Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Discuss the television and film adaptations of Enid Blyton's stories.
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Moonraker
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Moonraker »

Julie2owlsdene wrote: My hubby is a bus fanatic as well as a steam train fanatic.
We must drop by next time in the Duchy, Julie. I am sure hubby and I could exchange anoraks!

I loved the Bristol Lodekas (? spelling). They were so innovative as they could get under lower bridges than conventional double-deckers. Maybe this should be on the Garden Path thread?!
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peppermint peppy
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by peppermint peppy »

Lol-Anita,
Nigel's new signature put you in a new perspective :lol:

Nigel,
thanks for posting those pics.I love these old buses.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by fozzy »

I've only recently got hold of most of the series via Ebay and Youtube. It was on TV when I was a kid but for some reason I never managed to see much of it at the time - but I had always remembered that incredibly catchy theme tune!

I like Five go off to Camp (partly because it's about the only one I remember I did see live when it was first broadcast). Also, Five get into trouble seems to be very well done.

Generally I like the ones that stick to the book's plot, and hate the ones that are nothing like the original book (Five Run Away Together was the most disappointing in that regard - especially as it was one of my favourite books). In general I think they should have made them all two-parters. The books are slightly too long to do them justice in one 25 minute episode - all of those feel rushed to me and cut too much out. The 2-parters are much better.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Petermax »

I have always liked Five Go Off In A Caravan, it was a very pleasant episode with good production values. (ie gypsy caravans, circus, Hants and Dorset buses!) However, due to the 25 minute running time it contained just a few elements from the original book. The Southern TV Famous Five series was intended for weekday teatime slots in the TV schedules, hence the short running times. Some episodes were indeed two-parters and the more relaxed pace afforded by the 50 minute running time made for some very good adaptations. Smuggler's Top stands out as a particulary good example of this.

One can only assume that not all of the episodes were two-parters due to a combination of cost, restricted working hours for child actors and the obvious need for most of the episodes to be self contained. The series was aimed at a fairly broad childrens age range and the single episodes were probably considered by the producers to be more suited for the limited attention span of the younger viewers.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Lucky Star »

Good points there Petermax. I will personally never understand why they chose to make Five are Together Again a two parter. This is surely almost the worst of the books and I dont remember that the programme was all that much better. It would have been far better if they had dropped that one and done Five have a Mystery to Solve as a two parter instead. That had a much better storyline and could have been a real gem. Instead it was dropped altogether.

I do remember as a child however that I hated the dreaded "To Be Continued" line at the end of any TV programme. I liked to have the whole thing wrapped up there and then. So it was probably people like me that the producers had in mind when they made their decisions. :lol:
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Gary Russell »

Lucky Star wrote: It would have been far better if they had dropped that one and done Five have a Mystery to Solve as a two parter instead. That had a much better storyline and could have been a real gem. Instead it was dropped altogether.
Mystery wasn't available to be made as the rights to that story were still with The Children's Film Foundation.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Petermax »

It mystifies me to this day why the rights to the remaining Famous Five episodes could not have been somehow wrestled from the Childrens Film Foundation. I mean let's face it, by 1978 the C.F.F was virtually finished, most kids were watching Multi Coloured Swap-Shop rather than traipsing down to the local flea-pit for two hours of very dated entertainment.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Gary Russell »

CFF were still a going concern into the early 80s. Indeed a couple of our guest child actors (Gary in Caravan and Michael in Runaway Together) had either just finished/were about to go off and film with CFF when we worked with them). They had 15 year deals on the scripts and try at Southern/Polestar tried to negotiate, they wuoldn't free up Treasure Island or Mystery to Solve.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Katharine »

I have quite a number of FF tapes from the 78 series, most of which I haven't watched. To be honest, I was never keen on the series even as a child, possibly I was then growing out of EB slightly - I was far too old at 12 after all!! However nostalgia made me buy several from E-bay a while back, and I did watch a couple of episodes. I'm afraid I still wasn't very impressed, not just by the 'modern' clothing cars etc., but also for what I felt where poor plot lines and I'm afraid I felt I wanted to hand 'George' a hanky and tell her to have a 'good blow' half of the time.

Since then I've read Gary Russell's accounts of the filming and realised that poor Michele Galagher had bad hay fever for much of the time. As someone who suffers myself I decided it would be unfair to hold her blocked nose against her.

Today I fancied a quiet half hour or so watching TV, so told my 7 year old it was my turn for the TV. She promptly said 'can we watch the Famous Five'? She'd really enjoyed the 1964 version we watched recently. I said I didn't feel like watching it again so soon, so she said couldn't we watch one of the other ones? I said I didn't have any others and she said yes I did - on the shelf and pointed to an odd one that somehow hadn't got put with the rest. It was a 4 in 1 video, the first episode being 'Five on a Secret Trail' (or as the sleeve says trial):roll:

I have to say, I really enjoyed the episode. For the first time I realised just how good the casting of Michele was for George, she definitely looked like a boy. It's been a long time since I read this particular book, but from what I remembered it stuck pretty much to the plot, which given the short amount of time they had to fit it all in can't have been easy. I'm now looking forward to watching the other episodes, I'm hoping that they too will be better than I was expecting.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Nick »

I've always had a soft spot for Five Go Down to the Sea and the performance of John Sharp aka The Guv!
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Dick Kirrin »

For me it's "Fall into Adventure" with "Trouble" and "Camp" in hot pursuit. :D

"Fall into Adventure" wins, because the interactions of the children as well as the athmosphere are great. Jo may look a bit too small, but when she starts acting, you see why they cast Julie Davies for the role...
I also like the subtle humor in this episode.

"Trouble" is second because the cycling holiday and the lonely woods are nice, the plot is good and well acted out, and of course Richard is my personal favourite whimp. :D

"Camp", well the train's nice and so is the setting as such - and of course Mr Luffy...
"You just never knew what would happen. It made life exciting, of course - but it did spoil a cycling tour!"
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Julie2owlsdene »

I like them all really, but Fall into Adventure does get my vote along with Trouble of course. I like Hike too and Wonderful Time. :)

8)
Julian gave an exclamation and nudged George.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Dick Kirrin »

Oh, yes. How could I forget Hike and Wonderful time... one of these could be on the menu for to tonight.
"You just never knew what would happen. It made life exciting, of course - but it did spoil a cycling tour!"
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Nick »

The comments about Fall into Adventure made me realise last night that I couldn't recall much about it so, inspired and sat in a hotel room with nothing to do and the DVD set with me I watched it last night and it dawned on me that I'd never seen it :shock:

Thoroughly enjoyable and the extended screen time for Rogers made me realise that the actor (Friedrich Von Thon) played Albert Schweitzer in the rather excellent Indiana Jones story - Organga: The Giver and Taker of Life.
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Re: Best episodes of the 78 Famous Five series?

Post by Julie2owlsdene »

Nick wrote:
Thoroughly enjoyable and the extended screen time for Rogers made me realise that the actor (Friedrich Von Thon) played Albert Schweitzer in the rather excellent Indiana Jones story - Organga: The Giver and Taker of Life.

I've never seen any of those Indiana Jones, Stories. I don't think I've ever seen Rogers in anything on TV, which always makes you think that they've not appeared in anything else, only what you have seen them in - if that makes sense!

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"See that? It's the black Bentley again. KMF 102!"

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