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The Magic Roundabout

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This article is about the television series. For other uses, see Magic Roundabout (disambiguation).
The Magic Roundabout
File:Magic roundabout.JPG
Created bySerge Danot
StarringEric Thompson (original narrator)
Nigel Planer (Channel 4 narrator)
Country of origin France
No. of episodes441
Production
Running time5 minutes
Original release
NetworkBBC (UK)
ORTF (France)
Release18 October, 1965 –
January 1977

The Magic Roundabout (Known in the original French as Le Manège enchanté) was a children's television programme created in France in 1963 by Serge Danot. Some five hundred five-minute-long episodes were made and were originally broadcast between 1964 and 1971 on ORTF.

It was in the United Kingdom that the series became best known. The English version was narrated by Eric Thompson, the father of Emma Thompson, and broadcast from 18 October 1965 to January 1977. This version of the show attained cult status, and was watched as much by adults for its dry humour as by the children for whom it was intended.

The characters were given different names in the different languages. The main character was Dougal (Pollux), (a drop-eared variety of the Skye Terrier). Ironically in the French version Pollux was an English character who spoke clumsy French with an outrageous English accent; the French believe that one of the traits of the English is a sweet tooth, hence the liking for sugar lumps. Other characters are Zebedee (Zébulon), a jack-in-the-box; Brian (Ambroise), a snail; Ermintrude (Azalée), a cow, and Dylan (Flappy) a rabbit, who in the French version was Spanish. There are two notable human characters: Florence (Margote), a young girl; and Mr Rusty (le Père Pivoine), the operator of the roundabout.

The show had a distinctive visual style. The set was a brightly coloured and stylised park containing the eponymous roundabout (a fairground carousel). The programmes were created by stop motion animation, which meant that Dougal was made without legs as it was felt that with them he would be too difficult to animate; Zebedee was created from a giant pea which was available in the animation studio and was re-painted. The look of these characters was the responsibility of British animator Ivor Wood, who was working at Danot's studio at the time (and who subsequently animated The Herbs, Paddington Bear and Postman Pat). In the French version, Pollux had a comical English accent as a result of Wood's role as co-creator.

English-language version

The British (BBC) version was especially distinct from the French version in that the narration was entirely new, created by Eric Thompson from just the visuals and not based on the script by Serge Danot that accompanied the original animations.

The first BBC broadcasts were stripped across the week (shown at 5.40pm, just before the early evening news each day), which was the first time an entertainment programme had been transmitted in this way in the UK. Since BBC1 did not start broadcasting in colour until November 1969, the series was seen only in black-and-white in the UK until then.

Fifty-two additional episodes, not previously broadcast, were shown in the UK during 1992 by Channel 4. Thompson had died by this time, and the job of narrating them in a pastiche of Thompson's style went to Nigel Planer.

The British Dougal was grumpy and loosely based on Tony Hancock. Ermintrude was rather matronly and fond of singing. Dylan was a hippy-like, guitar-playing rabbit, and rather dopey. Florence was portrayed sensibly. Brian was unsophisticated but well-meaning. Zebedee was an almost human creature in a soldier's uniform with a spring instead of feet; he frequently went "Boing!" and regularly closed the show with the phrase "Time for bed." In the original French pilot he was seen emerging from a jack-in-the-box, which explains the spring. In the foreword to the recent re-release of the books, Emma Thompson explains that her father had felt that he was most like Brian of all the characters and that Ermintrude was in some respects based upon his wife.

Other characters include Mr MacHenry, Mr Rusty, Uncle Hamish and Angus (in "Dougal's Scottish Holiday"), and the train. Three other children, Paul, Basil and Rosalie, appeared in the early episodes and in the credit sequence, but very rarely in subsequent episodes.

Part of the show's attraction was that it appealed to adults, who enjoyed the world-weary Hancock-style comments made by Dougal, as well as to children. The audience measured eight million at its peak.

There is speculation about possible interpretations of the show. One theory is that the characters represented French politicians of the time (Dougal being De Gaulle for instance, although he was named Pollux in the French version). Another is that each character was addicted to a different type of psychotropic drug, mainly because of the very laid-back rabbit, Dylan, named after Bob Dylan, but also because the whole show had a psychedelic look to it, and many of the characters chewed on flowers and sugar cubes. However, Eric Thompson's widow, Phyllida Law, denied any reference to drugs was intended.

In 1998, Thompson's stories were published as a series of four paperbacks, The Adventures Of Dougal, The Adventures Of Brian, The Adventures Of Dylan and The Adventures Of Ermintrude with forewords by Emma Thompson (Eric's daughter). The paperbacks were a major success for Bloomsbury Publishing plc.

For years, the series had re-runs on Cartoon Network, and was later moved to its sister channel, Boomerang.

Other versions

In Italy part of the series was broadcast in the late 1970s by the RAI state television network: in that version Pollux-Dougal was renamed Bobo and the show stuck with the idea of giving each character his own voice. Bobo was still referred to as English but did not have an accent. The Italian theme for the series became something of a minor hit in children's music.

In Germany and in Austria it was translated to "Das Zauberkarussell", in Austria there was in 1974/75 a special version in "Betthupferl" (the same then the German "Mr. Sandman") called "Cookie and his friends" - Cookie and his friend Apollonius always went through a hole in a tree to join the garden. The name of the magician "Zebedee" in German is "Zebulon" - as well the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel.

In 2007, a new TV version of The Magic Roundabout has been created using the CGI characters from the movie. The original characters have all returned, along with a few new ones created for the film. 52 episodes are planned for the series.

Theme tunes

Both the French and the British versions had distinctive theme tunes. The French tune was quite an upbeat pop tune played on a Hammond organ with child-adult vocals. The English version, by Alain Legrand, removed the vocals and increased the tempo of the tune while making it sound as if it were played on a fairground organ.

Film versions

Dougal and The Blue Cat

Main article: Dougal and the Blue Cat

Danot made a longer film, Pollux et le chat bleu, in 1972 which was also adapted by Thompson and shown in Britain as Dougal and the Blue Cat. The cat, named Buxton, was working for the Blue Voice who wanted to take over the garden. The Blue Voice was voiced by Fenella Fielding and was the only time that Eric Thompson called in another person to voice a character. The Blue Cat heard of Dougal's plan and made him face his ultimate weakness, and locked him in a room full of sugar.

2005 film

Main article: The Magic Roundabout (film)

In 2005, a film adaptation (also called The Magic Roundabout) was released. It was made using modern computer animation, and adopted the French approach of each character having its own voice rather than using a narrator. The voices include Tom Baker, Joanna Lumley, Ian McKellen, Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams. The 2-Disc Special Edition of the UK DVD of the film features five of the original Magic Roundabout episodes on the second disc. They are all presented in black and white with the option of viewing them in English or in their original French language.

In 2006, the film was released in the US as "Doogal". This version featured rewritten dialogue and a new storyline made to accommodate pop culture references and flatulence jokes (neither of which were present in the original release). It also added narration by Judi Dench, and the majority of original British voices were replaced by celebrities more familiar to the American public, such as Jon Stewart and Chevy Chase. Only two original voices remained: those of Kylie Minogue and Ian McKellen. Americans panned the movie. It has a 2.6/10 score on IMDb, got 7% from Rotten Tomatoes [[1]], received an F rating from Entertainment Weekly magazine, and has been described as one of the worst animated films of all time.[[2]] As of March 16, 2006, it grossed a total of 7.2 million dollars in the United States, which is considered exceptionally low by CGI animated film standards (the average domestic gross for a computer animated film is $134,571,721).

Musical spinoffs

In 1975 Jasper Carrott recorded a short, risqué comic monologue, parodying The Magic Roundabout, which was released on a single as the B-side of his comic song "Funky Moped". The record was a hit, but Carrott always claimed people were buying it for the B-side and not for the song, which he soon came to hate. The show's theme music also featured on two minor UK hit singles in 1991, "Summer's Magic" by Mark Summers and "Magic Style" by The Badman.

Road traffic spinoff

The name "Magic Roundabout" has been applied in the United Kingdom to large road traffic circulation systems with unconventional layout - at Swindon, for example. The popularity of the TV show coincided with the introduction of such schemes and soon became associated with any complex traffic roundabout. The complex in Hertfordshire at Hemel Hempstead, with its large central roundabout surrounded by six smaller ones, has attracted this nickname. [1]

Whereas these highway junctions have acquired the nickname "Magic Roundabout" due to their being unusual or complex, in central Cardiff Paris-born artist Pierre Vivant (1952-), Cardiff's "Magic Roundabout" was erected in 1992, having been commissioned by Cardiff Bay Arts Trust (now known as Safle, since merging with Cywaith Cymru in 2007). It continues to serve as a useful local landmark during a period of considerable change in the area surrounding Cardiff's old docklands. The "Magic Roundabout" nickname is used with a certain amount of affection by still-amused locals. [2]

Magic Roundabout and the RAF

The RAF's 8th Squadron's Avro Shackleton airborne early warning aircraft were named after characters from The Magic Roundabout and The Herbs:

References

  1. ^ History of the roundabout at the Hemel Hempstead Today website of the Hemel Gazette Newspaper . Accessed July 2007.
  2. ^ http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/cardiff-news/2007/11/15/capital-s-magic-roundabout-is-picked-for-2008-calendar-91466-20112293/
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