The Magic Roundabout

The Magic Roundabout (Le Manège enchanté) is a French children's television series created in 1963 by Serge Danot, with the help of English animator Ivor Wood and his wife Josiane. The series was originally broadcast from 1963 to 1967 on ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française), then on the same channel from 1973 to 1977, and finally on Mangas from 1993 to 1995.

An English adaptation was produced by the BBC, first airing from 1965 to 1977. A further 52 episodes were adapted in 1991.

Dubbing History
When the series was first offered to the BBC, it was rejected as "charming... but difficult to dub into English". Subsequently, for whatever reason, the BBC's Head of Children's Programming gave the project a second look. It was passed on to Joy Whitby, producer of Play School. British actor Eric Thompson, who was at the time working as a presenter of Play School, was asked to do the adapt the scripts. Rather than adapt the original scripts, Thompson wrote the scripts based solely on the visuals, injecting much irony, wit, humor, social commentary and melancholy into his scripts. As a result, the English adaptation bore little relation to the original.

While the original French version used a separate voice cast to voice the characters, the English version used a single narrator who voiced all the characters, as done in many British Children's series. The Magic Roundabout, broadcast in 389 five-minute-long episodes from 18 October 1965 to 25 January 1977, was a great success and attained cult status. Part of the show's attraction was that it appealed to adults, who enjoyed the world-weary Tony Hancock-style comments made by Dougal, as well as to children. The audience measured eight million at its peak, and when in 1967 it was moved from the slot just before the evening news to an earlier children's viewing time, adult viewers complained to the BBC.

During the 1980's, a dub was made for airing in America, which would air on the children's television show Pinwheel. This version, titled The Magic Carousel, seemed to have been based more off the French version, having lacked narration and the characters had separate voices. The actors for this dub are currently unknown, they are likely to be actors from Pinwheel, with only Dougal's voice actor, Pinwheel writer Michael Karp, being identified. Dylan and Mr. MacHenry have their original French names (Flappy and Mr. Young, respectively), with Mr. Rusty having Mr. MacHenry's name.

52 additional episodes, which were falsely claimed to have not yet received an English adaptation, were shown in the United Kingdom during 1991 on Channel 4's News Daily. Eric Thompson had died by this time, and the job of adapting and narrating them in a pastiche of Thompson's style went to actor Nigel Planer. An additional 43 episodes were narrated by Planer from April to September of 1993, this time, with most of the episodes coming from a batch of new French episodes which were broadcast during that same year up until 1995.

Then, for reasons unknown the episodes had a third redubbing several years later, this time by Jimmy Hibbert, who added a great sense of energy and zaniness to the series. Hibbert's narration, whilst taking several liberties, was much closer to the French version in comparison to Thompson and Planer's narrations. This version of the series aired on Cartoon Network in the UK, concurrently with the episodes narrated by Nigel Planer.

🇺🇸 [[united states|United States]] Pinwheel Dub

 * Michael Karp - Dougal

Trivia

 * When the British version was first shown to the French film-makers, they thought that the British name Dougal for their character Pollux was intended to poke fun at French president Charles de Gaulle, mishearing Douglas as "De Gaulle".
 * In the Pinwheel dub of the series, the magic garden is referred to as "Beautywood" instead.