My Big Big Friend

After caring for the class pet over the Christmas holidays, Yuri wants to keep him and so avoids bringing him back to school by taking a trip into a fantasy jungle. While there, Yuri and Golias accidentally eat a monkey trio’s private banana stash, forcing Yuri to climb a tall tree to replace them, while Golias is left to be cared for by the monkeys. But while Yuri is gone, the monkeys become very attached to Golias and don’t want to let him go! While pleading to get his BBF back, Yuri realizes that it wouldn’t be fair of him to keep Harold the Hamster – the entire class would miss him terribly! --- The gang asks a new boy at school if he’d like to play Caterpillars with them, and when the boy doesn’t respond, the kids trek off with some annoyance to play the game on their own. In a large park-setting fantasy, the kids encounter a group of caterpillars who only speak “squeak” and so must come up with a different way to communicate with them; in the process, they realize that perhaps the new boy in their class speaks a different language, too. As it turns out, they’re right – the boy only speaks Portuguese, but he does understand their miming gestures and they figure out a way to all play together.

Lili brings her doll to school and is horrified when she’s dropped into a pot of glue while Lili isn’t looking. Assuming that Matt and Yuri must be to blame, despite their claims to the contrary, Lili gets very cross with them. In an effort to cheer Lili up, Nessa suggests they build a castle for her doll. Once inside the fantasy castle, Lili’s doll blames Lili for the glue mishap! And she isn’t the only one… various broken toys come out of the woodworks and declare Lili the “toybreaker”! Lili is forced to defend herself, realizing that perhaps she was a bit quick to blame Matt and Yuri in the process. --- Matt and Bongo are revved up for a day at the park, but their plans are squashed when Matt’s elderly aunt is unable to walk all that way. Frustrated, the boys decide to make their own fantasy park - a place where they can run and jump as fast and as far as they want! There’s just one problem: their fantasy park is made out of sticky bubblegum, and they can’t move! Stuck in place, Matt and Bongo have no choice but to try and come up with fun stuff to do that doesn’t involve any running or jumping at all. Which, as it turns out, isn’t all that hard to do.

The gang is headed to the theatre, excited to see a movie with a dragon in it – except for Yuri, who thinks the movie sounds too scary for him. Ashamed to admit his fear to Matt and Lili, Yuri pulls Golias away to a fun race track instead. But while Yuri loves the fast ride, Golias finds it really scary and doesn’t want to admit it. After trying to hide his fear during two speedy rides on a twisty-turny track, Golias finally has to come clean – he’s scared! Hearing his BBF’s confession, Yuri realizes that there isn’t anything wrong with being afraid of something. In fact, admitting your fears is actually a really brave thing to do! --- While playing a game of treasure chest, Matt and Lili can’t agree on what colour the treasure should be: Matt says orange while Lili says purple. So while on a fantasy treasure hunt, Matt and Lili agree that anything orange will go to the boys, while anything purple will go to the girls. But as they dig up their treasures, Nessa finds herself longing for some of the orange treasures, while Bongo goes bonkers for some of the purple ones. In the end, the kids all decide that maybe getting caught up with what colour something is, is a bit silly…

Yuri is excited to show his friends the ribbon he earned for his pasta art, but when Lili and Matt glaze over the accomplishment in their eagerness to play a game, Yuri takes refuge somewhere he’s appreciated: pasta land. Lili and Matt follow Yuri into his artwork, wondering what’s wrong, where they’re forced to earn ribbons through various difficult tasks in order to reach him. Proud of the ribbons they’ve earned, Lili and Matt come to realize that they didn’t give Yuri’s ribbon, or his pasta art, the accolades they deserved. --- Lili is excited to sign up for another ballet class, but when it’s full, her Mother implores her to try karate instead – which Lili does NOT want to do. In an effort to cheer her up, Nessa points out a pretty bird to Lili, which leads them into a large fantasy playground, where Lili is eager to play with the ribbons, but Nessa only wants to go on the swings. Lili convinces Nessa to give the ribbons a try and, after a few awkward attempts, she gets the hang of it and actually finds a few things that she likes about it! When it comes time for Lili to give that karate class a try, she’s a bit more open to the idea – after all, it IS good to try new things.

Lili gets bent out of shape when a substitute teacher doesn’t do things exactly like Ms. Carol. When the substitute tells everyone it’s story time, Lili’s had enough – it’s outside activities time, and everyone knows it! So Lili creates her own outside activity, taking the gang to play in a fantasy obstacle course. But things take a strange turn when the course switches around to pair Lili with Golias instead of Nessa… Lili complains that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be, but with no other choice than to work with Golias to finish the race, Lili gradually learns that it’s kind of fun to switch things up sometimes. --- Matt’s on his way to a knight-themed party, but gets blocked by his Mom: he hasn’t put away his toys, washed his hands, OR brushed his hair yet. Annoyed at having to do boring stuff, Matt and Bongo decide to become real knights, and only do fun knightly things. The pair head to a castle party, but are denied entrance by the Door Knocker, who’s appalled they haven’t done their knightly duties yet! Matt and Bongo are forced to shine their armor and tidy their shields, which turn out to be far less terrible duties than they thought… in fact, they’re very knightly things to do indeed!

While drawing family portraits at school, Yuri realizes that his is the smallest: he’s the only one without siblings. Saddened at the thought, Yuri follows his pals into a playhouse farm, where he meets a friendly foal who’s also an only child. Yuri assumes the foal must be sad to not have brothers and sisters like the other farm animals, but the foal assures him she’s not sad at all; the other animals are her good friends, and that makes them just like family! Yuri realizes that he feels exactly the same way about Matt, Lili and their BBFs… they’re his big, big special family. --- Matt and Lili are at odds while playing on the beach, each wanting to play something different and getting in the other’s way. After arguing, they declare their friendship over and head off to fantasy where they can play their respective games alone – or so they think. Their fantasy play constantly intersecting, they each send their BBF to the wall between them in an effort to keep the other at bay… but Bongo and Nessa can’t help but admit how much they miss one another, inspiring Matt and Lili to admit the same thing and realize that they shouldn’t let an argument ruin a great friendship.

After seeing his parents get into an argument with his sister, Matt worries they might not love her anymore. Determined to fix the situation, Matt visits an enchanted forest to get a love potion from a magical raven. Trouble is, the forest is full of tricky trees who steal the love potion ingredients from Bongo after he insists on being the one to carry them. An argument ensues between Matt and Bongo, prompting the others to worry that they’re going to need two love potions now… But Matt knows that getting upset with Bongo doesn’t mean he doesn’t love him anymore, just like his parents must still love his sister. --- Lili’s favourite pink princess nightgown has finally had the biscuit – it’s riddled with stains and too many holes to count! Not ready to let it go, Lili takes her nightgown to the Home for Old Clothes – surely they can fix it there. But in order to “fix” the gown, the magical shop dyes it a different colour to mask the stains and patches are used to cover the holes. Dismayed, Lili comes to realize that her favourite gown can never be restored to its former glory… but it’ll make a great nightgown for her dolls! Now her pink princess nightgown can still be with her at bedtime, while she gets to wear a brand new one.

As their playground time nears an end, our kids all moan that they don’t wanna go home – they’d rather stay and play forever. The gang gets their wish and find themselves in a never-stop-play loop… perfect! But soon Yuri is missing lunch time with his Mom and Dad, Lili is missing naptime with her brothers and Matt (much to his disbelief) is missing TV time with his sister! Playing with each other is fun, but so is going home and doing other stuff with your family. --- Matt and Bongo are tired of constantly being told to wait – they have to wait for their popsicles to freeze, for Matt’s sister to turn on the sprinkler… it’s the worst! But waiting is the name of the game when Matt and Bongo wish for a great big pile of popcorn, that turns out not to be popped yet. Unable to wait for the treat, Bongo is constantly interrupting the popping process to find out if it’s ready yet, forcing Matt to start the machine all over again. To keep Bongo away from the popper, Matt distracts him with a game and a song, in the process realizing that some things are worth waiting for.

Matt’s older sister, Nina, is distraught to learn a friend is moving away, and Matt is upset that he can’t do anything to help. If only he had superpowers… then he could fix anything! The gang tries their hands at being superheroes – soaring to the rescue of Lili’s dolls in need. But as it turns out, no super power can fix a melted ice cream cone or a boo-boo. All our kids can really do is try to make the dolls feel better, which turns out to be a big help. When Matt’s sister gets home, Matt knows he can’t fix her problem for her, but he can make her smile with some flowers, and that’s pretty super! --- Lili has trouble doing a pirouette in ballet class, even though lots of the other girls seem to be getting right. Frustrated, Lili decides she may as well quit ballet forever! Lili and Nessa leave class and instead spend their time in a musical garden, where Nessa has trouble playing a tune on a tree and, despite having fun, figures she oughta just stop playing. But Lili shows her that not doing something you love, simply because you’re not the best at is, is just plain silly. Which reminds her, she’s got a ballet class to get to!

Yuri is nervous about visiting the dentist – he doesn’t remember going before and isn’t sure what to expect. Lili explains that a dentist makes sure there aren’t any problems with your teeth by poking around inside your mouth with shiny things. Not liking the sound of that, Yuri retreats with Golias to a fantasy forest where he meets a rather large dragon with a rather large tooth ache! Yuri has to talk the dragon into letting them poke around inside his mouth to fix the problem, eventually deciding that maybe visiting the dentist won’t be so bad after all… better than moaning all night like a sore dragon! --- Lili offers Yuri an extra ticket to see Yuri’s favorite show, inadvertently upsetting Matt, who feels left out. In a huff, Matt pulls Bongo away to do something fun without them – they’ll go to a theme park based on Matt’s favourite show: Fred the Engine! Bongo is super excited until he turns out to be too tall to go on the best ride… Matt figures he’ll have to skip the ride, too, but Bongo thinks that’s silly! Why should Matt miss out on the fun? Besides, Matt can tell him all about it later! Touched at his BBF’s selflessness, Matt hurries back to the park to tell Yuri and Lili that he hopes they have a really good time at the show; he can’t wait to hear all about it!

Lili recruits the boys to take part in a puppet show, but gets annoyed when they try to incorporate their own ideas into it. In an effort to make them all follow HER story, Lili brings the puppet show to life and the gang enacts the show exactly as she envisioned it. That is, until the story takes on a life all its own and stops following Lili’s decree! It’ll take the ideas that Matt and Yuri had, along with Lili’s concession, to get the show back on track. --- After helplessly watching the tide wash away his sandcastle, Yuri becomes angry with himself – he never should’ve built it so close to the water! To cheer him up, Golias suggests they go for ice cream and bananas and leads him to a special ice cream stand in the jungle. But along the way, the pair come across a few icky obstacles and eventually miss out on getting their ice cream treat! Thinking it’s all his fault, Golias becomes very upset with himself, but Yuri tells his BBF not to fret – he didn’t have any control over what happened, so it wasn’t really his fault… just like it wasn’t really Yuri’s fault the tide washed away his sandcastle.

Upset to be out in a game of musical chairs, Matt decides he’d rather go play something else than cheer on whoever’s left, so he leads the gang up into the sky for a chair race to a cloud throne! But when Matt once again finds himself ‘out’, he hasn’t anywhere else to go this time – he’s stuck on the “out cloud” with Golias, Lili and Bongo. With no real options, Matt learns a special cheer from Bongo and eventually finds out that cheering your friends on in a game can be just as fun as playing in it yourself! --- Ms. Carol notices Lili holding a picture that Yuri drew and, assuming it must be hers, praises her for it… and Lili doesn’t correct her. While claiming to have done nothing wrong, Lili suddenly notices a smudge in Yuri’s picture and decides to fix it. The smudge turns out to be a toucan, trapped amidst piles of knotted vines, which Lili works hard at untangling. Once free, the toucan immediately spots Nessa and thanks her for all her hard work… and she doesn’t correct him! Lili is upset that Nessa took credit for what Lili did, but Nessa doesn’t see the problem – isn’t that what Lili did with Yuri’s picture? Realizing she’s right, Lili decides to fess up and give Yuri the credit he deserves.

Lili and Yuri get annoyed when Matt’s idea of ‘helping’ them at mini-putt is to take their shots for them so they can see how it’s done. Matt doesn’t get what the problem is – he’s a lot better at it, so they should be thanking him, right? But Matt does a 180 after he joins a parrot’s pirate crew, only to have the captain take over everything, since he knows how to do pirate stuff better than Matt and Bongo. Turns out, learning is lots more fun when you get to do it yourself. --- Yuri’s Mom is making stew for dinner, and Yuri is not happy about it… stew may be filled with stuff he likes, but he’s never had it like this before and doesn’t want to try it. Instead, Yuri takes his friends to his very own kitchen, where a robot chef will make them anything they want! But this chef is a bit green around the edges, and doesn’t always make food exactly the way they’re used to… The dishes are a bit weird, and sometimes gross, but our kids realize that trying new things can be kinda fun!

When Yuri’s Mom is bedridden with a nasty cold, Yuri becomes very worried about her – is she ever gonna get better? Wanting to do something nice for her, Yuri and Golias go to a pretty place where he can draw her a pretty picture. But when Golias touches the fantasy items he experiences a few strange reactions… funny coloured spots, gigantic sneezes, and he even floats off the ground! But each odd infliction goes away after a few moments of rest, and Golias is his old self again, showing Yuri that getting sick every now and again is nothing to be frightened of. --- When Lili gets the role of pumpkin in the class play, she’s horrified – she wanted to be something pretty in the play, not something silly! So Lili decides to create her own farm, one that only grows beautiful things and doesn’t have anything silly in it at all. Lovely jewels and mirrors grow on the farm, appeasing Lili… until the boys spot their silly, distorted reflection in the crop and burst out laughing! Even Nessa can’t help but have fun looking at her silly reflection, and soon Lili realizes how much fun being silly can be.

To prove her superior leadership skills, Lili leads the gang on a trek through a foreign land, but is constantly forced to give up command when they encounter obstacles that either Matt or Yuri is better at leading them through. Upset, Lili figures she must be a terrible leader after all… but then saves the day when she comes up with the solution to their final obstacle! Matt and Yuri both praise Lili’s obvious leadership qualities, and she does the same right back. As it turns out, they’re all pretty great leaders! --- Horrified at the news that he’s grown out of his favourite soccer shoes, Matt starts to worry what else he’ll grow out of and decides that he doesn’t want to grow at all… in fact, he wants to be small. Shrinking down to the size of ant, Matt soon comes to realize that being small has its disadvantages and gradually allows Bongo to grow in little bits. But as Bongo gets bigger and becomes able to do more and more fun things, Matt realizes that he wants to do more and more fun things, too – and perhaps getting bigger is a part of that.

Matt and Lili take it personally when Yuri decides that he’d rather look at a picture book than partake in their cowboy race. Upset, they decide to go to a real rodeo and have fun without him, where a couple of cowboy boots teach them all the tricks of the rodeo trade! But when the boots try to rope Matt and Lili into other activities that they don’t really want to do, and take it hard when they say no, Matt and Lili realize how unfair they had been to Yuri – he hadn’t meant to hurt their feelings simply because he didn’t feel like racing. --- Yuri becomes nervous when he finds out that he’s getting a new bedroom – one that’s WAY down the hall from his Mom and Dad’s room. Golias encourages Yuri to go exploring, peeking Yuri’s interest when they find a cave filled with all kinds of jewels! Golias, however, becomes less and less excited as they explore – as it turns out, caves are kinda dark! Nervous, Golias clings to his best pal for security. But Yuri can’t get anywhere with Golias stuck to him like glue, so he’s forced to show Golias that he’ll always be there for his BBF… even if he isn’t RIGHT there. Kinda like how his Mom ‘n Dad’ll always be there for him, no matter where his bedroom is.

Lili makes a lovely butterfly that gets Ms. Carol’s attention and can’t stop bragging about it to her friends, who get annoyed and leave Lili and Nessa to play by themselves. Undeterred, Lili takes Nessa to a butterfly garden so she can observe and make more butterflies. But Lili winds up getting a dose of her own medicine when the butterflies take a real liking to Nessa, and Nessa can’t help but drone on and on about it… Lili is still proud of her butterfly, but she realizes that bragging about it is no fun for anyone! --- Yuri can’t find his lunch bag at snack time and is shy to speak up – not wanting to admit that he forgot it. In an effort to find the lost snack, our gang venture inside Yuri’s backpack, where Yuri realizes that when he’s needed help before, he’s gone to a trusted grown-up and everything got better. Finally accepting that he did indeed forget his lunch bag at home, and that that’s okay, Yuri tells Ms. Carol, who gives him a snack from the classroom jar and calls his Mom to bring in his lunch.

Matt’s excited to show off his camping skills to his friends, but his plans are thwarted when his Dad won’t let him tackle the big jobs he wants to. In an effort to prove himself capable of any job, Matt leads his friends on a difficult climb up a mountain to retrieve the lantern needed for the trip… but winds up facing hurdles that are clearly too big for him alone along on the way. With the help of his friends, Matt successfully retrieves the lantern and also realizes that while some jobs may be too big for him (for now), there are plenty of other important jobs that aren’t. --- Lili gets frustrated with her baby brothers after she steps on a favourite toy of theirs that was left on the floor and, to teach them a lesson, puts the toy in a place they won’t find it. But during a game of hide-and-seek inside her pristine doll house, Lili gets a dose of her own medicine when she’s unable to find her most favourite thing: Nessa! After a fussy vacuum cleaner helps Lili find her slumbering BBF, Lili quickly retrieves the toy train for her brothers, realizing now that her actions were far too harsh.

Yuri becomes upset when Matt unknowingly wrecks his plans for a penguin dance. Instead of telling Matt, Yuri retreats to his very own penguin party with Golias, where he inadvertently topples the ice fort of a tiny penguin that’s too shy to say anything. When Yuri finds out what happened, he’s horrified to have wrecked the little penguin’s game and immediately sets about fixing the ice fort. As it turns out, the best way to solve a problem is to talk about it. --- The gang decide to give each other bracelets they made in class, declaring that they’ll be ‘best friends forever’. But Matt accidentally loses his bracelet and is instantly horrified, believing this to mean that he can no longer be best friends with Yuri and Lili. Desperate to replace the bracelet, Matt and Bongo visit a large store to find one just like it, where a silly television set shows Matt that he doesn’t need a bracelet to keep on being the best of friends with Yuri and Lili.

Stuck in an office boardroom while they wait for Matt’s Dad to take them to the beach, the gang declare that with only a plastic starfish and a pencil to play with, there’s absolutely no fun to be had! However, they soon realize that they couldn’t be more wrong as the starfish and pencil transform into anything they can imagine, bringing about more fun and games and laughter than any of them thought possible! --- The excitement of an ice cream treat is quickly lost on Yuri when he realizes he has to pick which flavour he wants… but he can’t! Frustrated, Yuri wishes he never had to make any choices ever again. Luckily, along comes an ice cream scoop who’s more than happy to do all of Yuri’s picking for him - picking what Yuri eats, plays, and even whether he sits down or goes for a walk! Eventually, Yuri has had enough; while making choices can sometimes be hard, it’s a whole lot better than not having any choices at all.

The toys Yuri and Lili find in their takeout meals quickly lose their appeal once the pair get a load of Matt’s toy, which they believe to be far superior. Now unsatisfied with what they have, Yuri and Lili seek out bigger and better prizes in a field littered with toy-filled eggs… and, much to the exhaustion of their BBFs, cycle through toy after toy until finally realizing that they were both having a whole lot more fun when they were simply playing with what they had instead of being obsessed with having something better. --- Matt is torn between going to play with his friends in the park and staying home to cheer up his sister, who’s stuck in bed all day. While trying to decide, Matt loses his binoculars and has to crawl under his bed to retrieve them… where he meets a trio of bouncy fuzz-balls who show him that sometimes the reward of helping others feels even better than the fun that comes with playing.

Yuri becomes frustrated while playing a guessing game with his friends – he’d much rather know the answer to a question than guess. Instead, Yuri brings the gang to an island filled with non-guessing games; but in order to get them all across the bridge, they’ll have to get past a troll who happens to love guessing games. If Yuri wants to get to that island, he’ll have to guess the answer to a riddle and risk being wrong… which, as it turns out, isn’t such a big deal! --- When Matt rushes through a class art project for his mother, and subsequently messes it up, he’s horrified to find out he’ll have to start all over again… he’s already done it once, so why should he have to do it again? Instead, Matt and Bongo head to a forest where they meet an industrious beaver in the midst of building a swimming pool for his sister. Matt volunteers to help the beaver, but after he once again rushes through the construction of the pool, he experiences firsthand the disappointment of the beaver’s little sister… and decides that maybe he’ll re-do his art project for his Mom after all.

The gang gets together to bake-up a batch of snowman cookies, but the fun quickly dissipates when Lili refuses to share her usual job as decorator. Unable to win over the boys, Lili takes everyone on a trip to build a real snowman instead, although still insists that the job of decorator remain squarely with her… too bad for her, this snowman isn’t playing along! Refusing to be decorated by only one person, this snowman come-to-life shows our kids that it’s always best to share. --- Not wanting to play ‘baby games’ with his little cousin, Yuri and Golias hide inside the branches of a very large and very old tree. But the pair quickly realize they aren’t alone – the tree is also occupied by a nest of baby birds, who are very anxiously awaiting the return of their mother. In order to help the grandmotherly tree, Yuri agrees to watch the baby birds and winds up having a lot more fun with them than he thought he would… prompting him to realize that playing with his baby cousin might not be so bad, either.

Matt gets a special bubble wand from his Aunt and worries that if his friends play with it too, it won’t be special anymore. So when Yuri and Lili show up at that park, Matt and Bongo escape to a bubble world so they can keep playing just the two of them. Sadly, no one gets to play with the bubble wand when a particularly large bubble floats off with it still attached! Matt has to race to reclaim his special toy, along the way missing his friends and wishing they could be there with him… because sharing things like adventures, and toys, makes even the most special of things that much more special. --- An afternoon thunder storm breaks out while the gang is over at Matt’s, sending the kids running for cover from the loud, scary sounds. Their sheltering blanket soon transforms into an enormous tent that blocks out the sound of the thunder, but, as they soon find out, also contains many other sounds within its polka dots… some of which happen to be loud and scary! But as the kids explore the sounds they find, and have fun figuring out what they are, they come to realize that while sounds can be loud and make you jump, there really isn’t anything at all to be afraid of.

Yuri’s lost the Christmas present he made for his mother, Lili’s worried she might be on the naughty list this year, and Matt isn’t sure his Christmas wish list made it all the way to the North Pole. With all these problems, there’s only one person that can help: Santa! So the gang takes a trip to the North Pole, but before they can reach Santa, they come across an elf, Elred, who has tragically lost Santa’s sleigh – and on Christmas Eve, no less! Our heroes decide to team up with Elred to help find Santa’s missing sleigh and save Christmas for everyone. And, in the process, both Elred and our kids learn what the spirit of the holiday is really all about.