The absolute very first time I watched Magic Roundabout might just have been in the late 60s. I would’ve been under 5 so suspect I missed all the drug-taking references and simply took the show at face value ie Dougal was a normal paranoid dog with an unusual but entirely innocent desire for 'sugar lumps' and Dylan was one of the few hippies in Britain who wasn’t off his tits 90% of the time. And, as for that bouncing pea-headed creature called Zebedee….well, I’d hope that even my toddler self would have had his suspicions.
The show was originally created for French TV (albeit by an English animator called Ivor Wood – which sounds like the sort of name we’d dream up at school) but it was Emma Thompson’s dad who actually made it funny (the French would hardly have managed that on their own, would they) by coming up with new characters and dialogue based on the original footage. This isn’t the first time a bunch of Brits have injected humour into some worthy French nonsense – and I’m thinking Flashing Blade (re-written by Russell T. 'Dr Who' Davies no less), the Battle of Agincourt and the 2012 Olympics when London got the nod over Paris (granted, those last 2 aren’t the best examples but it’s good to remind our Gallic friends of these defeats once in a while).
And if you think me poking fun at the French seems a bit too xenophobic, wait until you hear about Emma's dad who steadfastly refused to take his family to a French restaurant, banned berets & striped jumpers from the house and created his ‘cheddar and brie’ storyline in one of the earlier episodes as a deliberate reference to cheese-eating surrender monkeys* so I’m a positive Francophile in comparison.
*ok, I made that last one up.....and the one before (the first one's true though).
The great thing about putting Magic Roundabout on just 5 minutes before the news was that it encouraged the show’s UK team to appeal to both adults and kids, something which happens all the time now (Shrek, Toy Story, every animated film from Disney since 2000) but it was quite the rarity in the 60s and 70s. I’ve just watched an episode in which Ermintrude (the red-spotted pink cow) comments on nationalising the railways - a classic topic of kindergarten banter - and there’s another where, after Zebedee tells everybody that it’s time for bed, Florence politely answers “already?” (instead of “who TF do you think you are...my dad?” which is what she should’ve said) prompting the spring-loaded giant insect with the Sergeant Major moustache to explain it’s time for the news …..which of course it really was (thus breaking the 4th wall and paving the way for the Young Ones and Deadpool – who’d have thought?).
Dougal's name outraged the French creators because they thought it was a piss-take of their President, de Gaulle - something which Emma’s dad denied in a TV interview but, fingers crossed, he was just messing with their heads even more and it really was a piss-take all along. Dougal looked like a sausage dog (is that what he was? I’ve never really thought about it – he just didn’t have any legs and so would slide around like Brian the snail) and his depressing observations on life came straight from comedian Tony Hancock who, for any younger readers, used to spend a Half Hour entertaining our folks every week on the radio and considerably longer doing the same thing in person to the wife of Sergeant Wilson off Dad's Army.
Apparently, the cheerfully optimistic Brian was based on Eric Thompson himself whilst Mollie Sugden channelled the essence of Ermintrude to create her Mrs Slocombe character in Are You Being Served (although I don’t remember Ermintrude making so many references to her furry friend). By the way, I SO fancied Miss Brahms when I was younger but we didn't have a department store in my home town for me to fantasise about our inevitable meeting and I couldn't really imagine her behind the counter at Woolies weighing up my Pick n Mix (yes, I'm sure there's some sort of innuendo in there somewhere).
Florence, at face value, appeared to be a charming little girl with her rosy cheeks and that cheeky blue bow in her hair…..but she was also the one who supplied Dougal with his regular fix of ‘sugar lumps’. Just saying. And, as for Dylan, he was played by Bill Nighy in the 2004 movie which tells you all you need to know about the character.
As ever, the theme tune was truly memorable (although it sounded like it was recorded with 19th century technology - take a listen here). The opening and closing credits always had Florence and her 3 young friends (who she ignores for the rest of the programme) bunking off school and riding the horses on the carousel (with one horse mysteriously riderless – why no conspiracy theories on the internet?) while some lecherous old weirdo cranked the music box nearby and leered at them.
Besides the drug references, Magic Roundabout was often hijacked for lazy and cheap comedic purposes (this blog being a perfect case in point). In 1975, long before his TV series and his lucrative part-ownership of the rights to ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ and well before his daughter turned up on reception in The Office, Jasper Carrott had released a novelty single called Funky Moped which was languishing in the nether regions of the charts. He then happened across one of the two most effective marketing ploys of the 70s/80s to boost sales. Unable to convince ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty to feature his song on one of their Levi 501 jeans commercials (and, as a result, delaying Nick Kamen’s striptease in the laundrette for another 10 years), he did the next best thing and made sure the BBC listened to the B-Side of the single. It was a slightly risqué take on a Magic Roundabout script and, predictably, those pompous old farts at the BBC promptly banned it, thereby catapulting it into the Top 10 with sales of half a million copies.
Listening to it again, it's pretty tame compared to what came afterwards (a few years later, Frankie Goes to Hollywood had to tell us all to relax when we wanted to come before they could sit back and wait for Mike Read and his BBC bosses to do the rest) but the suggestion that Florence was not a virgin (apparently ‘she drops them for certain’) and Dougal’s literal response to being told to piss off by Dylan was sufficient provocation for the BBC in the 70s.
Although Eric Thompson’s subtle and gentle adult humour was enough to ruffle the feathers of the French creators, Jasper Carrott’s sexual innuendo might have been more to their liking (you know how kinky the French are). “Thanks for sticking up for me” says Florence with a wink at Dylan near the end of Jasper’s track. “Time for bed” is Dylan's sleazy reply. Touché, mon ami.
Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME...70s/80s TV ADVERTS
If you like this blog, please take a look elsewhere on the website (here) for similar nostalgic takes on Grease, mixed tapes, Saturday Morning TV and the Young Ones amongst others.
And if you don't want to miss a new post, subscribe for free here
