Hey, kids, and welcome to the TV Tropes page for Kid Time Storytime! Pictured: Hooty, Abuela Bear, Maleficent, Doug, Curious George, Corny, Gilles, Minnie Mouse, Red Bear, and Two-Tone.
Kid Time Storytime
is a YouTube channel where a woman named Eileen (who goes by "Storyteller") reads children's books.It's basically just like a normal kids' story channel, but with two differences. One is that Storyteller sometimes interrupts the stories to comment on them, and another is that before, after, and sometimes during a story, Storyteller has conversations with a group of toys.
Each toy is given its own name and personality, and there are quite a few, including Doug the dragon/dinosaur hybrid, the bears Red Bear, Pink Bear, Green Bear, and Abuela Bear, Maleficent (later Witcheficent), Two-Tone the cat, Hooty the owl, and Corny the unicorn.
The official website can be viewed here.
Please note: The examples refer to tropes about the channel itself or the conversations with the toys, not the books being read.
Kid Time Storytime provides examples of:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal:
- In the reading of Dinosaur Vs the Potty, Doug the dragon/dinosaur hybrid is wearing a cowboy hat and bandanna.
- The bears wear bows around their necks.
- Action Girl: While she's never seen, the Bear brothers' mother is apparently a secret agent.
- Alliterative Name: There's Fuchsia Fish and Random Rooster.
- Always Camp: Olivia is a hammy actress, tying into the stereotype that actresses are always hammy.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Green Bear, Red Bear, and Pink Bear are exactly what you'd expect.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Fuchsia Fish's dad is never mentioned despite her mom being an offscreen regular character.
- Ambiguous Situation: In the video for The Bear Ate Your Sandwich, Eileen's actual sandwich is missing, and she's wondering if what happened to her sandwich, also happened to that of the girl in the story (which was eaten by either the eponymous bear, or the dog narrator). However, the Bear brothers claim that the story is true but "bear colours and names have been changed to protect the innocent and possibly the guilty", and are quick to point the finger at the dog, suggesting that one or both of them stole it. Abuela Bear knows what really happened, but she doesn't say.
- Anthropomorphic Food: Dill is a talking pickle.
- Assuming the Audience's Age: Eileen, also known as Storyteller, the woman who runs the channel, always addresses the viewer as "kid".
- Breath Weapon: An aversion for Doug; he expressly says he cannot breathe fire due to being half-dinosaur.
- Brown Note: Parodied in the reading of Once Upon a Zzz, when Hooty and Corny fall asleep before they can read the title, while Maleficent doesn't. She claims it's "black magic", but it isn't.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Random Rooster and especially Dill are known for being extremely eccentric. Dill, for instance, has two names and jokes about being a carrot, while Random Rooster's main shtick is that his actions are completely arbitrary.
- Color Character: There's Green Bear, Red Bear, Pink Bear, White Rat, Gray Rat, and Fuchsia Fish.
- Comedic Work, Serious Scene:
- The scenes before and after the readings are usually jokes involving Eileen (aka Storyteller) and her puppets/toys having silly conversations. However, after the reading of The Jester Who Lost His Jingle, Eileen turns dead serious and tells the audience about how the book's author died of cancer.
- The video reading Dodos are Not Extinct, They're Just in Disguise is mostly just as comical as the other videos, but at the end, Eileen turns serious and notes that some extinct animals died out due to human intervention. She then adds that while some humans don't care about animals, she does, and she hopes her viewers do to.
- Cool Old Lady: Abuela Bear is very popular among the younger animals because of her cheerful personality and her cooking.
- The Cutie: Corny is said to be this on the official website.
- The Cynic: Maleficent is the complainer of the group, often being the only one to say something negative about a book, describing a book as too negative, etc.
- Disease-Prevention Aesop: During the Covid-19 pandemic, the channel made a video reading of Germs Make Me Sick in order to spread awareness about diseases and how not to transmit them. In addition, a song about washing hands, called "Washa Washa Washa", was made around the same time that directly mentioned the pandemic.
- Disappeared Dad: The Bear brothers' father is never seen because he is a secret agent.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Pink Bear has been mistaken for a girl several times because he's pink and wears a bow.
- Funny Animal: The teddy bear family are depicted as talking and bipedal, and they're bears.
- Gratuitous French: Gilles the giraffe will often insert French words in his everyday speech.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Abuela Bear is quite fluent in Spanish, given that she hails from Cuba (according to the official website).
- Jobless Parent Drama: Played with for the reading of Daddy Lost His Job where Doug thinks that his daddy has lost his job and they will be homeless. Eileen/Storyteller says that it was the daddy in the book who lost his job, not Doug's dad, and the family in the story could cope.
- Large Ham: Olivia and Witcheficent are very dramatic, Olivia due to her theatrical nature and Witcheficent due to her loud complaining.
- A Lizard Named "Liz": Several characters have punny names about their species, such as Corny the unicorn and Hooty the owl.
- Living Toys: The toy characters are referred to as "puppets" even in-universe, which could indicate that they're sentient toys in-universe.
- Missing Mom: The Bear brothers' mother (who is also the daughter of Abuela Bear) is never seen because she is a secret agent.
- No Indoor Voice: Random Rooster is known for being quite loud.
- Not a Morning Person: According to the video for Welcome to Morningtown, Olivia the Ostrich sleeps late because she stays up late.
- Owls Ask "Who?": Hooty only speaks in "hoo"s, which is sometimes treated like he's asking, "Who?".
- Pink Means Feminine: Discussed in the video for Pink Is For Boys, when Pink Bear talks about how people make the assumption that he's a girl because he's pink.
- Playing Sick: In the video for Bear Feels Sick, Red Bear pretends to be sick so he can get chocolate.
- Potty Failure: In the video for the Dinosaur Vs book "Dinosaur vs. the Potty", Doug remembers wetting his pants as a little kid and feels bad about it.
- The Prankster: The Bear brothers are often seen pulling pranks, especially Green Bear. For instance, in the reading of The Bear Feels Sick, Red Bear pretends to be sick to get some chocolate, and in How to Trick the Tooth Fairy, the brothers have done every trick in the book for tricking the tooth fairy.
- Pun: The autumn playlist is called "Autumn Stories to 'Fall' For".
- Put on a Bus: Perry stopped appearing after retiring to Florida.
- Prone to Tears: Doug is said to be very sensitive and cries easily, both when he's sad and when he's happy.
- Santa Claus: The channel has a whole playlist of "Santa Claus stories".
- Shout-Out: In the video for The Lying King, Green Bear thinks they're going to be reading The Lion King (1994).
- Shrinking Violet: Doug's main trait is that he's very shy and easily scared.
- Sick Episode: In the video for Dragons Get Colds, Too, Doug has a cold.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Storyteller translates Hooty's hoots and Two-Tone's meows.
- Speech-Impaired Animal: While Two-Tone mainly just meows, in the reading of "Belling the Cat", he says, "That was the end?!" in a meowy voice.
- Supreme Chef: Abuela Bear is well-known amongst the toys for her cooking, mainly baked goods.
- Sweet Tooth:
- All three Bear brothers love cookies, candy, chocolate, etc.
- Corny's favourite food is cupcakes.
- Trademark Favourite Food: Witcheficent's love for bat stew is a running gag.
- Unexpectedly Dark Episode: Generally, the series remains light-hearted even when reading dark books, but occasionally, there is a darker video:
- In the one for I Will Always Love You, the toys don't feature.
- In the one for The Jester Has Lost His Jingle, Eileen/Storyteller mentions that the author died young due to cancer, but stayed optimistic his whole life.
- In the ones about A Little Spot of Anxiety and Germs Make Me Sick, the Covid-19 pandemic is mentioned.
- In the one for A Little Spot of Courage, Doug is sad about a man being killed by a policeman, spiking "bad things", which is implied to be about the George Floyd incident.
- Unicorn: One of the toys is a unicorn (i.e. horse with a single horn) puppet named Corny.
- Vague Age:
- Olivia is cagey about her age, but she seems to be an adult since she's an actress.
- Gilles is an adult, but it's unknown his exact age. Storyteller reckons he's about thirty-five.
- Hooty is apparently a little kid, but he can already fly.
- Very Special Episode:
- Germs Make Me Sick and A Little Spot of Anxiety were read in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- A Little Spot of Courage was read in response to the George Floyd protests (to help kids deal with hearing bad news).
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Green Bear and Curious George are sometimes seen bickering and sometimes seen pulling pranks together.
