Brief blurb: The original stories back in print.

What's it all about? When The Magic Roundabout was first screened between 1965 and 1971, reactions were diverse. Dave Gilmour thought there were subliminal messages in it and urban mythology had it that all the characters were based on drugs. But the real story of how the cartoon came to be shown on the BBC is even weirder than the surreal story-lines.

Originally created by Serge Danot, the humour of the French cartoon (about a Spanish rabbit and English dog, both speaking French badly) didn't translate well. The BBC sent Thompson, then a Playschool presenter, the tapes. But Thompson reinvented everything, including the characters’ names because, according to his daughters, ‘he didn't like the French.’ Undaunted by the criticism that the stories contained too many difficult words for children, Thompson even wrote an indignant letter to a woman who had scalded her son for calling his sister a ‘mollusc’. Originally three collections of stories, published between 1971 and 1972, The Adventures of Dougal includes a search for Zebedee’s stolen moustache (apparently a falsee) and the revelation that Mr MacHenry is a midnight prowler.

Random quote: ‘It’s very exciting really,’ said Brian. ‘There's a prowler in the garden.’

‘A prowler?’ said Dougal. ‘What's he doing?’

‘Prowling,’ said Brian.