The Magic Roundabout

The Magic Roundabout is a kids program made many years ago in the 1970s this the was another form of stop motion animation and how to entertain children by using toys. This TV programme was created by a man called Serge Danot in 1965 when his show was shown on television it then became a legend and very popular especially for children. It was only a short five minute episode every time they was played mainly just before the new of a new programme was starting. The characters in the episode were toys and parts of the set were made out of playdoe, this shows another way of how to produce stop motion animation. There was a wide range of The Magic Roundabout episodes shown and made because it look to long to make as the amount of shots they had to use oer second for example for this type of animation it would of taken 25 shots per second estimating at 7500 pictures per episode to make the effect fluent and look like they were really moving.
The purpose of making this episode is to mainly entertain children and to make it memorable as children at a young age will want to repeatedly see a episode like this over again because it makes it exciting for them. It is clearly aimed at young children as most programs have similar storys and charcters to compare with and to have i wider option of entertainment. The story of The Magic Roundabout that it is trying to tell to the children is the adventures of the characters which varied in each episode and for that there was a different story for each episode shown about the different characters and the storys they had to tell.
The Magic Roundabout was made in a very simple way and form, the set was hand made out of wood with a background that was painted to go with the story of the episode. The characters were made out of toys and certain bits in the set were made by playdoe. The story was made by moving each charcter and after each movement they took a picture to then create a story.
The Magic Roundabout was very effective when it was invented to children as it was bright and colourful which children will connect with as the colours makes the set seem happy and cheerful, there was different characters to tell the storys better and it made each episode different to the previous from the 7 characters. It was likeable by children as they wanted to keep watching it, this is a reason why it has become successful today and how it has brought a film out of the magic roundabout because it was so likeable by the viewers and it became very popular back when it first came out. The weaknesses of this program is that there wasnt very many of them shot because it just took too long to make and edit to put all together, it may of been more successful if there was more episode made and shown on TV. Also another weakness is that the shots were jerky in the way they have been put together to make this episode but when this was invented at the time it would of been a new fun entertainment for children.