The Magic Roundabout Collectibles...
The Magic Roundabout (known in the original French as Le Manège
enchanté) was a children's television programme created in France in 1963 by Serge Danot. Some five hundred
five-minute-long episodes were made and were originally broadcast between 1964 and 1971 on ORTF.
The series also attained great success in the United Kingdom. The English version was narrated by Eric
Thompson, the father of actresses Emma Thompson and Sophie Thompson, and
was broadcast from 18 October 1965 to January 1977. This version of the show attained cult status, and was watched
as much by adults for its dry humour as by the children for whom it was intended.
Giant versions of Dougal and Zebedee (both are the size of a small house) are
both featured in The Goodies episode "The Goodies Rule – O.K.?" Dougal also makes a brief
appearance in another Goodies episode, "It Might as Well Be String".
In Bill Bailey's stand up show Bewilderness he explains how he also found the iconic music from
the show sinister, and notes how it goes "on and on, like Dante's seventh circle of Hell". He then proceeds to play
the music with the "secret middle section, deemed unsuitable for small children" reincorporated, which details how
Zebedee, "Lord of the Woods", is in fact a hideously deformed freak of nature rejected by society
and his horrified parents and is now the evil ruler of the Roundabout universe.
In the Bottom episode "Dough", Eddie forges a 27 pound note, with a pornographic image on it depicting Sylvester
Stallone 'fisting' Mr. McHenry.
In the Spaced episode "Art", when Daisy goes for a job interview at a popular magazine while under
the influence of marijuana, she imagines the theme music playing over the interviewer's voice.

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