A French-Canadian animated children's Slice of Life series based on a series of French children's books by Magdalena Richard and Laurent Richard. It was produced by the company Planet Nemo in association with Canadian channels CBC and TVOntario, French channel France 5, and Francophone Belgian channel RTBF.
The eponymous character, Bali, is a Funny Animal dog who lives with his mother and father, his baby sister Lea, and his favorite stuffed animal, Kikou.
The show aired in the United States on PBS Kids, albeit only on certain PBS affiliates, but made its world debut in Canada on TVOKids. As of 2019, all three seasons are available on Amazon Prime.
Has nothing to do with the Indonesian island and province named Bali.
Tropes:
- Black Bead Eyes: Almost all of the characters have eyes that are nothing more than short black lines.
- Camping Episode: "I'm Not Having Fun!", where Bali and Tito go on a camping trip with the former's family.
- Christmas Episode: "Yahoo! It's Christmas!".
- Edutainment Show: Of the "teaches pro-social values" type.
- Imagine Spot: Bali has one in each episode.
- Insomnia Episode: In "I'm Not Scared," it's no surprise that Bali can't get to sleep when he has to listen to the sound of a noisy truck outside, his little sister crying loudly (because of the truck), his neighbor playing the saxophone and a horse neighing on television elsewhere in the house among other things.
- Mr. Imagination: Once per Episode, Bali has an extended (generally running about 3-4 minutes) segment in which he would go into his imagination and explore what was happening in the story with an imaginary character, complete with a song for each Fantasy Sequence.
- Power Outage Plot: In the episode "Nooo, I Want to See the Movie!", Bali and his friends want to watch a "Robo Bear" DVD during their sleepover, but the power goes out, forcing them to find another way to pass the time.
- Read the Freaking Manual: In "Nanou to the Rescue", Bali's father is having trouble fixing up a bookshelf in Bali's room. Bali notices a piece of paper in the trashcan, which happens to have the instructions depicted on it, suggesting "Maybe you need this to show you how to fix it properly?" His father, however, says, "No thanks, Bali. Instruction manuals confuse me." Bali heads off for a day in the park, but at the end of the story, the bookshelf is assembled. However, the placement of a single book causes it to fall apart. Bali runs back over to the trashcan with the instructions, suggesting that maybe his dad really does need them. He agrees and they decide to both put the bookshelf together with each other the next day.
- Road-Sign Reversal: In the episode "It's Wrong to Cheat", after Bali's friend Tito suggests cheating on a game during Bali's birthday party, Bali has an Imagine Spot in which he's in a boat race and he his friends initially lose to another racer who cheats by doing this, but then ends up losing after an on-camera review of the race shows his cheating. Back at Bali's, Bali tells Tito that he only wants to win if they play fairly. And they do.
- Show Within a Show: A superhero film within the show called "Robo Bear and Turbo Pig" serves as a major plot point in the episode "Nooo, I Want to See the Movie!", where Bali and his friends want to watch this film during their sleepover at Bali's house, but a power outage keeps them from doing so.
- Snowlems: In the episode "I'm So Hot!", Bali imagines that he is in a hot desert and meets a snowman who carries an umbrella with him to create shade so that he doesn't melt.
- Sudden Anatomy: The characters' eyebrows basically phase in and out of existence at random.
- Title Theme Tune: "Bali, arms up in the air / Bali, spinning round and round / Bali, always likes to dance and jumps to the sky..."
- World of Funny Animals: All of the characters are anthropomorphic animals, with no actual humans in sight.
