The Magic Roundabout

Although the characters are common to the French and English versions, they were given different names and personalities in each language. The main character is Dougal (also known as Doogal; Pollux in the original French-language version), who was a drop-eared variety of the Skye Terrier. Other characters include Zebedee (Zébulon), a talking jack-in-the-box with magical powers; Brian (Ambroise), a snail; Ermintrude (Azalée), a cow; and Dylan (named after Bob Dylan) (Flappy), a hippy rabbit. There are two notable human characters: Florence (Margote), a young girl; and Mr Rusty (le Père Pivoine), the elderly moustached operator of the roundabout. Other characters included Mr McHenry (Bonhomme Jouvence), the elderly gardener who rode a tricycle, and a talking locomotive with a 4-2-2 wheel arrangement and a two-wheel tender. Three other children, Paul, Basil and Rosalie, appeared in the original black-and-white serial and in the credit sequence of the colour episodes, but very rarely in subsequent episodes. The characters all reside in a place called The Magic Garden (Beautywood in the US version). The show has a distinctive visual style. The set is a brightly coloured and stylised park containing the eponymous roundabout (a fairground carousel). The programmes were created using stop-motion animation, which meant that Dougal was made without legs to make him easier 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, Postman Pat, Gran and Bertha). ==English-language version==

Narration in the British BBC version was entirely new and bears very little to no resemblance to the French version. It was created by Eric Thompson from just the visuals, without any translation of the French scripts by Serge Danot. Thompson provided all the voices, whereas in the French version each character was voiced by a different actor. The first British broadcasts were shown every weekday on BBC1 at 17:50, just before the early-evening news at 17:55. ==Foreign-language versions==

• In Italy, the series was known as "La giostra incantata" ("The Enchanted Carousel") and part of the series was broadcast since 1970 by the RAI state television network. In this version, Pollux/Dougal was renamed Bobo (initially Peluche) and the show stuck with the idea of giving each character its own voice. Bobo was still referred to as English but did not have an accent. The series was then re-distributed to local broadcasters as "Bobo & Company". • In Portugal, the series was known as "Carrossel Mágico" (spelled as "Carrocel Mágico"), and aired on RTP in 1966. The dub was based on the original French version (with the characters having their own voices), and several of the characters were renamed, with Pollux/Dougal being called "Franjinhas". It was also the first foreign children's series to be dubbed into European Portuguese. • In Germany and in Austria it was translated to Das Zauberkarussell. Most of the characters are given different names, except for Dougal and Zebedee who retain their original French names (Pollux and Zebulon, respectively). • In Austria there was in 1974/75 a special version in "Betthupferl" (the same as the German "Mr Sandman") called Gucki und seine Freunde (Cookie and his Friends), in which Cookie and his friend Apollonius always went through a hole in a tree to join the garden. • In the United States, the series was called The Magic Carousel and it aired in the 1980s on Pinwheel, a programme on the children's channel Nickelodeon. This version used American actors such as Michael Karp (the voice of Dougal in this version) and was based on the original French incarnation, such as the scripts being word for word translations, and the characters having voices strikingly similar to the French dub's voices. Dylan and Mr. McHenry also retain their original French names (Flappy and Bonhomme Jouvence a.k.a. Mr. Young, respectively) with Mr Rusty having Mr. McHenry's name. Aside from that however, most of the characters have their names from the British version. • In the Netherlands, a Dutch version was aired by the NTS (Dutch Television Foundation, one of the national broadcasters at the time) in black-and-white as De Minimolen ('The Mini Carousel'). Running from 5 June till 30 September 1967, the series aired on a six-days-per-week basis. The script in Dutch was written by Wim Meuldijk, who at the time was very successful in writing (and co-producing) the Pipo children's series. A brief second run of De Minimolen went on air in the late summer of 1980. ==Theme tunes==

The show's theme by Alain Legrand, was a cheerful organ tune. In the early black-and-white episodes, it was played more slowly with a degree of sadness. There were also two different additional theme songs for reruns of the original French version; the first, "C'est moi, Pollux" (1983), was a moderately popular single in France, while the theme from 1990 was an upbeat Hammond organ pop tune with children's vocals. ==Film versions==

Unlike the series, both films featured a villain in the Magic Roundabout canon. Dougal and the Blue Cat Danot made a longer film, Pollux et le chat bleu, in 1970 which was also adapted by Thompson and shown in Britain as Dougal and the Blue Cat. The story centers around Dougal, who becomes suspicious when a blue cat arrives at the Magic Garden. It turned out the cat, named Buxton, was working for an unseen voice (named the Blue Voice) of an abandoned factory, who wanted to take over the garden and turn everything into the colour blue. Upon this takeover, the residents of the garden also ended up being imprisoned, except for Dougal, who made a plan to rescue his friends. Among the film's many highlights, Buxton made a disguised Dougal face his ultimate weakness by locking him in a room full of sugar. The Blue Voice was voiced by Fenella Fielding and was the only time that Eric Thompson called in another person to voice a character. 2005 CGI film In 2005, a film adaptation (also called The Magic Roundabout) was released. The movie was about Dougal, Ermintrude, Brian and Dylan going on a quest to stop Zebedee's evil twin Zeebad, who intends on creating an eternal winter. It was made using modern computer animation, and adopted the approach of the original creator, Serge Danot, of giving each character its own voice rather than using a narrator. The voices included Tom Baker, Joanna Lumley, Ian McKellen, Jim Broadbent, Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Ray Winstone, Bill Nighy and Lee Evans. The film received mixed reviews, with a 50% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while Total Film ranked it as the 45th worst children's movie ever made. The two-disc special edition of the UK DVD of the film features five of the original Magic Roundabout episodes (including the English version of "Mr. Rusty Meets Zebedee", the very first episode from 1965) on the second disc. They are all presented in the original black-and-white with the option of viewing them in English or in the original French. In 2006, the film was released in the US as Doogal. The majority of original British voices were replaced by celebrities more familiar to the American public, such as Whoopi Goldberg and Chevy Chase. Only two original voices remained: those of Kylie Minogue and Ian McKellen. The final North American version was panned. As of September 2020, it had an 8% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It received a score of 23 out of 100 ("generally unfavorable") on Metacritic, and an F rating from Entertainment Weekly magazine. It was also a financial failure, grossing a total of 7.2 million dollars in the United States, which is considered low by CGI animated film standards. 2007 continuation as a TV series In 2007, a new TV version of The Magic Roundabout was created, with 52 x 11-minute episodes. The series was produced by Action Synthese, Films Action, Ellipsanime and Play Production with the participation of M6, Nickelodeon UK and Disney Television France. The scripts and voices were produced in the UK. The show was directed by Graham Ralph of Silver Fox Films and produced by Theresa Plummer Andrews. Using the CGI designed versions of the original characters from the 2005 film also produced by Action Synthese, the only new characters taken from the film are Mr. Grimsdale the baker and Soldier Sam. The series takes place after the events of the 2005 film of the same name. The new series also created a few original characters of its own such as Fly and Dougal's Auntie Primrose. Every episode would begin with Zebedee giving a brief summary to the audience of what will happen, before the plot begins. The episodes would also end with Zebedee throwing a party after the problems have been solved, with Dylan droopily remarking, "I wish it was time for bed, man..." (in reference to the original series' quote "Time for bed") before drifting off to sleep. The series was first broadcast in the UK from 22 October 2007 at 8.00 am on satellite channel Nick Jr. It was also broadcast on the children's channel of China Central Television (CCTV-14) in Chinese during 2017 and was briefly available on Netflix in the US. In October 2008, a Double DVD Bumper Pack Boxset of the 2007 reboot was released from Abbey Home Media, called ''Dougal's Darling and The Wishing Tree''. It featured 12 Season 1 episodes, all of which are in order except for the two titular episodes. In 2010, a second season of 52 11-minute episodes was created. This season included ZDF as an additional participator. ==Records==

In 1971, BBC Records released The Magic Roundabout (RBT 8), an LP containing 10 stories taken from the soundtracks of the TV series as told by Eric Thompson. The stories were: "Dougal's Experiment", "A Starry Night", "The Moody Concerto", "Dougal's Adventure", and "The Stiff Necked Heliotropes" on side one and "The Birds School", "The Piano Carrier", "Banana Skin", "The Musical Box", and "The Announcer" on side two. This album has been re-released twice on CD by the BBC, first in 2005 (BBC Audio:Children's) to coincide with the 'new' film and again in 2010 (Vintage Beeb), featuring the original LP artwork and a bonus interview with Eric Thompson. French soundtrack recordings were also issued in France in the 1960s on three EPs and again on an LP Pollux in 1983, along with an original single "C'est moi Pollux". ==Theatre==

A theatre production called The World Premiere of the Magic Roundabout was performed at the Gordon Craig Theatre on 17-20 August 1993 and the Palace Theatre on 23-28 August 1993. The show was produced and directed by David Graham for DGM Production, and featured Don Cotter as Brian, Meg Dixon as Florence, Anne Fawcett as Ermintrude, Kim Joyce as Zebedee and Mr Rusty, David Moran as Dougal, and Jack Randle as Dylan. ==Revival==

A revival of the series is in the works at Mediawan (who acquired AB Groupe in 2017, whose previously produced the fourth season and remastered the previous three seasons including their original French version) through French animation production studio Method Animation and British animation studio Wildseed Studios with Jérôme Brizé's production company and rights to the series Magic! co-producing. ==Home releases==

Between 1993 and 1997, two videos of the re-narrated version have been released by PolyGram Video. In 1999, the original film Dougal and the Blue Cat has released on video by Second Sight Television. Apart from the original film Dougal and the Blue Cat, the series has yet to receive any standalone release on DVD, but five of the original black-and-white episodes, including the series premiere, "Mr. Rusty Meets Zebedee", have been included as a bonus on the second disc of the UK Special Edition DVD of the 2005 CGI film. The other episodes included are "Camping", "Perfume", "Jumping Beans", and "Rocking Chair" from March 1967. Except for the series premiere, those four episodes also feature their original French versions with English subtitles. Between 2008 and 2010, five DVDs of the 2007 reboot series have been released by Abbey Home Media. ==In popular culture==

• Giant versions of Dougal and Zebedee, both the size of a small house, are featured in The Goodies episode "The Goodies Rule – O.K.?" Dougal also makes a brief appearance in another Goodies episode, "It Might as Well Be String". • The title and characters appeared as a regular weekly feature in the children's comics TV Toyland, Playhour, Bonnie, See-Saw, and Playgroup. In Playhour Gordon Hutchings drew comic strips based on The Magic Roundabout for that magazine's front cover. • No. 8 Squadron RAF nicknamed their Avro Shackleton early warning aircraft after characters from the show as well as characters from The Herbs. ==References==