Peppa Pig

Peppa Pig is a long-running British preschool animated television series directed and produced by Astley Baker Davies in association with Entertainment One. The show first aired on 31 May 2004. Peppa Pig has been broadcast in over 180 countries. Currently, the series has seven seasons with over 300 episodes.

This page is being considered for deletion for the following reason: Unless someone can come up with extra good qualities to counter the bad ones, this should be moved to the bad shows wiki. If you disagree with its deletion, please explain why in the comments of this page. Remember to check what links here and the the page history before deleting.

Plot

Set in a world where all characters are animals, long-running children's series following the adventures, mishaps, and friendships of Peppa Pig, her brother George, their parents, and the other animal families who make up their town. Each family is a different species of animal, and Peppa's friends include Rebecca Rabbit, Suzy Sheep, and Candy Cat. Each episode features a new adventure, and storylines often help children to understand new emotions and experiences they might encounter growing up.

Good Qualities

1. The character's designs are kind of cute despite being poorly drawn.
   • The animation is mostly passable, the art style can also be cute and decent at times.
2. Sometimes, it does have decent (or at least passable) funny moments and/or cute moments here and there. The quotes and even the dialogue too (despite some being laughable or mean-spirited) can be funny at times
   • The jokes are also passable at times.
   • In later seasons (season 6 and 7 to be specific) the humor did get better, though they are unfunny or a hit-or-miss at times.
   • Some scenes are also worth a laugh like this scene
3. Some of the voice acting is passable or decent:
   • Brian Blessed does a great job at voicing Grampy Rabbit.
   • Despite being annoying as the narrator, John Sparkes at least does a good job at voicing the characters he plays (through sometimes it can come off grating)
     • Also, depending on your view, the narrator provides some good audio descriptions for blind people.
     • The rest of the voice acting pretty okay and despite some flaws, the young voice actresses do a decent job voicing Peppa Pig (for the most part)
4. There are some good/decent episodes, in fact many are under the bad writing:
   • Thunderstorm
   • Very Hot Day
   • My Birthday Party
   • Pancakes
   • Bubbles (which started season 2 on a high note)
   • Secrets
   • Dressing Up
   • George's Birthday
   • Fancy Dress Party
   • The New Car
   • The Camper Van
   • Cleaning the Car (depending on your view)
   • Daddy's Movie Camera
   • The School Fete
   • Shake, Rattle, and Bang
   • Basketball
   • Scooters
   • Daddy Puts Up a Picture
   • Muddy Puddles (depending on your view; which started the show on a decent note)
   • The Olden Days
   • Miss Rabbit's Day Off
   • School Play (which ended season 1 on a high note)
   • Children's Festival/Muddy Festival
   • Most of the season 6 (expect Funny Music, Bat and Ball, and Please and Thank You) and 7 episodes (but some are depending on you view)
     • Speaking of Season 7, The American Holiday Saga is an interesting series of episodes and they started Season 7 on a high note.
     • Roller Disco is a pretty neat episode that revolves around Peppa and her friends roller skating and it's also considered to be one of the best episodes in the show as well.
   • In The Future
   • Grandpa Pig's Birthday
   • Mummy Rabbit's Bump
   • Swimming Lessons (depending on your view; which ended season 7 on a okay note)
5. The later seasons did improve a little bit, with there being less controversial and mean-spirited episodes compared to most of them from the earlier seasons although they didn't improve by much.
   • The writers are beginning to add more original plots although some are rehashed (i.e. Lotte Llama from Delphine Donkey, and "Winter Games" from "Snowy Mountain") while others are made to milk the show and the writing (although not bad as the early seasons) is still pretty mediocre.
6. There are some likable (or at least tolerable) characters in the show such as George Pig (sometimes), Mummy Pig (For the most part), Daddy Pig (Most of the time since he is not mean spirited at all) and most of Peppa's friends (aside from Suzy), despite some being undeveloped.
   • Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig, while generic and cliched parents, do a decent (though not perfect) job at parenting Peppa and George (compared to Caillou parents)
     • Speaking of Daddy Pig, he is rather sympathetic thanks to Peppa always being mean to him and fat-shaming him.
     • They do have personalities of they own (especially Mummy Pig) and they do give Peppa her comeuppance at times.
   • George, despite being annoying most of the time, can be quite cute at times, and much like Daddy Pig, can be treated as sympathetic due to Peppa bullying him most of the time.
   • Peppa's friends such as Emily Elephant, Danny Dog, Pedro Pony, Candy Cat, Zoe Zebra, Rebecca Rabbit, Freddy Fox, Wendy Wolf, Molly Mole and Gerald Giraffe are pretty interesting characters who are shown to be good friends with the pig family.
   • Mandy Mouse is very energetic, cheerful and likable. Despite being on a wheelchair most of the time, she's actually really fast and shares great chemistry with Peppa. She's also a good representation for people with disabilities.
   • Peppa can be likeable (or tolerable) at times, plus in some episodes, she is shown to reconcile with Daddy Pig and/or George. She also massively improved in Season 7 and can admittedly be cute sometimes (though normally when she is not bratty) Sometimes, she does get her comeuppance
     • Suzy can also be tolerable and is admittedly funny at times.
   • Delphine Donkey and Lotte Llama are pretty interesting and unique characters, being good representations for people who speak both French and German and are novices at speaking English.
   • Penny Polar Bear is also another pretty interesting and unique character with two mothers, Mummy Polar Bear and Doctor Polar Bear respectively. Speaking of Mummy Polar Bear and Doctor Polar Bear, they're also good representations for people who are lesbians, and Penny's relationship with her two mothers is pretty heartwarming.
   • The other characters (such as Miss Rabbit or Madame Gazelle) can be also be interesting and/or likeable at times while Grampy Rabbit can also be considered the best part of this show too. Also compared to Peppa, most all not that mean spirited at all.
   • The characteristics are passable at times.
7. The instrumental version of the theme song is pretty decent and is also very catchy.
   • Other music (such as "The International Day" song) can be also decent and/or catchy at times.
8. While being rare, it does teach good morals and/or lessons at times but this is in the case of most of the good or decent episodes (such as Thunderstorm, Mummy Rabbit's Bump, Cleaning the Car and Secrets)
9. The worldbuilding is decent at times.
10. Some of the backgrounds are passable.
11. Thankfully, it at least does not try too hard to be hip, cool, and rad with the kids (yet) unlike most modern media that is good or bad (Although that doesn't stop it from using the "It's made for kids" excuse)

Bad Qualities

1. Unlike shows like Bluey or Pingu, which usually portray the main characters as realistically as it can, the characterizations in this show are not only unrealistic but also really poor and clichéd:
   • Peppa Pig herself is a bad role model as well as an unlikable protagonist. Though she sometimes helps out with occasions and defends the toddlers (such as Zuzu & Zaza in “The Sleepover“, and George, Richard and Edmond in “International Day“), she is mean to her family, she fat shames her father now and then, she’s also very mean to her brother and her friends and she always gives out bad or cliched morals to children:
     • As mentioned earlier, she fat shames her father (especially before Gerald Giraffe was introduced) with little to no remorse whatsoever instead of encouraging Daddy Pig to stay healthy and fit or to try to make him feel comfortable with his body. So basically, sometimes Peppa just straight up makes fun of him and insults him about his body. She even made her password to her treehouse "Daddy's Big Tummy" in "The Tree House."
     • In many episodes where Peppa has a friend coming over to her house, she often excludes George from any games that she plays claiming that he can't do anything because he's too little. Sometimes she even forces George to play with her games and even refuses to let him play his way, which is notable in "Richard Rabbit Comes to Play" where she and Susie forcefully make George and Richard play their games and they refuse to let them play the games that they want. It’s even to the point where they both make George and Richard cry. It's bad enough to forcefully make George and Richard play a game that they don't want to play, but Peppa thinks it's acceptable to force them to where they both cry?
     • She also counts as one of the worst examples of being a karma hoodini since nothing bad happens to her all the time, nor she is punished for her actions, even if she did at times.
   • George Pig, despite not being as bad as Peppa and is somewhat understandable for his crying most of the time as he's only two years old and Peppa bullies him too, mostly is pretty annoying as he often consists of just him saying the word "Dinosaur". His crying is pretty annoying and repetitive when used in any episode of the series. He can be mean to other people as well.
   • Daddy Pig, while sympathetic, feels like a clichéd cartoon father most of the time. He's like a British preschool version of Homer Simpson with none of the same charm while also being the butt monkey and chew toy of the family since he lets everyone walk over him.
     • That said, even if Daddy Pig is fat and should do some exercise, it's hypocritical on his family's part to fat shame him for this because all male adults in the show have the same body. In addition, and as PhantomStrider mentions, as far as we know he's the most fit out of the whole family. He's the only one who can swim underwater, run in marathons, etc.
   • Mummy Pig, while likable for the most part as well can somewhat be more tolerable and more entertaining than Daddy Pig at times (like in Funfair and The Blackberry Blush) is a cliched mother.
   • Suzy Sheep is even bossier than Peppa. She tries to make the toddlers do her bidding more than Peppa (such as in International Day), and also picks an argument quite often (such as in“The Quarrel“).
   • Richard Rabbit is basically a clone to George, having the exact same interests and personalities.
   • Edmond Elephant is a clichéd smart kid and a know-it-all Gary Stu. He’s just a preschool male version of Lisa Simpson but with a blander personality, though he can be charming at times.
   • While sometimes a funny character, Mr. Potato’s omnipresence in the series itself is random, especially when Super Potato was introduced. He is also disliked by a lot of people too, due to his annoying theme music and jingle every time he appears and his design being out of place.
   • Out of the kids in Peppa's playgroup, Pedro Pony is the most hated. This is because of him being annoying, absent-minded, his voice, and the Baked Beans Song he sings in an episode further made him worse. He basically uses the Clumsy cliché 24/7.
   • While the rest of the characters are likeable, most are pretty bland, cliched and/or have little to no depth whatsoever. Some are undeveloped, introduces just to sell toys or to replaced other characters. Some can also be unlikable and/or mean-spirited (through not as bad as the ones above )
   • There is little to no evident character development throughout the show because of this, most of the characters barely even learn or grow as the show goes along.
2. Some of the voice acting and most of the animal noises are both just annoying to listen to.
   • Some of the animal noises don't even sound like their real-life counterparts. For example, the sheep noises sound more like nervous laughter than what an actual sheep sounds like, while Pedro Pony only says "neigh" and Rebecca Rabbit only says "squeak".
   • Not to mention that in "Teddy's Day Out", Zoë Zebra made a "neigh" like a horse. In real life, zebras don't make that sound.
   • While John Sparkes did a good job at voicing the characters he plays (The Narrator, Mr. Potato, Uncle Pig, and their variants), his narration is repetitive and obnoxious, because he constantly states the obvious, and never allows viewers to observe the information and take it in themselves. Even though he is a great actor and has done wonderful performances in other kids shows like the fifth season of Fireman Sam and Shaun the Sheep, his narration in Peppa Pig isn't exactly one of them.
   • While the rest of the voice acting pretty okay, some can get kinda irritating, and bland.
   • In some episodes, there is a form of laughable dialogue such as, "I'm BORED.." and "ME too" from "Garden Games"
   • In earlier seasons, Mummy Sheep uses the exact same animal sounds as Suzy, which feels extremely awkward as the animal sound is much higher pitched than Mummy Sheep’s normal voice.
3. Some of the characters do not resemble their real life counterparts.
4. The character designs and animation, while both simplistic, kind of cute and not too bad, are quite sloppily drawn looking like they were made in some budget paint program. Because of that, the animation is stilted and stiff most of the time.
   • The crying also looks rather unusual and pretty unrealistic since it looks more like a sprinkler than how it looks in a cartoon. Also, it happens very frequently (mostly with George).
     • It also gets abused in some episodes such as "Digging Up The Road", "Edmond Elephant's Birthday", "George's Friend", “ The Noisy Night (The most infamous example) and "The Baby Piggy".
5. It has almost no common logic. Even though this is a preschool show, that does not excuse how nonsensical its logic is.
6. The morals are either poorly handled, shoved down kids' throats, cliched or nonexistent in most of the episodes, not to mention some of them are very dangerous and irresponsible.
   1. "Sun, Sea and Snow" encourages swimming in hot or cold water at a warm or snowy beach which can be dangerous.
   2. "Mister Skinnylegs" and "Spider Web" encourages children to play with spiders. The former was banned from ever airing on Australian television again due to having this moral although DVDs containing this episode still exist there.
   3. “Edmond Elephant's Birthday" teaches Kids to always cry non-stop for losing at a game and being a sore loser for it.
   4. “Pedro’s Cough” teaches kids to laugh at their parents for drinkin' the medicine.
   5. George Catches A Cold teaches Kids that rain can cause sickness. (when in reality it cannot, sure, there are some places out causes sick by air pollution or forest fires, but they still don't count)
   6. George’s Friend teaches kids that it’s okay to destroy someone’s personal belongings.
7. Most of the music and the songs aren't much better since they are very repetitive and obnoxious.
8. Some episodes such as "Not Very Well", "George Catches a Cold" and "Pedro's Cough" haven't aged well because of you-know-what.
9. There’s bad writing that is confusing and makes it feel like the writers aren’t trying to write good stories at all.
   • The show has now been running for quite some time to the point where the writers are clearly running out of ideas. For example, the Season 7 episode "Monkey Has a Cough" is just a pretend-play of a toy having a cough. These episodes are made just to milk the show. Likewise, some were wasted potential.
10. The pacing is broken or inconsistent. It goes to either fast or slow that caused boring and rushed.
11. Despite being a preschool show, there are some parts that feel intense for target audiences. For example, in "The Carnival", Mr. Potato almost ending up getting killed by Ms. Rabbit's helicopter's blades is a very intense moment, at least to the target audience, despite not happening. Even then, it's rather disturbing that someone almost died in such a horrific way.
12. This show has become such a cash cow for Entertainment One, Nickelodeon and Channel 5 that it has gotten to an extent where the show commonly introduces new characters, vehicles, and locations just to sell toys and nothing else much like PAW Patrol, Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service and Fireman Sam since Season 6.
    • Their way of handling the YouTube channels aren't much better and might be even worse than the show itself. There’s too many channels that are no different each other and are just to farm cash.
13. False advertising: The films Peppa Pig: My First Cinema Experiences and its sequel Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun are marketed as "films", but they are just compilations of 10 or so Peppa Pig episodes with live-action clips spliced in-between. And as a result of this, there has never been a proper theatrical film adaptation of this show even after all this
14. Due to the bad, poor and/or confusing writing, the show has a fair load of mediocre or bad episodes. (See notable bad episodes)
    • At one moment, they once even cluttered this wiki with their own individual pages which caused a ban on niche shows to have their pages here seemingly for good. But as of now, the ban has been revoked and niche shows are now allowed here again.
      • Some of These episodes counts as filler too as they don't add much to the plot. Also, the events never got mentioned nor brought up again with the characters acting like the events didn't happen at all. Heck one can skip these bad episodes without missing everything at all!

Reception

Back when Peppa Pig was first released, it initially received good reviews. However, people started to point out flaws with the show later in its run, and the show has started to receive more of a mixed reception towards parents, critics and audiences, while cartoon reviewers on YouTube mostly gave it a negative feedback, including PhantomStrider and Caddicarus. Both have criticized the show respectively for its characters, lack of common sense, nonexistent and/or rancid morals, Daddy Pig being fat-shamed by Peppa and the family, the narrator constantly pointing out the obvious, and so much more. Caddicarus has always hated Peppa Pig, he even made a couple of reviews on the show a few times. He even reviewed the Peppa Pig: My First Album CD as well as the 2009 Nintendo DS Peppa Pig video game that was made for the UK. The show currently sits at a 6.4/10 rating on IMDB, and 66% of Google users liked it.

Despite the mixed reception from audiences and critics, Peppa Pig is a very popular preschool show from Britain and much like Bob the Builder and Thomas & Friends, the show is not only popular in Britain, but is also popular all around the world. Peppa Pig herself was a Top 10 UK best-selling character toy according to NPD Group in April 2011, and the show was second only to SpongeBob SquarePants as the world's most-watched children's cartoon in the 12 months to March 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal. For the year, it jumped from 103rd to 50th most in-demand show overall. These all stem from the exceptionally heavy airtime that Nick Jr. UK gives the show - it often fills up more than half the schedule and the second Nick Jr. channel in the UK is often turned into a channel showing only Peppa Pig for a month each time.

The show would also gain a cult following under a "so bad, it's good" charm.

Trivia

• In 2019, the creators of Peppa Pig made a CD album called "Peppa Pig: My First Album". Later in 2021, it made the second soundtrack album called "Peppa's Adventures: The Album".
  • Following the album's announcement, a Twitter interaction between the show's Twitter account and Australian rapper Iggy Azalea went viral after the latter tweeted "It's over for me now", in reference to My First Album being released the same day as Azalea's second studio album In My Defense. The Peppa Pig account responded with a tweet referencing Azalea's single "Fancy", before Azalea jokingly asked for a collaboration. The interaction and the album's release spawned several internet memes.
• For some reason, Peppa Pig fans dislike Fire Emblem, specifically Lucina, as the Peppa Pig fanon wiki appoints her as the antagonist for whatever reason. It's one-sided, as Fire Emblem fans get a kick out of this, which had gone to memetic levels.
• There have been several video games based on the property:
  • The first title: Peppa Pig: The Game was released for the Nintendo DS in November 2008. Following Pinnacle's insolvency in December that year, a successor company - P2 Games, was founded in February 2009, and released a Wii version a year later on 27 November 2009 for the Nintendo Wii, with distribution by Ubisoft. It is a children's video game to learn and play, and it contains 11 games and activities.
  • A second game, Peppa Pig: Fun and Games was released on 22 October 2010 for the Nintendo Wii console and Nintendo DS hand-held game system. Asylum Entertainment and P2 Games remained as developer and publisher for the title.
  • A third game, My Friend Peppa Pig was developed by Petoons Studio and published by Outright Games. It released on 22 October 2021 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows, exactly 11 years after Peppa Pig: Fun and Games
• There have been reports about kids in the US beginning to speak British English after watching a lot of Peppa Pig. For example, tomato and zebra are pronounced in the English, rather than American way; words such as satnav, petrol, mummy and "biscuit" (instead of "cookie") are used; and comments such as "how clever," "Oh dear," and "can I have a go?" picked up. This phenomenon was not an issue for many parents; it trended with the hashtag "#PeppaEffect." Linguistics experts find those conclusions to be "likely exaggerated." A written statement by Entertainment One Ltd. when asked about this phenomenon went on saying: "Young Peppa fans see her as a friend…and, as we do with friends that we admire, pick up some of their characteristics...imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
• In 2005, the short-lived Cartoon Network preschool block "Tickle U", Peppa Pig was given an American English dub that is now almost completely lost and has no longer aired ever since.
  • The original British version started airing in the US on Noggin in 2007, then later became part of the Nick Jr. channel when it rebranded. It also sometimes airs on the Nick Jr. block on the main Nickelodeon channel.
• In 2019, mature Peppa Pig videos were banned on TikTok in China after becoming associated with a "gangster" subculture and also for exposing children to adult content. However, the normal Peppa Pig is still popular in China.
• The show spawned several internet memes.
• This show along with Granny spawned the famous Roblox horror game Piggy created by MiniToon.
• There is another show created by Astley Baker Davies known as Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom which is considered a lot better than Peppa Pig due to it teaching better morals that this show would have thought, as well as having tolerable, likable, and humorous characters, interesting plots, etc. Sadly, one thing that is similar to another thing in this show is King Thistle being called "old", just like how Daddy Pig is constantly called "fat". Ben and Holly are also included in the Best Shows & Episodes Wiki.
• The face designs of the Peppa Pig characters were originally based on the other Astley Baker Davies shows such as "The Big Knights" (1999-2000) and their short film "Jolly Roger." (1999)
• Peppa and George both made cameo appearances on the "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley" music video by Peter Kay's Animated All-Star Band for Children in Need in 2009, Peppa sang one of the lyrics for "Don't Stop" in the medley.
• Considering its' popularity, there are many shows that rip-off the show, which are Dolly and Friends, Pica Family, Tokki Channel, and most infamously Wolfoo.
  • Before then, there were many YouTube Kids Cartoons (in the mid-2010s) depicting Peppa.