Teacher's Pet (TV series)


Teacher's Pet is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and directed by Timothy Björklund.
The series follows a 9-year-old boy and his dog who dresses up as a boy. Created by Gary Baseman—the artistic designer for the Cranium board game—Bill Steinkellner, and Cheri Steinkellner, it was broadcast on Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC and later Toon Disney, from 2000 to 2002.

Premise

The series follows Leonard Helperman, a 9-year-old boy in the 4th grade, who lives in fear because his mother, Mary Helperman, is his teacher. Because of this, he is often mocked and called a "teacher's pet", but he wants to be considered normal. Meanwhile, his dog Spot misses Leonard while he's at school, and yearns to be a human boy. So on the first day of the school year, he decides to come to class disguised as a new student named Scott Leadready II, who quickly becomes the most popular, influential kid in school. However, Leonard eventually finds out his secret. Although he disapproves of this at first, he allows Spot to continue attending school.

Episodes

SeasonNetworkEpisodesFirst airdateLast airdate
ABC13
ABC
Toon Disney		26

Broadcast/Availability

The show aired on ABC's "One Saturday Morning" on Saturday, September 9, 2000, and remained on ABC until September 7, 2002, due to a new Saturday morning block called "ABC Kids". In January 2002, the show began airing reruns on Toon Disney, and they used the channel to air the remaining Season Two episodes every Friday beginning January 11, 2002. As of 2006, it vanished from Toon Disney altogether and hasn't been put into reruns in America since then. The show, alongside with the film, was made available on Disney+ on launch day.

International broadcast

Awards

Film

On January 16, 2004, Walt Disney Pictures produced a full-length animated feature film based on the show in theaters, simply titled Teacher's Pet. Originally planned to be released in September 2003, it serves as the end of the series' continuity.
When Spot sees a mad scientist on TV who can turn animals into humans, he sees this as a chance to become an actual boy. However, when Spot becomes human, he soon realizes the experience isn't what he thought after all. Most of the actors from the series reprised their roles for the movie. The movie was a box office failure, only making over half of its budget back. Despite this, the critical reviews were mostly positive.