The Enid Blyton Society

We have our first glimpse of what the cartoon version of the Famous Five (or son/daughter of Famous Five as I like to call it!) is going to look like from an article in The Mail on Sunday.

I see that Viv has managed to get quoted, but when the Mail phoned me I said that I didn't want to comment until I knew more about it, as at the time the journalist hadn't spoken to anyone at Chorion. He said he would phone me back, but he didn't I am glad to say, as I would like to withold any judgement until I have seen something myself.

Chorion have come up with a reasonable mix of characters, I think, although the idea of trying to appeal to different "types" ("hoodies," "girly girls," etc) doesn't seem very subtle! Stereotypes are obviously alive and well (look at the description of Anne's "American" daughter!) just as they were in the original books! My main concern is that the tone of the cartoon series will be overly "sassy," spoiling the carefree and innocent atmosphere that readers associate with the Famous Five and which is part of the appeal of Enid Blyton's stories.

Anita

Well I think the idea is absolutely horrible! Do the people actually think the offspring of the Famous Five will make people want to read the original Famous Five? Surely not!!

I got a call from Steve Myall, the journalist, the other day and we talked for a while about how the characters compared to the originals. He actually told me that Dillon was the blonde guy (Julian) and Max was the computer nerd (Dick) but it appears they were the wrong way round. I guessed Jo would be the George character though; the shortening of the name, and a name that could be male or female... How ironic that George should lose out to her old ragamuffin rival lookalike!

Anyway, Steve then asked me if there was anyone else I knew that he could talk to, and (thinking mainly of those who had telephone numbers that could be accessed via the internet) I immediately considered Tony but decided, "Nah, he probably gets fed up with this stuff," so I suggested Viv. Typical! Viv gets a quote and I don't!

Tony Summerfield wrote:
I see that Viv has managed to get quoted

oh! i didnt notice it first but now i have. congrats viv!!!!!
with my l0ve,
dina blyton

good greaf i will not be watchig THAT

I guess we all have to move with the times, but for me, there's only one set of Famous Five's. The books are The Famous Five.

And I do agree with what Viv mentions in the article, those children would be the Fives, grandchildren, not their children. The famous five were active in the 1940's.

Initially the journalist was asking for Imogen's contact, and I felt sure that she wouldn't want to be bothered with something like this. Gillian would have been different...

He then asked if I minded giving my reaction to the description from the Chorion press release he then read down the phone (characters the right way round this time)... At one stage I stopped him - "I'm sure that you can hear my reaction" I said, "I can't keep a straight face - you can hear me laughing!" It was just all so stereotypical...

Except... I found myself being pleasantly surprised that the leader of the group, Jo, is going to be a mixed race Anglo-Indian girl, just like me. At last I have a role model! Just about all mixed race people are requisitioned as "black", such as Dame Kelly Holmes and Lewis Hamilton, and it sometimes seems to me as if us half-castes aren't allowed to be ourselves in a black-or-white world.

If ANY journalist starts to take the view that Jo is black I'm going to have a LOT to say about it...

Best wishes

Viv

Sorry folks,but I am very annoyed regarding this new series.
Not that I am not sensible to new ideas but in my opinion this series seems to be a botch job and as useful as a hole in a head!

Viv of Ginger Pop wrote:Initially the journalist was asking for Imogen's contact, and I felt sure that she wouldn't want to be bothered with something like this.

I think you are right here, but if any journalist asks you for Imogen's contact details I think you will be able to say in all honesty that you don't have them, as she moved in August, when she sold her London flat.

I was a bit wary about passing comment about a series I hadn't seen, but I was simply asked to respond as a fan to the Chorion press release. Most of what I said was not used, even the complimentary stuff. For example, I was pleased that George had become a scientist, since sensible scientists are as poorly represented as mixed-race people in literature.

Is it FF - of course not! Could it be a reasonable set of TV cartoons about 4 children, a dog, and a potty old aunt, well - yes.

Viv

I think it could be a perfectly reasonable cartoon series, or it could be naff. Either way I can't see it being of any "use" to Enid Blyton fans of any age. I wonder why they even bothered to call it the Famous Five if it's not the Famous Five? Take the title away and this series would have no connection to the books at all -- different characters, different stories, different settings, and different time zone. It goes without saying that us "older" fans wouldn't care for it, but I can't see how even the young Famous Five fans can treat it as anything but an unrelated cartoon series that happens to be called "Famous Five."

Ironically, if it were called something else, people like us might say, "Crumbs, four kids and a dog... that's sort of like the Famous Five." But then, so is Scooby-Doo. That's where the similarity ends though. I mean, an episode about DVDs? That's SO 21st Century.

The new cartoon series will probably enjoy some moderate success but as already mentioned, it will be of little interest to diehard Enid Blyton fans. I doubt if I will see it as I do not subscribe to cable or satellite although I suppose someone might put it on Youtube!

Just to digress a little and be hypothetical, imagine if there had been an E.B.S Forum back in 1978, what would have been the membership reaction to the Southern TV Famous Five series set in what was then the present day? No shorts, flared trousers instead and episodes that occasionally strayed slightly from the original storylines? There would have been an outcry, maybe there was? Perhaps one or two of our older members can comment on this, I was only twelve back then.

Petermax wrote:Perhaps one or two of our older members can comment on this, I was only twelve back then.

I think that your final sentence here helps to explain the huge popularity of this series, it has such a cult following as many like yourself watched it as children. People tend to prefer what they grew up with and although it shocks me to hear it, I quite understand those who say they prefer Betty Maxey's illustrations to Eileen Soper's.

As one of the 'older members' who didn't watch either series as a child, I have to say that I always prefer things set in the right period. Imagine the outcry if an updated version of The Railway Children was filmed! I have a theory that in about ten years time, the 90s series will also have a cult following.

It always surprises me to hear people say that the locations for the 70s series were so much better - as an unbiased observer I would have said that the 90s locations were vastly superior, as indeed they should have been on a much larger budget.

I am digressing from the subject of the thread though, a series that I won't comment on until I have seen what it looks like.