mongrel

No, it aired in Australia as well, albeit on a network which has a high concentration of British shows. An absolute classic!

Dean Anderson

It was originally a French childrens programme ("Manege Enchante") from the early 60's. The 'plot' was that one of the characters ("Mr Rusty" in the English version - I don't know his name in the original French version) owned a Magic Roundabout (hence the name of the show), but the Magic had gone out of it and it no longer worked.

Zebedee (who I believe is the only character who kept the same name in the French and English versions) was a boxless Jack-in-the-box who bounced around on his spring and was kind of the "familiar spirit" of the fairground. He invited some children to come and play in the fairground, in the hope that their playing would bring back the magic. As well as the children (the one you see the most of is Magrete, but there were actually three of them), there were a few magical talking animals in the place. These were actually fairly crude national stereotypes, for example:

Pollux - a dog. Spoke with a comedy English accent, and had a cliched uptight and "proper" English attitude.

Flappy - a rabbit. Spoke with a comedy Spanish accent, and had a cliched Spanish attitude - always in a "siesta" and playing Spanish guitar music.

There were also a snail ("Ambroise") and a cow - but I know less about their characters in the original French version.

In the later 60's, the BBC decided to buy the programme and translate it into English. The person they got to do this was Eric Thompson (a children's TV presenter, and father of Emma Thompson).

For some bizarre reason, Eric decided that rather than actually translate the French scripts, he would just completely ignore them and watch the episodes silently - then make up his own stories and dialogue to match what he saw on screen.

As such, the English version of the programme bears little resemblance to the original French version. In particular, the national stereotyping was gone, and instead he implied that the various characters were all on drugs.

Pollux was renamed to Dougal, and it was implied that the sugar cubes he was fond of eating were spiked with LSD.

Flappy was renamed to Dylan, and it was very strongly implied that his always-tired demeanor was due to him being a complete stoner. In particular, he spoke like a total hippy.

Ambroise was renamed to Brian, and seemed to be on amphetamines.

The cow was named "Ermintrude", and Magrete was renamed to Florence.

Of course, whilst the implications of drug use went completely over the heads of the children watching (and apparently the BBC and TV censors), the psychadelic nature of Eric's rewritten plots and characters appealed to the hippy generation and the programme gained quite a cult following amongst students - who tended to watch it whilst under the influence of various substances (the Teletubbies has a similar following amongst today's students...)

placebo messiah

you need BOOBAH

IamMoose

LOL it's funny but when I watched it as a kid, I never got any of these references . Well, maybe it's not funny really as I don't suppose I could be expected to but anyway . I do think that kids programmes of my generation were much better than they are today, but that's perhaps personal prejudice. What has the new generation got that that can rival the Flumps or Bagpuss or Mr Benn??

IamMoose

*threatens to post a new guinea pig picture, as it's gone distressingly quiet*

Xulfer Cirtsag

I'm hungry, and interested in possible new perfume scents. :devil1:

IamMoose

*blinks non comprehendingly*

Xulfer Cirtsag

Food. Women should smell like food if they want to attract guys. Isn't it obvious?

IamMoose

*artistically drapes bowl of spaghetti over self*

hang on wait .. I DON'T want to attract guys. I've had enough of guys to last me a lifetime..

Xulfer Cirtsag

It might be tougher to attract women that way. I tried smearing myself with chocolate and that didn't work even.