The Magic Roundabout (1963)
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 "Time for bed" - Zebedee
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The Magic Roundabout is an French stop-motion television series which ran from 1963 to 1976 in French, and from 18 October 1965 to 25 January 1977 in the United Kingdom. It was created by Serge Danot with assistance from Ivor Wood and his French wife, Josiane.
Why It Rocks
- The stop-motion animation in the original series is wonderful, even for the 1960s and 1970s standards and particularly when it is animated in France. The character models and the animation itself improves as the each season in the show progresses.
- The narration from Eric Thompson, later Nigel Planer (who took over after Thompson's death in 1982) and Jimmy Hibbert in the English-language version is marvellously well-written with the narrators providing accents and voices for each character to emphasize their personalities and emotions in order to fit with the animation.
- It provides great humorous moments, especially from Eric Thompson's narrations which contains his British wit and humor that he added into the scripts.
- Dougal has his funny moments as well whenever his witty dialogue are involved. There are times when he gets outsmarted by either Brian or Ermintrude.
- The characters in the series are likeable with their unique characteristic personalities in the English-language version.
- Dougal is a temperamental, but loyal dog who loves Florence and eating sugar lumps, as well as having some similarities with the comedian Tony Hancock. He also has a vitriolic friendship with Brian where the two may butt heads with each other because of Dougal occasionally insulting on a regular basis, but Dougal genuinely considers him as his best friend.
- Florence is a kind-hearted and polite young girl who is generally level-headed and very friendly to everyone. She is brought to the garden by Zebedee where she meets all of her friends, especially Dougal, and even helps them solve any problem or situation.
- Zebedee is a talking jack-in-a-box type wizard with magical powers who is summoned by his friends to solve any problems in any episode. He usually says his signature catchphrase at the end of nearly every episode "Time for bed."
- Brian is a slow, but well-meaning snail who is cheerful and happy-go-lucky, despite Dougal insulting him on a daily basis, but he is good vitriolic friends with him.
- Ermintrude is a matronly and ditzy cow who is very fond of opera-singing and is always seen munching on a flower.
- Dylan is a hippy-like and laid-back rabbit who would be seen playing his guitar and often drifts off to sleep from time to time.
- Mr. Rusty is the elderly mustached operator of the roundabout who plays the barrel organ or operate the roundabout to delight the children. He usually meets Florence at the roundabout before Zebedee arrives to take her to the garden. He was the first character to debut in the series' premiere episode.
- The relationship between Dougal and Florence in general is very heartwarming where it shows that Dougal, despite his usual grumpiness, genuinely cares for Florence as she does for him and loves her very much. He is never rude to her like he tends to do with the rest of his friends.
- The original French version of the series is also splendid with the characters having different names and their own individual voices such as Jacques Bodoin providing the voice of Dougal, known as Pollux, and Patricia Danot providing the voice of Florence, known as Margote.
Bad Qualities
- Because the show has yet to receive a DVD release, the show is only partially available on the internet with some episodes either being only available in the original french dub or the English dubs or other dubs. (Though thankfully most of the episodes with Eric Thompson's original English narration are in the BBC archives)
- Because of Dylan's character personalities that made him hippy-like and sleepy, the character could be mistaken to be on drugs by viewers.
- In Nigel Planer's re-narration of "Dylan Plays the Bagpipes", Dougal says "Come on, you retarded rabbit!" at one point which is considered very inappropriate for children.
Trivia
- When Eric Thompson was asked to provide translations for the French script, he instead chose to disregard the French script and provided his own stories based on what was happening on-screen.
- Jimmy Hibbert, who narrated the episodes on Cartoon Network which the series had re-runs, would later provide the voice of Mr. Rusty, along with Mr. Grimsdale and the skeleton guards in the 2005 film, as well as reprising his role of the former in the 2007 revival series.
- It was one of the last cartoon shows to be aired in black and white due to the massive popularity of color television before the show's second season finally made its debut in color.
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