Jérôme Brizé, founder of Magic, co-producers of the new series, who manages the rights to the Magic Roundabout on behalf of Martine Danot, admits Thompson’s approach gave the British version a certain adult appeal, but doubts the celebrated actor and script writer would get away with doing the same these days. Photograph: David Newell Smith/The Observerĭanot was less happy with Dougal’s English name – he was convinced Thompson was having a sly dig at the French president Charles de Gaulle. And what was in those sugar cubes that sent Dougal spinning in circles? Every episode ended with Zebedee (Ze Baddie, another Thompson invention) declaring: “Time for bed”.Įric Thompson with characters from The Magic Roundabout. To young fans, the hippy, guitar-strumming rabbit Dylan was just dopey – while it was evident to parents that he had clearly been smoking something. At its height, The Magic Roundabout, shown in the five-minute slot before the early evening news on BBC1, was attracting about 8 million viewers.
While it was a huge hit with children, Thompson’s double entendres also appealed to adults. Instead of translating them, he turned down the French sound and made up the narrative as he went along. Thompson deemed the original French stories simplistic and dull. In the end, its success in the UK was credited to narrator Eric Thompson, the father of actor Emma Thompson, who was presenting BBC2’s Play School at the time. The BBC was initally unimpressed, rejecting the programme twice as charming but too “weird”, before agreeing to buy it in 1965. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
For more information see our Privacy Policy. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. In the end Danot made about 700 and The Magic Roundabout went global it was translated into 30 languages and broadcast in more than 60 countries, including Iran and Japan. It was an instant hit, and a further 50 episodes were ordered. ” Dylan, meanwhile, was called Flappy and had a heavy Spanish accent, while Brian the snail was Ambroise and Ermintrude the cow, Azalée.įrance’s state broadcaster originally commissioned 13 programmes, the first of which was broadcast in black and white in October 1964. “Serge gave him a heavy English accent, which French people found enormously amusing. But after the first few programmes viewers began writing asking to see more of the dog, so he became the main character,” she said. “At first he didn’t say anything, he just made a strange noise. “He was originally a minor character in the programme,” Danot told the Guardian back then. In 2004, Danot’s widow Martine, now in her early 70s, recalled how Dougal (Pollux in the French version) was an unexpected star. His pink, red, blue and orange merry-go-round was set in a magic garden where the colour green, which he hated, was bizarrely absent.įrom left: Mr Rusty, Zebedee, Florence and Dougal. The Magic Roundabout started life as Le Manège Enchanté, created by Frenchman Serge Danot, a former decorator whose previous claim to fame was that he had helped paint the Eiffel Tower. “The response to the news has been enormous. “In England, The Magic Roundabout was not just an iconic programme of the 1960s it was a cultural reference in animation, but the context today isn’t the same as in the 1960s so we have to find a path between the two. It’s not a question of going back into the past, but of reviving this iconic work with the techniques of the present,” Oesch said. “We want to respect the characters, personalities and spirit of the original. Producer Camille Oesch said there was huge global interest in reviving the programme, and that while the new series, expected to air in 2024, was aimed at a young audience of three– to five-year-olds, she hoped it would “recreate the magic of the Magic Roundabout”.
#Magic garden story box series#
Now, Florence and friends are set to enchant a new generation of pre-school youngsters with a series of 52 11-minute programmes produced by Mediawan’s Method Animation, the company behind The Little Prince and Robin Hood. It was described as “dumbed down” and a tragic bypassing of the cheeky 60s original and plans for a sequel were quickly binned.
#Magic garden story box tv#
Photograph: Photo 12/AlamyĪ 2005 film based on the TV series, failed to revive its fortunes despite being voiced by a cast of A-list stars including Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Tom Baker, Joanna Lumley, Bill Nighy and Ian McKellen. Le Manège Enchanté (The Magic Roundabout) created by Serge Danot.
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