Smash hit

The Sixties version was “psychedelic, of its time”, says Ralph. In the new series, “the characters haven’t changed, just come to a different time”. He describes resurrecting Dougal and Co. as “like working with legends. I was terrified: it was something I was brought up on.”

Dougal is rather better groomed in the new version, but Ralph wanted him still to be very much the grumbling Tony Hancock figure with “a touch of Blackadder and Victor Meldrew. Always grumpy and thinking he is better than everyone around him.” Florence is the earth mother at the core of the garden universe and Ermintrude is a wonderfully batty, trilling country aunt with a singing voice that could shatter glass. Brian is a fabulously anally retentive, trainspotter-ish snail, highly pedantic, but more than the “mindless mollusc” Dougal says he is. Ralph had Ken Dodd in the back of his mind as he was breathing new life into the magical Zebedee. He is more mischievous and manipulative than the original and, with his crimson face and lavish moustache, a faintly sinister presence.

Some things have had to go. The “Time for bed!” catchphrase that ended every episode had to be modified because the new programme will be shown at different times of the day. Now Dylan says, “I wish it was time for bed, man.” Ermintrude’s head no longer revolves when she eats flowers and Dougal’s sugar lumps have gone, but Ralph says this was “because of the food issues”. Depicting a character eating sugar was deemed unsuitable, especially when selling to the American market where there are even more restrictions on what is appropriate in children’s television than in Britain.

The producers won’t be drawn into discussion of drug references in the original. “Urban myths were added over the years just like Captain Pugwash,” says Ralph of the children’s animated series that was the subject of stories about sexual references, which turned out to be hogwash. “All successful shows get all sorts of interpretation.”

Dylan, popularly regarded as a pothead, has been “left in the Sixties. I think we still recognise that character.” But Ralph insists he is just “a lovely, lazy, laid-back rabbit”. Fair enough. Imagine the outcry if he said anything else.

Nevertheless, new interpretations of the characters are bound to spring up. Dylan still falls asleep the whole time, suffers short-term memory loss and converses in hippy-speak. An episode in which Zebedee tells him of a “great high rabbit” who bestows gifts on good bunnies will get conspiracy theorists buzzing, as will the stimulating effect that carrots have on him, making his eyes revolve and his legs move at 100 times normal speed.

The show has a very different look. At the studios in Marseilles, teams of animators in shuttered rooms stoop over computer screens fiddling with the latest computer-generated imagery (CGI) techniques. Pierre-Marie Fenech, the production manager, says the aim was to create a garden that is “a safe place where children can be happy, not a place of stress or a mirror of reality. What Serge wanted was a place where children could go in their dreams, a place they would like to be”. Using a rich palette, including plenty of Danot’s despised green, they devised a virtual reality “set” in which to put their characters. Each inhabitant of the village is “built” with a virtual skeleton and then they are made to “act”. The animators sit in front of mirrors, acting out scenes themselves, and then tapping away at their keyboards to replicate the movements in the computer puppets. An experienced animator can produce six seconds of film a day. They will have spent some 40,000 hours on animation by the time the series is completed.

In Britain, the original show worked for both children and adults, partly because it occupied the five-minute slot before the news when parents were watching with their offspring. The new show will be shown four times a day on Nick Jr, a channel dedicated to children. Accordingly, there are not so many adult jokes and the shows I am shown in Marseilles are less amusing for adult viewers. They are still witty, however. An episode in which Dylan tries to become a raver because he thinks it might make him more popular, and the other characters follow suit in order to show him how absurd he is being, has some laugh-out-loud moments.

The messages, such as the importance of friendship and not trying to be something you are not, are sound and the appeal to children is likely to be huge. I tried out both the old and new Magic Roundabouts on my kids, aged four and (almost) two. Within a minute of watching the dear, old, narrated original, my son declared, unprompted, “I don’t really like this because none of the people speak and it’s quite babyish.” But they can’t get enough of the highly produced new show. Indeed, the first thing my youngest said to me this morning was: “Want to watch Roundabout, Daddy. Want to watch Roundabout.” Parents of young children better get used to similar refrains because they’ll be going round and round in their heads until they’ll wish it was time for bed.

The world premiere of the new series of The Magic Roundabout is on October 22 at 8am on Nick Jr (Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview). For more details, visit www.nickjr.co.uk

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010