'S NOSTALGIC MEMORIES 