The Tofus is a Canadian-French animated sitcom that aired in 2004 on Teletoon and Jetix Europe for 2 seasons with a total of 26 episodes. Co-produced between France's SIP Animation and Canada's CinéGroupe as the brainchild of Fabrice de Costil and Bertrand Victor, it is a satirical take on the granola environmentalist lifestyle.
The Tofu family is headed by Mr. and Mrs. Tofu (known only as Mom and Pop Tofu), environmental activists who decide their family needs escape from the urban routine, and thus move to a farmhouse in the town of Beauvillage to embrace a more natural way of life. However, their preteen children Chichi and Lola, who would rather watch TV and go to the mall than play with the farm animals, are not happy with this change of pace and really just want to be normal kids, despite their parents' all-organic, eco-friendly way of life. Rounding out the family are the kids' grandmother Buba (who was born on the farmhouse), and the pets Crackers the rooster, Curly the sheep, and Suzie the goat.
Compare to Mike Judge's The Goode Family (which came out five years later), another animated series that skewers new-age, liberal families.
The Tofus provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: This isn't the only time Sonja Ball has voiced a grandmother.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Chichi has his moments, considering that he's also a prodigious Gadgeteer Genius.
- Bumbling Dad: Subverted with Pop. He's seen as oblivious a lot of the time, but he often finds out what's shenanigans his kids are up to faster than they expect.
- Cranky Neighbor: Tidus and Beth Hubbub, who loathe the Tofus and their environmental ways, and frequently get in conflicts with them. However, their son Billy is also Lola's crush.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Pop often creates environmentally-friendly inventions to help him around the farmhouse. Chichi follows him in his footsteps in that regard.
- Granola Girl: Mom, who uses her zen outlook to try keep the household in line.
- Hippie Parents: The premise of the series is based on taking ordinary kids and giving them such.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: The Tofu kids try their hardest to just be regular tweens treated as such by their peers, despite their hippie parents.
- New-Age Retro Hippie: Mom and Pop are devoted followers of the hippie lifestyle. Their kids, not so much.
- Prank Punishment: In "Out, Out, Fake Spot!", when Chichi fakes illness to skip a math test, his eco-hippie parents catch on with it, but pretend that they fell for it and subject him to exotic "alternative medicine" treatments, like having his feet licked by goats.
- Teasing Parent: The protagonists' parents are quirky eco-hippies, but they are not nearly as naive as they may appear to be, and frequently know much more about their kids' antics than they let on. For example, in Out, Out, Fake Spot!, when Chichi fakes illness to skip a math test, they catch on with it, but pretend to believe him and subject him to exotic "alternative medicine" treatments, like having his feet licked by goats.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Chichi and Lola are pretty ordinary tweens whose dealings with everyday kid problems play off their parents' more comical granola attitudes.
