Teacher's Pet (TV series) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Teacher's Pet
Genre	Animated comedy Farce
Created by	Gary Baseman Bill Steinkellner Cheri Stienkellener
Written by	Gary Baseman Bill Steinkellner Cheri Steinkellner Ford Riley Laura McCreary Michael Price
Directed by	Timothy Bjorklund Alfred Gimeno (season 2) Donald V. Mackinnon (season 2) Ennio Torresan Jr. (season 2)
Voices of	Shaun Fleming Nathan Lane Debra Jo Rupp Wallace Shawn Mae Whitman Jerry Stiller David Ogden Stiers Kevin Schon
Theme music composer	Brian Woodbury & Peter Lurye
Opening theme	Disney's Teacher's Pet Theme
Ending theme	Disney's Teacher's Pet Instrumental Theme
Composer(s)	Stephen James Taylor Brian Woodbury Peter Lurye
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	39 (47 Segments) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Gary Baseman Bill Steinkellner Cheri Steinkellner Jess Winfield
Running time	11 minutes (16 Episodes) 22 minutes (31 Episodes)
Production company(s)	Walt Disney Television Animation
Distributor	Buena Vista Television
Release
Original network	ABC (2000–02) Toon Disney (2002)
Picture format	480i (4:3 SDTV) 1080i (16:9 HDTV) [ Disney + ]
Audio format	Stereo
First shown in	United States
Original release	September 9, 2000 (2000-09-09) – May 10, 2002 (2002-05-10)

Teacher's Pet (also known as Disney's 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 (voiced by Shaun Fleming), a 9-year-old boy in the 4th grade, who lives in fear because his mother, Mary Helperman (Debra Jo Rupp), 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 (voiced by Nathan Lane and later on for a few episodes by Nathan's voice understudy, Kevin Schon) 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.

Characters

• Spot Helperman/Scott Leadready II – Leonard's talking dog. He dresses up as a boy and attends Leonard's school. He's the most popular and doesn't want anyone to know he's really a dog. Often Spot will get Leonard detention, grounded, or beaten up. In the movie, he changes into a human like he's always wanted but at the end, he changes back to a dog.
• Leonard Amadeus Helperman – Spots master and best friend. He's very unpopular because his moms the teacher. All of the other kids bully him and are mean to him. He just wishes that Spot would stop his silly charade and go back to being a normal pet.
• Mary Lou Moira Angela Darling Helperman – Leonard's mother. She is the teacher of Leonard's class and embarrasses him. And sometimes likes to do that. She's a caring and loving woman. She has a New York accent like Lois Griffin. Like the rest of the cast (besides Leonard and his other pets) she doesn't know Spot can talk. In the movie, she finds out.
• Ian Wazselewski – The class weirdo. But he's the smartest kid in school. Well, he was, until Scott showed up. His mom is the school nurse, so he thinks he has a bond with Leonard. He's a guy with a chronic upper-respiratory infection...a guy who keeps his scab collection in his desk. Everyone calls him "Eww-an". He has a secondary role in the show, but he has a fairly large role in the movie as he helps them escape from Dr. Ivan Krank's lab and well as finding out that Scott is really a dog.
• Mr. Jolly – Leonard's cat. He's afraid of the outside world and stays at home with the family's parrot. And he loves to eat. He's in love with the principals cat but his fear of the outside world (and her evil nature) prevents romance.
• Pretty Boy – Leonard's parrot. He hangs out with Jolly and is a wisecracking parrot and has Mr. Potato Head like sarcasm. He calls Spot "Dog Breath". He's an honest guy and loyal friend but can be mean or grumpy a lot. he sometimes bully's Jolly.
• Principal Strickler – the principal at Leonard and Spots school and Mary Lou's boss. He owns a cat named Talullah who Jolly is in love with and knows Scott (Spot) is a dog. He hates dogs and always accuses Leonard of things without proof just like Principal Skinner.
• Leslie Dunkling – Leonard's love interest. She takes the "stereotype" outta stereotypical popular girl. She tolerates Leonard but likes Spot/Scott better. According to the shows website, Leonard and Leslie used to be best friends (until Leonard found out his pets could talk).
• Tyler, Taylor, and Trevor (Pamela Adlon) – Three of the coolest kids in school. Leonard wishes he was as cool as them. They usually participate in typical slacker activities like skateboarding. Sometimes pick on Leonard, but usually he flies under their radar.
• Younghee Mandlebom (Lauren Tom) – Another girl of the class that is from Korea. She usually bullies Leonard or is mean to him, but mostly, she cares, as a matter of fact, she secretly is in love him.
• Chelsey and Kelsey – Twins of the class. They are usually stuck-up and think they are more important than everyone else, but they always bicker with each other. Leonard tries to get their attention, but usually fails.
• Moltar – Ian's invisible friend. Usually Ian likes to do the weird stuff he does with him.

Episodes

List of Teacher's Pet episodes

Broadcast/Availability

The show aired on ABC's "One Saturday Morning" beginning on September 9, 2000, and remained on the block until September 7, 2002. In January 2002, the show began airing reruns on Toon Disney; the remaining Season Two episodes began airing on Toon Disney on January 11, 2002 (Although new episodes were aired on ABC until February 9). 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 series finale.

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. Despite mostly positive reviews from critics, the movie was a box office failure, only making over half of its budget back.

See also

In Spanish: Teacher's Pet (serie de televisión) para niños