Magic Roundabout, The Magic Roundabout, The by • Kids TV , TV Shows - 1960s , TV Shows - 1970s 1 9 6 5 - 1 9 7 5 (UK/France) The five-minute slot just before the early evening BBC1 news on Monday (at 5:50 pm) guaranteed Magic Roundabout a viewing audience of over eight million. While parents waited for the news, kids got to see the antics of Florence, Ermintrude, Zebedee and friends - including the dog that inspired a million birthday cakes, Dougal. This seemingly innocent children's animation series included witty commentary for the adults, allowing two generations to enjoy it. Flavoured with a laid-back and surreal view of life, the programme reflected a heavy sixties feel. It soon achieved a cult status.

Filmed using frame-by-frame stop motion photography in a superbly colourful setting, the programme featured a rather off-the-wall cast: Dougal, the shaggy dog who lived on a strict diet of sugar; an eccentric bouncing character called Zebedee, who would announce his arrival with a boing; a rabbit named Dylan, who could have been accused of growing something considerably stronger than carrots in his vegetable patch; Ermintrude the pink cow, Florence, Brian the snail and their friends in the Garden. Thus The Magic Roundabout staked its place in television history. The most famous sentence of the series was Zebedee's standard declaration "Time for Bed" sending millions of children to sleep every evening. Meanwhile he got to stay up and take drugs with Dylan, the rabbit. (And is it just coincidence that the Zeb-meister looked like Frank Zappa ?). Concept and animation was by Frenchman Serge Danot and the English version was written and told by Eric Thompson (the late father of actress Emma Thompson). A feature film, Dougal and the Blue Cat, was released in Britain in 1972. It originally screened in France in 1970 as Pollux et le Chat Bleu.

A set of previously undiscovered French episodes were voiced by Nigel Planer and shown on Channel 4 from 1992. Yet another batch was later voiced by a different actor for AB Productions. Narrator The Magic Roundabout - Childrens TV | Jedi's Paradise The Magic Roundabout The Magic Roundabout is a 60’s Children’s TV animated show. It was created by a Frenchman Serge Danot with help from his English friend Ivor Wood and his wife Josiane. In 1964 it made its first appearance on French television (the 1st series was in black and white) and went on to become known a classic. The episodes were filmed in a derelict house in Paris where the fuses kept blowing because of the amount of electricity used by the lighting on the set. Joy Whitby, the producer of Play School secured the rights to The Magic Roundabout for the UK, but knew that it needed more work on it for a UK audience. Eric Thompson, who was at the time working as a presenter of Play School, was asked to do the voices and narration of the programmes.

He did not use any of the original character names and he did not work from the translations of the French scripts but made up stories to fit the pictures as he went along. This was attributed to his dislike of the French and that he felt the French version was too noisy. If you compare the two versions you will notice how quiet the English version is. Eric enjoyed making the show and didn’t dumb down the content for children, ensuring he didn’t write anything patronising for them and always used large words. It was full of humour and social commentary. In 1965 the Magic Roundabout was first broadcast to a UK audience. It gained many viewers young and old mainly because it was shown in the five minute slot before the early evening news. It became family viewing and garnered viewing figures of over eight million. The French weren’t happy with the naming of the main character, ‘Dougal’ (from Pollux), as they thought his name was based on Charles De Gaul (De Gaul sounding like Dougal) and they took it as an insult. Eric maintained that this was not the case and instead the name was dreamt up while writing some of the episodes in Scotland, where Dougal was a popular name.

Also you might notice that Dougal seems to have been based on the late comic Tony Hancock, as he has similar mannerisms to him. In 1972 a feature film was created by Serge Danot. It upped the quality of the shows, employing a number of techniques not seen in the TV series. Again Eric Thompson provided nearly all the voices and wrote the script from the visuals again (he was credited as the writer / director). But he asked Fenella Fielding to supply the voice of the character ‘The Blue Voice’. She was surprised when she found out that it was only Eric and herself supplying the voices. In 1992, Nigel Planer was asked to do the voices and narration for some overlooked episodes which had never been translated. They were shown on Channel Four. In 2005 there was a reinvention of the Magic Roundabout, when a feature film was created using the latest CGI technology. Robbie Williams voiced Dougal and Kylie Minogue voiced Florence. Soon after the movie release a TV series was produced, using the same CGI characters used for the film. Story The Magic Roundabout is a carousel that is owned my Mr Rusty, which the local children used to use.

One day a magical being called Zebedee arrives bringing magic to the area and casting a spell, ensuring the children return and play on the Magic Roundabout. Around it lives a host of eccentric characters including Dougal, a shaggy dog who lives on a strict diet of sugar lumps, Zebedee, a bizarre bouncing character, who announces his arrival with a 'boing', a laid back rabbit called Dylan, Ermintrude - the pink cow, Florence a young girl, and Brian the snail. Once, they had a sinister visitor called Buxton, the blue cat, who wanted to take over the area they lived in and turn everything blue and imprison anyone that wasn’t blue. As you can tell, Dougal wasn’t happy about this and decided to take on the blue cat and stop his dastardly scheme. The Magic Roundabout Characters Dougal (voiced by Eric Thompson) He is a yellow dog who loves to eat sugar. His best friend is Florence, a young girl, who he loves dearly. He even has a picture of her next to his bed and likes to pick flowers for her (awww). He especially loves her to stroke his fur.

He is a very sarcastic dog and complains a lot about life and his friends, but he still loves them in his strangle little way. Dougal can also be a jealous dog, which became very obvious when Buxton, the Blue Cat, appeared. He instantly became suspicious of the Blue Cat, which everyone put down to jealousy. But Dougal's initial thoughts were true...that cat was trouble, which was realised when Buxton took over the surrounding area and imprisoned all of Dougal’s friends. Now, Dougal isn’t the bravest dog in the world, but when his friends are threatened his brave streak shines through. He infiltrated the Blue Cat’s lair by dying himself blue and calling himself Blue Peter. He even had to prove he wasn’t Dougal by being imprisoned in the torture chamber, a room full of sugar. Dougal resisted the temptation of eating the sugar and became Buxton’s closest friend and was given the position of Prime Minister. From this power of authority Dougal rescued his friends and defeated Buxton. Buxton the Blue Cat (voiced by Eric Thompson) Buxton is the only Blue Cat in the world and everyone in the area came to see such a wondrous thing.

He liked the attention he received, so decided to stay indefinitely. But Buxton isn't a nice cat. He has a plan is to become the Blue King (with the help of the Blue Voice and her Blue Army) and ensure that everything in the world is blue. So anything that isn't blue would be destroyed and anyone that isn't blue would be imprisoned. He speaks with a northern accent and likes saying to himself, 'I'm so evil', but he has a talent for playing the piano (a blue one of course) with his feet and tail. Dougal tried to warn everyone about how nasty he was, but Buxton pretended to cry and said he was being rejected for his colour. Everyone felt sorry for him and ignored Dougal's protests. They even said he should stay at Dougal's place, as he had the room. Dougal wasn't happy, especially when Buxton went to sleep in his bed. Buxton became the Blue King after passing the tests of the Blue Voice and she gave him her Blue Army to ensure that everything turned blue. But Buxton became over confident and his downfall was orchestrated by Dougal, who stopped Buxton from taking over the moon, and he freed all the prisoners.

The Blue Voice doesn’t like failure and so stripped him of his powers and his reign of terror came to an end. Afterwards Buxton asked Dougal and his friends for forgiveness. He blushed in shame and turned white. The Blue Voice (voiced by Fenella Fielding) We never get to see the owner of the Blue Voice, but she says that she is blue. She is very powerful and can move objects around without touching them. Her main aim is to make the whole universe ‘blue’ and in Buxton, she can see a cat that can help her achieve her goal. She offered Buxton the opportunity to be the Blue King and have the powers and privileges that go with the position. But first he would have to pass a test. The test consisted of 7 doors/rooms that Buxton had to progress through. He had to tell the Blue Voice what the door’s colour was, each was a different shade of blue. The Blue Voice told Buxton that she did not tolerate failure and that he would pay the ultimate price if he didn’t answer the questions correctly.

Once in each room, Buxton was able to see what things the Blue Voice was making to help him make the world ‘blue’: 1) Making Blue Flowers 2) Dying the clothes of the world blue 3) Blue Nightmares 4) Room of the World (Blue Sky/Sea) 5) Room of thunder and lightening 6) The Guard room, where the Blue Army is made 7) The Throne Room. Luckily for Buxton he got all the answers right and was crowned the Blue King and was given the red carpet treatment and an army of blue soldiers. But Buxton is fickle and he whispered that he would imprison the Blue Voice too! The power hungry cat! Once Buxton had imprisoned most people from the surrounding area, the Blue Voice ordered Buxton to go to the moon and push forward her plans to conquer the universe. He took Blue Peter (Dougal) with him. But Dougal stopped him from claiming the moon and the rocket ship crash landed back on Earth. As mentioned earlier, the Blue Voice doesn’t tolerate failure and stripped him of the title of Blue King. She was so mad that she made lightening bolts rain down around them.

The voice kept saying that ‘blue was beautiful’ and the treacle factory collapsed in on itself. That was the last time the ‘Blue Voice’ was heard of again. Blue Soldiers (voiced by Eric Thompson) These are the Blue Cat's soldiers and are the instruments that he uses to enforce his reign of blue terror. The are made in the Blue Voice’s treacle factory and use their blue hair to ensnare people, allowing them to imprison them in chains in an underground cave. Buxton doesn’t get his hands dirty and instead watches them take over the area from his throne room, using the periscope built into a pillar. The area turned blue, but there was still one person that they couldn’t find, that was Dougal. Florence (voiced by Eric Thompson) She is a very sensible girl, who lives in the local village and loves to sing while cleaning the house. Her best friend is Dougal who she loves dearly and she even has a picture of him in her house. But she also has a soft spot for cats, especially the Blue Cat, Buxton, which upsets Dougal. The influence of Buxton made her think that the colour blue was important to her and she wondered why.

Brian (voiced by Eric Thompson) He is a snail that likes to take life in the slow lane, but is faster than 'The Train'. He is one of Dougal's closest friends, but is the one that seems to take the brunt of Dougal's bad moods. Still Brian isn't phased by it and just plods on. But if he wants to get away from everything, then he can always pop into his shell. Brian became a hero, when he went back into the collapsing Treacle Factory that the Blue Voice started destroying. He had gone back to get Zebedee’s Magic Moustache, but everyone thought he was dead after it fully collapsed. But a triumphant Brian emerged with the moustache, and Zebedee was understandably overjoyed when it was returned to him. Zebedee (voiced by Eric Thompson) He is a strange looking fellow, with a red head and a spring instead of legs. Still, that doesn't stop him from getting around as he has a powerful spring that lets him bounce long distances and he appears with a ‘Boing’ from out of nowhere. Zebedee is a Jack-In-The-Box, that arrived in a box addressed to Mr Rusty.

Once opened, Zebedee knew instantly of the issue Mr Rusty had, where no children were visiting his roundabout. You see Zebedee possess magic, or to be precise he has a magic moustache. He promised Mr Rusty that he would use his magic to ensure the children returned and once again use the ‘Magic’ Roundabout. But once Zebedee’s moustache was stolen by Buxton, the blue cat, and as you can guess he was in a right state. Ermintrude (voiced by Eric Thompson) Ermintrude loves standing in the way of things, such as the train. She loves watching trains or cows and likes being waved at. She even likes to paint, and she started her 'blue period' of paintings when the blue cat arrived (probably brain washed). Dylan (voiced by Eric Thompson) He is the hippy rabbit that always seems to be asleep, he even uses his ears to cover his eyes to help him sleep. In his spare time he likes watching mushrooms grow (and probably likes eating the special variety). Oh, and he doesn’t like to work. He's seems to be on a different planet than everyone else, and others suspect he is taking something.

Dylan doesn't go anywhere without his guitar...as he is a musician and he likes to say 'Hi man'. The Train (voiced by Eric Thompson) The Train loves to chuff around the landscape picking up passengers. Dougal even has his own compartment, but is always commenting on how slow she is. Mr. Rusty (voiced by Eric Thompson) He is the owner of the Magic Roundabout. He was so sad before Zebedee arrived in the area, as the children no longer came to use his roundabout. He missed the children having fun while he played music on his barrel organ, it had lost its magic. Luckily for Mr Rusty, someone was listening and a packaged arrived for him. Inside he found Zebedee a magical Jack-In-The-Box, who promised that the children would return the next day. True to his word the children returned and brought happiness to Mr Rusty, the children and the animals who lived around the Magic Roundabout. Mr. Machenry (voiced by Eric Thompson) He has one of the longest beards that you’ll have ever seen, its down to his ankles. He wears a cowboy hat and zooms around on his little trike.

His hobby is growing things in his garden. He’s even made his own perfume in his greenhouse. It seems he has some magic as he made it snow instantly, in the magic garden. Paul (voiced by Eric Thompson) Paul is a friend of Florence’s and hangs out on the Magic Roundabout with her. Basil (voiced by Eric Thompson) Basil is a friend of Florence’s and hangs out on the Magic Roundabout with her. Rosalie (voiced by Eric Thompson) Rosalie is a friend of Florence’s and hangs out on the Magic Roundabout with her. The Magic Roundabout T-Shirts - NONE The Magic Roundabout DVDs Region 2 (Europe) - Dougal and the Blue Cat Region 1 (USA) - NONE The Magic Roundabout Video Intro The Magic Roundabout Episodes Series 1 (1965) The first 20 episode names were taken from the Radio Times (supplied by John Archbold). We are unsure if they are the exact names of the episodes 1. Mr Rusty Meets Zebedee 2. Zebedee Starts The Roundabout 3. The Children Try To Win A Surprise 4. Florence Gets A Surprise 5.

Florence Goes To Zebedee’s Magic Garden 6. Florence Gets Another Surprise 7. Florence Meets Some Strange Acrobats 8. Florence Meets Some Unusual Birds 9. Mr Rusty’s Barrel Organ Breaks Down 10. Florence Is Invited To Zebedee's House 11. Florence Gets To Zebedee’s House And Has A Surprise 12. All The Children Visit Zebedee 13. The Children Go To The Theatre 14. Mr Rusty’s Kitchen 15. The Children Make A Plan 16. The Children Build Their House 17. The Children Decorate Their House 18. A Very Special Ride 19. Dougal Turns Detective 20. Dougal And Florence Meet The Monster ??. Bubbles ??. Piano Moving ??. Let's Play At Cats ??. Watch the Birdie ??. Sculptor ??. The Orchestra ??. Pack Of Cards ??. Toffee River ??. Oil Wells ??. Banana Skin ??. Spaghetti Party ??. Rain ??. Baking A Pie ??. Alarm Clock ??. Brian and the Train Race ??. The Chimney Sweep ??.

Road Signs ??. Dylan Plays the Bagpipes ??. Dougals Glasses ??. Hide And Seek ??. The Lost Boing ??. Windy ??. The Scarecrow ??. Musical Box ??. The Oyster ??. The Hairdresser ??. TV Announcer ??. Magic Pot ??. The Picnic ??. Ermintrude's Folly ??. The Exhibition ??. Holidays ??. Relay Race ??. Soul of the Violin ??. The Tombola ??. Pancakes ??. Flying Saucer ??. The Sleepwalker ??. A Starry Night ??. Film Director ??. Dougal Rustlers ??. Magic Carpet ??. The Experiment Movies Dougal and the Blue Cat (1972) The Magic Roundabout Images (click to enlarge) © JedisParadise.com THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT - ORIGINAL BBC 1970's EPISODE - YouTube THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT - ORIGINAL BBC 1970's EPISODE Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented.

This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Jan 16, 2007 A 1970's edition of the seminal Children's TV show "The Magic Roundabout" written and voiced by the unique Eric Thompson. Why this isn't repeated or released on DVD is beyond me. Classic stuff!!! Category Magic Roundabout returns on digital TV - Telegraph Magic Roundabout returns on digital TV Florence, Dougal and Zebedee will make their comeback on digital television By Martina Smit and agencies 12:01AM BST 16 Apr 2007 Dylan the dopey rabbit, Dougal the sullen shaggy dog and Ermintrude the pink cow are returning to British screens in a new series of The Magic Roundabout. An updated computer-animated version of the cult 1960s series will be shown on the pre-school digital channel Nick Jr, which belongs to Nickelodeon. The announcement came as the estate of the late French author Serge Danot, who created the original show, granted permission for a re-make.

The new series of 52 episodes will use the same character models as the recent animation film The Magic Roundabout, voiced by stars including Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams and Sir Ian McKellen. Danot produced some 500 five-minute episodes in a derelict house in Paris where the fuses kept blowing because of the amount of electricity used by their lights. The set with its psychedelic colours featured a park centred around an enchanted carousel. But it was the British version, shown daily just before the evening news on BBC1, that turned the series into a cult hit watched by eight million people at its peak. Instead of translating Danot's scripts, English narrator Eric Thompson (father of actress Emma Thompson), made up his own dialogue to mirror what he saw on screen. His world-weary humour, embodied in Dougal the dog's Terry Hancock-style remarks, appealed to adults and children alike. At the time the guitar-playing rabbit Dylan's spaced-out appearance, reminiscent of his namesake Bob Dylan, sparked rumours that each character was addicted to a different hallucinatory drug. Yet Thompson's widow Phyllida Law denied the theory. In 1992 Channel Four bought the rights to a further 52 French shows not seen in Britain.

As Eric Thompson had died by this time, the Young Ones star Nigel Planer stepped in to adapt the script. Like the movie and the original French episodes, the new series will not have a narrator. Each character will have its own voice. "The original Magic Roundabout TV series was a charming cultural phenomenon which entertained generations of children," said Nickelodeon UK managing director Howard Litton. "We're delighted to bring back Dougal, Zebedee and the rest of the Magic Roundabout cast to British TV screens. "The beautiful CGI animated adventures are sure to be a big hit with today's discerning young viewers." Magic Roundabout (BBC Television) A site dedicated to the childrens television show created by Serge Danot. Home | Character Pictures | General | Desktop Wallpaper | 2005 Movie | Magic Roundabout History | UK Online Shop The Magic Roundabout is a BBC children's television program, later to be aired on Channel 4 was created in France by Serge Danot in 1963. The original pilot programs were filmed in Serge Danot bathroom, the French version of the show was known in France as Le Manège enchanté.

The original Magic Roundabout had 450 episodes that were five minutes in length and were originally broadcast by the ORTF between 1964 and 1971. In the United Kingdom the BBC aired the show from 18 October 1965 to 25 January 1977, using the original Serge Danot stop motion animation footage with new scripts written and narrated by Eric Thompson, these scripts had no resemblance to the original storylines. The Creator BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Magic Roundabout's French connection Magic Roundabout's French connection BBC News Online entertainment staff A film based on The Magic Roundabout will be released in February Next year sees the release of a feature-length film based on The Magic Roundabout, 40 years after the original children's show debuted on French TV. BBC News Online looks back at its roots. The brainchild of Frenchman Serge Danot, Le Manege Enchante proved an immediate hit with young audiences all over France. Graphic designer Danot was born in 1931, near Nantes, and learnt the basic techniques of film and animation while working in the advertising industry.

It was 1964, only 20% of French households owned a television set and programme schedules largely consisted of news and public service information. But intrigued by Danot's original pilot episode, French television channel ORTF (Office de Radio Television Francaise) commissioned 13 five-minute episodes of Le Manege Enchante, and a raft of TV superstars were born. Crossed the channel Pollux, the sugar-addicted cocker spaniel, Zebulon and the sensible Margote were among the heroes of the Bois Joli, the enchanted wood that was home to Serge Danot's surreal tales. Before long, Pollux was the best-seller in a line of hugely popular spin-off merchandise, the like of which France had never seen before. Eric Thompson voiced the original UK TV series Following the lead taken by US studios like Disney and Hanna Barbera, soft toys, T-shirts and toiletries dedicated to Le Manege Enchante sold by the lorry-load. But few would have predicted the way in which the series would be embraced by British audiences.

In 1965, Pollux was reborn as Dougal, in what is considered, at least in France, as a cheeky reference to General De Gaulle. "It was completely adopted," Francois Ivernel, head of Pathe UK which is co-producing the forthcoming 2005 film, told The Times. Student favourite "In England, everyone thinks it's English. In France, they're not sure what nationality it is, because Dougal speaks with an English accent." The adaptation for the BBC was entrusted to Eric Thompson - father of actress Emma Thompson - who narrated each of the roles. But instead of translating Danot's original scripts, Thompson turned down the sound and made up his own dialogue according to what he saw on screen. Sir Ian McKellen will play Zebedee Soon the adventures of Florence (Margote), Zebedee (Zebulon), Dylan (Flappy), Ermintrude (Azalee) and Brian the snail (Ambroise) were cult viewing on the BBC. Slotted between the end of children's TV and the start of the Six O'Clock News, and spiced up with Thompson's eccentric script, the show acquired a following among children and adults alike.

Thompson's oblique references to Dylan's permanent tiredness and Dougal's penchant for sugar, combined with the psychedelic hue of the set, ensured a devout adult fanbase in the drug-lavish 1960s. Peter Lord, founder of Aardman Studios and co-director of Chicken Run, cites Dougal as his "childhood hero" and Serge Danot as one of his three key inspirations. Global success Similarly Ivor Wood, an advertising colleague of Danot who worked with him on the original series, later produced a string of successful animation series, including The Wombles and Postman Pat. The Magic Roundabout's influence was clear. It was translated into 28 languages and sold to 68 countries including Iraq and Japan. But the series' popularity began to wane with the advent of Japanese anime in the early 1980s. Moreover, Eric Thompson - whose off-beat script had proved the mainstay of the show's popularity in the UK - died in 1982.

Dougal, pictured here with The Goodies, was a big hit Still, the series' cult following ensured a British revival in 1990, when former Young Ones star Nigel Planer took over as narrator on a Channel 4 version of the show. Meanwhile, students continued to set up clubs and societies in tribute to Danot's creation. Now a ï¿½14m 3-D feature film, The Magic Roundabout, hopes to bring the characters to a new generation. The plot will revolve around a new character, the evil oppressor ZeeBadDee, played by former Dr Who Tom Baker, and will feature all the old favourites. The production is a collaboration between France and the UK and will be dubbed separately by a French and English cast. Star names The actors include Sir Ian McKellen as Zebedee and Joanna Lumley as Ermintrude. Pop stars Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue will voice Dougal and Florence respectively, while in France, singers Vanessa Paradis and Eddy Mitchell will be among the cast. But in the light of the recent box office failure of children's favourite Thunderbirds, it remains to be seen whether Dougal and friends can work their magic once more.

The Magic Roundabout premieres in the UK on 11 February 2005. Round And About BY Tim Worthington When French animator Serge Danot began work on a small scale animated series called "La Manege Enchante" back in 1963, he can hardly have realised that he was creating something that would become an integral part of popular culture in another nation altogether. The series that he produced is famous and well-known enough in France, but it was to be in Britain that "The Magic Roundabout", as it was retitled through the miracle of translation, really found its way into the affections of the public. So much, in fact, that in time it would become possibly the only product of French popular culture to have a major geographical feature in this country named after it (unless, of course, there's a Johnny Hallyday Avenue out there somewhere). The story of what would eventually become "The Magic Roundabout " began when Serge Danot was commissioned by the French television channel RTF to create a short animated series for children.

Danot and his film crew (which included a young British animator named Ivor Wood, who would later return to Britain and go on to create the similarly successful "Postman Pat") spent most of 1963 working on the first set of episodes in the appropriately bohemian setting of a derelict Parisian house, where the huge studio lights that they used kept blowing the fuses. Danot's basic concept for the series was that it would be set in a Magic Garden owned by roundabout operator Pere Pivoine and a strange creature on a spring known as Zebulan, which attracted such visitors as a girl called Margotte and a rabbit named Flappy. Ivor Wood suggested that Danot's characters should be joined by Pollux the dog, mainly because he had created a dog puppet with no legs (instead, it moved around on wheels that were obscured from view by long hair) that would allow them to save time and money on animating it.

The bright and sharply contrasting colours (which were obvious to viewers even though the early episodes were shot and transmitted in monochrome) and charming stories ensured that "La Manege Enchante" was to become a huge success with French audiences, and the beautiful semi-psychedelic theme song, with its mesmerising organ work and vocals shared between a child and a Charles Aznavour soundalike, embellished the engaging otherworldly nature of the series. However, the "La Manege Enchante" was not to meet with its largest acclaim until it was spotted by chance by an overseas broadcaster. Doreen Stephens, Head of Family Programmes at the BBC, saw a selection of episodes of "La Manege Enchante" in 1965 and decided to buy it for transmission in an early evening weekday pre-news slot. However, the series as it was transmitted over here was different to the French original in several significant respects. The theme song was sped up drastically and turned into a manic organ instrumental by a gentleman named Alain Legrand, but the most important work in reshaping the series was undertaken by the actor selected to provide the narration, Eric Thompson.

Also a presenter on BBC2's pre-school programme "Play School" at that time, Thompson had notoriously strong ideas on what he thought constituted suitable entertainment for children, and was tireless in his quest to treat his audience with as much intelligence as he possibly could. He loathed the original French stories, which it is claimed he regarded as simplistic and dull, and refused to work with a straightforward translation. Instead, he watched the episodes with the soundtrack turned down, created new names and personalities for the characters, and invented completely new storylines to match the on-screen action. The resultant scripts were sharp and witty, and traded in language and humour that was far in advance of the level of sophistication that might usually have been expected in a programme of this nature. This inevitably drew some criticism from concerned parents and educational experts, but Thompson refused to listen to their reasoning (or, to be more accurate, their lack thereof).

He once replied to a viewer who complained that he used too many long words by writing them a letter using all of the longest words that he could find in the dictionary, and is said to have sent a 'strong' letter to a mother who had written to express her concern over the fact that her son had started to refer to his sister as a 'mollusc'. In a peculiar echo of the way that Scott Walker's contemporaneous interpretations of Jacques' Brel's compositions added an entirely new depth that complemented the originals, the imagination and hard work that Eric Thompson put into his interpretations of the visuals created by Danot's team resulted in what was, to all intents and purposes, a new programme. Initially thirty nine episodes of "La Manege Enchante" were reworked for the BBC by Eric Thompson, and "The Magic Roundabout" made its debut in the British television schedules late in 1965, somewhat typically misdescribed by the "Radio Times" as something along the lines of "an exciting new foreign series".

This rather sober and lacklustre description might have made it sound superficially similar to such tedious imported eight million episode children's drama series as "The Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe", but "The Magic Roundabout" was refreshingly different - due as much to Danot's attractive and distinctive visual style as Thompson's scripts - and the series made its mark straight away. Unusually, this initial set of episodes contained a running storyline of sorts, and they have a strangely different feel to that of the more widely-remembered incarnation of "The Magic Roundabout". The series opened with Mr. Rusty, an old roundabout operator, feeling sad because no children ever seemed to visit his Magic Garden any more. Zebedee, a jack-in-the-box with magical powers, arrived in the post and announced that he had sent himself to help Mr. Rusty overcome his problems. Together they repaired and rebuilt the roundabout, and before long the Magic Garden had attracted a new group of regular young visitors - Florence, Paul, Basil and Rosalie - and a curious (or, to be more accurate, nosey) dog named Dougal.

Other characters may well have enjoyed a proportionately greater share of the screen time, but it was Dougal who was to emerge as the true star of the series. World-weary, cynical and imbued with major delusions of self-importance, the character of Dougal was intentionally based on the comic persona of the brilliant Tony Hancock, even down to Thompson's deliberate approximations of his vocal inflections. As time went by and further episodes were bought and shown by the BBC, the evolving plotline was abandoned in favour of self-contained stories. However, the subsequent episodes also saw the arrival of many other well-loved characters, including the terrifyingly over-energetic cow Ermintrude, the guitar-wielding beatnik rabbit Dylan, and most memorably the irrepressibly chirpy snail Brian, whose cheerful nature and permanent smile never failed to be a major source of annoyance for the relentlessly dour Dougal. At its peak, "The Magic Roundabout" was attracting audiences of eight million viewers; this was almost twice as much as most other BBC childrens' programmes could manage at the time, and almost as high a figure as that of the day's main news bulletin that invariably followed it.

The distinctive visual style of the series made it ideal fodder for tie-in merchandise, and an enormous range of spin-off products were soon available. These ranged from heavily stylised toy cars containing plastic models of the series characters (which are now highly collectable) to books written by Thompson which, reflecting his aims and intentions for the series, were packed with those controversial 'long' words and adopted a structure more commonly associated with books intended for adults. At one point in the 1960s, the BBC (for reasons best known to themselves, as always) decided to move the series back an hour in the schedules, and were amazed to recieve sackfuls of letters of complaint from adults who were no longer able to see it. Similarly, a competition relating to the series staged by the BBC's children's magazine programme "Blue Peter" generated more than one hundred thousand entries, and a short gap in the series' transmission was met by a petition from an Army Barracks demanding its instant return!

Serge Danot was both aware of and extremely proud of the success of his creation in Britain, although legend has it that he was initially somewhat less than happy with the naming of Dougal, which he took to be a pun on the name of French Defence Minister Charles De Gaulle. Nonetheless, he made several promotional visits to the UK, and on one occasion in the late 1960s took part in an edition of BBC2's arts review show "Late Night Line-Up" devoted to the origins and success of the series. Amazingly, this edition still exists in full in the BBC's archives, and some tantalisingly fascinating interview clips with Danot have been used in various documentaries in recent years. In 1971, after one hundred and sixty episodes had been made, "La Manege Enchante" came to an end in France in 1971, as the television networks began to favour hand-drawn animation over the stop-motion variety.

However, the BBC still had a plentiful supply of 'new' episodes to show (they did not begin to transmit the colour episodes, which Danot had been making since the mid-1960s, until October 1970), and in fact were able to continue showing previously unseen episodes of "The Magic Roundabout" until 1977. Even after the end of the series, Danot continued to work with the characters, and in 1972 he produced the full-length feature film "Pollux Et Le Chat Bleu", which arrived on these shores through the unique translational filter of Eric Thompson as "Dougal And The Blue Cat". This bizarre film treads a fine line between being charming and genuinely chilling, relating the thought-provoking story what happened when the inhabitants of the Magic Garden put their trust in a mysterious blue cat named Buxton, whose friendly demeanour masked a sinister plan to recolour the entire world blue.

Dougal, who was never taken in by his posturing, eventually manages to save the day (by way of a surreal visit to the moon, and an even more absurd sequence in which he poses as a blue lookalike of himself), but "Dougal And The Blue Cat" is a genuinely exciting and even at times disturbing film, veering wildly between such comic pieces as Dougal arguing with his abrupt and impolite cuckoo clock and such upsetting images as the well-loved characters being locked in a dungeon by Buxton (even then, though, they manage to inject a little humour into proceedings when they pretend to taunt the 'blue' Dougal). "Dougal And The Blue Cat" is often unfairly disregarded as a nondescript, standard cinematic interpretation of a popular childrens' television programme, but it deserves far greater recognition than that. The blend of humour, music (a highly collectable soundtrack album was issued at the time of release, containing songs and incidental music interspersed with Thompson's narration), strangely disquieting moments and brilliantly composed visuals make it far closer to The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" than it is to any standard shoddy cash-in piece.

From the opening argument with the beligerent cuckoo clock right up to the closing fall of snow as happiness is restored to the Magic Garden, the brilliantly crafted film is nothing short of excellent. As is usually the case with 'cult' children's television programmes, "The Magic Roundabout" has in later years found itself dogged by bizarre rumours - namely, in this instance, the suggestion that it was somehow inspired by the ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs and that its characters contained those elusive, Beatles album cover-like 'coded symbols' that supposedly refer to the favoured mind-altering substances of the day. Many a superficial individual blessed with the ignorance of a selective memory will swear as if giving evidence in court that such wild allegations were genuine and true, but unfortunately for them and their weak imaginations, all of the available evidence points to the contrary. Not only was Serge Danot at least well into his forties by the time that he began work on the series, but at the time that "La Manege Enchante" first went into production in 1963, many of the 'substances' that were supposedly being referred to were in fact only just becoming known even to scientific researchers.

Numerous members of Danot's team, including Ivor Wood, have laughed off the suggestion that drugs were invovled in the creative process, and Phyllida Law (Eric Thompson's widow) treats the pathetic rumours with similar disdain. Stick that in your so-called 'pipe' and smoke it. Even after the BBC had stopped showing "The Magic Roundabout", the series and its characters remained lodged in the public's affections and enjoyed enduring popularity. Many years before the current boom in sales of videos of old childrens' television programmes, the popularity of a compilation of episodes of "The Magic Roundabout" took the BBC completely by surprise, and the title was reissued on at least two occasions. In 1991, the series made an unexpected and much-publicised return to British television. Discovering that several of the original episodes had not been translated or transmitted by the BBC, Channel 4 bought the rights to a total of thirty nine episodes which they intended to add to their own children's programming. Eric Thompson had sadly died in the early 1980s, and for this new set of episodes his place was taken by Nigel Planer, whose Mr.

Rusty-lookalike brother Roger was acting as producer for the project. In addition to translating and redubbing the episodes, the Planers also produced "The Return Of The Magic Roundabout", a tongue-in-cheek 'documentary' shown on Christmas Day 1991. The bizarre storyline follow's Planer's life as he finds himself haunted by the programme, which hounds him eventually to the extent of leaving cryptic messages on his answering machine. A riot of jokes based on 1960s conspiracy theories (including an amusing cameo by Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour), interviews with everyone from John Craven to Roy Hattersley, visits to archives with ominously missing tapes and files, and a final climactic encounter with Michael Grade ("Sir Michael... Your Gradeness"), the programme was seen by few but stands as one of the most genuinely individual and downright surreal comedy shows of the decade, and really deserves to be dusted down and given a repeat showing.

The Planers also produced an equally amusing book, "Zen And The Magic Of Roundabout Maintenance", which told the same story from the point of view of the characters, and also posited a disturbing new conspiracy theory about the series: 'da da', as in the phrase that most people use when attempting to sing the theme tune of "The Magic Roundabout", was also the name of a nihilistic 1960s European art movement. Although the original Eric Thompson episodes are not currently available on video or being repeated, which seems a bit strange in light of the fact that videos of old children's television shows are selling so well at the moment, the Nigel Planer episodes are in constant rotation on terrestrial and cable television. While purists might feel that the latter don't quite manage to scale the exact same heights as Thompson's originals, they are still highly enjoyable and very much in the style and spirit that always characterised "The Magic Roundabout". Thompson's original storybooks and scripts have recently been issued in book form, they are highly recommended to anyone who has ever enjoyed the series.

In fact, despite the initial merchandising goldrush that surrounded the original broadcasts, "The Magic Roundabout" seems to have escaped the superficial adoption of inconography that has dogged many other vintage BBC childrens' programmes, and the majority of present day interest in the series comes from those who show proper appreciation for the series rather than just deciding that its characters would look good as a mobile phone cover. If only the BBC would dig out the original episodes... Note: Many thanks to Tim Worthington for his kind permission to reprint this article. (Copyright © Tim Worthington).

Question: In the children's programme 'The Magic Roundabout', shown on television in the 1960's , who was the narrator?
Answer: ERIC THOMPSON