That's what happened to me today with The Magic Roundabout.
The Magic Roundabout was a 1964-1971 stop-motion television show created by Serge Danot and Ivor Wood (Postman Pat, Paddington Bear), narrated by Eric Thompson and later Nigel Planer. It followed the day-to-day misadventures of a young girl named Florence and her colorful menagerie of friends, including egotistical and sarcastic Dougal the dog, Zebedee the jack-in-the-box, Dylan the hippie rabbit and many others. Originally a French creation, the show was picked up by the BBC, who re-dubbed each episode with a new script completely different from the French original and with no input from Serge at all.
And it shows. Oh, my sweet Christ above, does it show.
Because the BBC never asked for the script or for translations, and only had the footage in front of them to work with, the resulting programme was completely different from the French. And by "completely different" I mean "batshit drug-influenced insane". Whilst some episodes had coherant plots, others flitted schizophrenically back and forth with no focus on one thing - a single episode could touch on philosophy, complain about the post office and advise on house-hunting in one breath. Not to say that it still isn't a classic - Dougal's pompous sarcasm still gets a laugh from me now and again - but there are moments when you just wish the Brits and French had been in contact with each other more.
In order to demonstrate just what is wrong with the show, I will detail what happens in the episode shown below.
It starts off with Florence meeting up with Dougal, who is stuffing his face with huge amounts of sugar like a child. This seems like perfectly in-character behavior, considering a major character trait of his is a crippling sweet tooth, and let's face it, who among us hasn't wanted to do that as a kid at some point? But the first problem sets in when Dougal claims that it's because he's hypoglycemic, and needs the sugar to balance out his metabolism.
Problem Number 1: The show, as a consequence of trying to fit the script to the footage, throws up topics and terminology that kids would have no way of understanding or knowing about. Already they've been confronted with a serious medical condition, but being kids they will have no way of knowing what it is and why this is an issue that causes Florence to react with genuine surprise and concern. Not that I'd prefer the show treat them like idiots, because God knows we ought to at least try and challenge kids to think for themselves, but the amount of political and real-life conundrums that get thrown around make me wonder if the kids of the 60's were somehow weird super-geniuses with bigger brains.
Also, they got the terminology wrong. I looked it up - Hypoglycemia is a medical emergency relating to low blood sugar levels, not a condition. They would have been better off saying Dougal was diabetic, although considering he was probably lying his face off to justify gobbling sugar cubes I doubt it really matters.
Anyway, Florence suggests they take a walk, and this prompts a brief bit of filler where they walk along a repeating background of trees and plants for a bit. I'm assuming the dialogue inserted in here was just filler to avoid prolonged silence, because heaven knows I'd get bored watching a dog and a girl walk side-by-side for half a minute or so without a word spoken.
Soon, they encounter a strange plant thing, which is just a lump of plasticine with some tissue paper wrapped around it. As is usually the case with these shows, the thing is sentient, and strikes up a conversation with the two, all whilst opening up the tissue paper "petals" around it's body in a way I can't help but be slightly disturbed by. The oddly-feminine voice doesn't help, either, but then again I might be reading to much into it.
Dougal is convinced the plant is an onion, so Florence asks what it is. The plant responds thus:
"Do you mean cosmically speaking?"
...what.
"There are so many levels of reality, so many layers of truth. Don't you think?"
WHAT.
Philosophy?! You're gonna throw philosophy at kids now?!
And this is Problem Number 2: Throwing issues at children that they shouldn't really give a toss about until they enter their teens and learn about how fucked the world outside is. The talking onion is trippy enough, but now you're trying to make the audience question what is real?! Kids don't have time for that sort of stuff - they're supposed to be playing with their action figures and going to school to learn what 7 X 6 is! I've said before that you shouldn't treat kids like they're stupid, even if they are, but this is too far on the other end of the spectrum and you'll probably twist their minds directing stuff like this at them! And what makes it worse is that it's not even justifiable - it's random crap thrown in to make up for the fact the BBC couldn't be arsed to stay in contact with the French to actually make a coherent translation!
Dougal voices everyone's thoughts when he groans "Oh, good grief!"
So anyway, the onion turns out to be a blue flower with an even more disturbingly-sultry voice. I guess the whole point here is not to judge books by their cover, but the episode tackles it from such a bizarre and nonsensical angle that I can't tell if it's a genuine attempt to address it or if the whole production team was corpsing in the back of the recording studio. If they'd taken out the whole philosophical angle then it would have made far much sense and I would have understood it, but at times it feels as though the script was written as a sort of drunken in-joke that the viewers wouldn't get, which I would;t be surprised by at this time.
After Dougal and the flower bugger off, realising they're not important to the scene anymore, the most hilarious fucking thing occurs.
Zebedee bounces in, announces it's time for supper, then bounces out again.
Watching that, me and Del collapsed into fits of laughter that would impress the Game Grumps. The character literally jumps in, makes a statement that has no connection to the rest of the episode and then leaves. All of one line, barely five seconds of screen-time and his only contribution to the episode as a whole - it's like something out of a late-night sitcom written by a madman. I would love to see the original episode in the French, because I'm sure there must have been some context for his brief appearance that would justify it that was glossed over in this insane gag dub.
Florence walks back to the Roundabout and muses on the nature of life with even bigger words - exactly what a kid needs to think about when they just want to watch a silly TV show with a dog in it. Mr Rusty, the owner of the roundabout, simply quips that she should eat more green vegetables, but the episode fades to the outro before he's even finished speaking. So we end on a complete non-sequitur that adds nothing to the theme of the episode, which just about caps the insanity of what you have just witnessed.
And there you have it. Proof that, if the characters themselves weren't on drugs, then the creators certainly were. Some of the episodes are a bit more coherant - the Highland Games episode springs to mind - but there are more than a few that play out like the mental fever-dream of an LSD addict trying to write an episode of Winnie-The-Pooh. Now, if you excuse me, I need to focus on writing something that isn't a desperate wail at the knowledge that I willingly watched this madness.
Dougal voices everyone's thoughts when he groans "Oh, good grief!"
So anyway, the onion turns out to be a blue flower with an even more disturbingly-sultry voice. I guess the whole point here is not to judge books by their cover, but the episode tackles it from such a bizarre and nonsensical angle that I can't tell if it's a genuine attempt to address it or if the whole production team was corpsing in the back of the recording studio. If they'd taken out the whole philosophical angle then it would have made far much sense and I would have understood it, but at times it feels as though the script was written as a sort of drunken in-joke that the viewers wouldn't get, which I would;t be surprised by at this time.
After Dougal and the flower bugger off, realising they're not important to the scene anymore, the most hilarious fucking thing occurs.
Zebedee bounces in, announces it's time for supper, then bounces out again.
Watching that, me and Del collapsed into fits of laughter that would impress the Game Grumps. The character literally jumps in, makes a statement that has no connection to the rest of the episode and then leaves. All of one line, barely five seconds of screen-time and his only contribution to the episode as a whole - it's like something out of a late-night sitcom written by a madman. I would love to see the original episode in the French, because I'm sure there must have been some context for his brief appearance that would justify it that was glossed over in this insane gag dub.
Florence walks back to the Roundabout and muses on the nature of life with even bigger words - exactly what a kid needs to think about when they just want to watch a silly TV show with a dog in it. Mr Rusty, the owner of the roundabout, simply quips that she should eat more green vegetables, but the episode fades to the outro before he's even finished speaking. So we end on a complete non-sequitur that adds nothing to the theme of the episode, which just about caps the insanity of what you have just witnessed.
And there you have it. Proof that, if the characters themselves weren't on drugs, then the creators certainly were. Some of the episodes are a bit more coherant - the Highland Games episode springs to mind - but there are more than a few that play out like the mental fever-dream of an LSD addict trying to write an episode of Winnie-The-Pooh. Now, if you excuse me, I need to focus on writing something that isn't a desperate wail at the knowledge that I willingly watched this madness.
I love this episode! It was one of my favourites! Has it been removed from your page or is my computer being stupid, because I can't see it to watch it and I really want to.
ReplyDeleteAnd yep, I think they were all slightly mad and on all the drugs.