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 450 five-minute-long episodes were made and were originally broadcast between 1964 and 1971 on ORTF.
The BBC produced a version of the series using the original stop motion animation footage with new English-language scripts, written and performed by Eric Thompson, that had no relation to the original storylines. This version, broadcast from 18 October 1965 to 25 January 1977, was a great success and attained cult status, being watched by adults for its dry humour as much as by the children for whom it was intended
