Trivia / Babar

• Cash-Cow Franchise: The Animated Adaptation shares this status with Franklin and Little Bear for Nelvana. Not only is it one of the studio's best-known and most highly regarded works, but it's received a lot of attention from them with stuff like two movies and a Sequel Series in 2010. It's also seen by some as responsible for paving the way for the numerous Animated Adaptations of children's literature done by Nelvana (and Canadian animation in general) since.
• Children Voicing Children: With no exceptions whatsoever. One critic even noted in their review published when the series first came out that this made the series sound very similar to the Peanuts specials.
• Crossdressing Voices: Kristin Fairlie as the young Babar in Babar: King of the Elephants.
• Kids' Meal Toy: At Arby's, it once got stampers and die-cast racers.
• Only So Many Canadian Actors: One of the prime examples of this trope from Nelvana. Many of the show's voice actors are child actors well known for appearing in other Nelvana series of the 90s and early 2000s, while the adults' voice actors include many renowned Toronto-based names like Gordon Pinsent and Chris Wiggins (some of whom have also appeared in Nelvana series).
• The Other Darrin:
  • Most of the original cast reprised their roles from the movie (which was finished before production on the series began, but released a few months after it premiered), but there were a few exception:
    • Then fifteen-year-old Tara Strong (then credited as Tara Charendoff) replaced Sarah Polley as the voice of young Celeste, which happens to be one of Strong's earliest voice roles.
    • Dawn Greenhalgh replaced Elizabeth Hanna as the voice of Queen Celeste, although Hanna retained her role as Madame.
    • Allen Stewart-Coates replaced Charles Kerr as the voice of Lord Rataxes.
    • Jeff Pustil replaced John Stocker as the voice of Zephir, with Stocker going on to voice Basil instead.
    • Flora and Isabelle are both an interesting case. In the movie, Isabelle was voiced by Lisa Yamanaka and Flora by Marsha Moreau. In the series, Lisa replaced Marsha as the voice of Flora, but later returned to the role of Isabelle after said character was officially introduced in the series, with Flora's voice role being given to Lea-Helen Weir.
    • Bobby Becken and Amos Crawley were replaced by Benjamin Barrett and Stuart Stone (the latter having originally voiced young Arthur) as the respective voices of Pom and Alexander.
  • Babar: King of the Elephants also featured many cast differences from the TV show.
    • Dan Lett voices Babar in this movie instead of Gordon Pinsent. Additionally, Kristin Fairlie (also known as the title character of Little Bear and Bridgette on Total Drama) voices the young Babar rather than Gavin McGrath, making this the only instance of Crossdressing Voices in the franchise. Funny enough, Dan Lett would later voice the grown-up Pom in Babar and the Adventures of Badou.
    • Janet-Laine Green takes the role of Celeste here, while Jennifer Martini voices her as a child.
    • Philip Williams is Zephir for this movie, while Amos Crawley is Uncle Arthur (with Kyle Fairlie voicing the young Arthur).
  • The 2000 revival on Teletoon saw Dan Lett, Janet-Laine Green, and Philip Williams reprise their respective roles from Babar: King of the Elephants, while Pom, Flora, and Alexander were voiced by Noah Reid, Kristen Bone, and Kyle Fairlie.
• Outlived Its Creator: Babar is still going strong even after its original author Jean de Brunhoff died in 1948, with his son Laurent continuing to write new stories to this day.
• Role Reprise: Although a not-insignificant number of characters got Darrined for Babar: King of the Elephants, a few voice actors still did reprise their characters from the original 1989 series, these being Elizabeth Hanna as Madame, Allen Stewart-Coates as Lord Rataxes, and Chris Wiggins as Cornelius. In fact, outside of the game Babar and the Royal Coin Caper, Chris Wiggins has consistently voiced Cornelius in every continuity.
• Uncancelled: The series was randomly revived in 2000 for a 6th season on Teletoon, nearly a decade after it ended.

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