The New Famous Five

[Pippa-Stef]

Hey I wasn't complaining!

I spent the first five minutes before I put the scan up looking for the online version!
But Tony said it had been taken offline!

The Daily Mail one was online, as I looked at it this morning and wondered why they had misquoted both Barbara Stoney and myself! They have now taken it off and I'm afraid that your link doesn't work any more either Pippa-Stef - somebody doesn't want it to be read.

[Petermax]

Just watched the video link kindly supplied by The Sun. What complete and utter computer generated trash.

Grumpymax

[Pippa-Stef]

If you look at the comments on the newspages, there seem to be a lot of adults opposed to it as well.

You're not alone Petermax!

But as a true Fan I feel I must at least watch the first episode.

You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and all of that!

Still not thrilled about the whole thing!

[Tony Summerfield]

I have had about 25 phone calls about this today, and a few yesterday, from press, radio and TV (though admittedly I only answered about 15, those that left messages asking me to ring them did not get a reply) and as I repeated myself many times I thought I would just repeat some of the things I said here.

This series is aimed at 21st century children in the age range 8 to 12, not at adults. It must be judged on its own merits by children and not compared to Enid Blyton's Famous Five by adults. Enid Blyton herself said that the only critics she was interested in were the children. If they watch it, the producers will have succeeded in what they aimed to do. They are hoping that it will introduce the Famous Five through their children to a completely new audience, who will hopefully go on to discover more about their parents through the original books.

I am no expert at what the modern child likes to watch, but Disney should be. I think that some of the cartoons I see on TV are dreadful, but children are glued to them and if I thought they were wonderful, they probably wouldn't. I think they have done the right thing using a new generation, had they tried to modernise Enid's characters and stories, there would have been a much greater outcry of sacrilege!

My only quibble without having watched a programme would be in the name - I would have called it the New Famous Five.

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Thanks to Tony I am speaking to BBC Radio Belfast at 7.50 tomorrow morning and BBC Radio Tees on Tuesday at 10.20. Thanks to my nearest and dearest I think I am losing my voice...

I've looked at the link to The Sun (thanks VS) and found the sound quality dreadful. Was it meant to have background muzac or was my computer playing up?

I realise that everyone here hasn't liked what they've seen, but a few more comments would be helpful. To me there doesn't seem to be anything distinctive to it. It does rather look like a remake of Scooby Doo than FF. A great cartoon can really catch a sense of place, such as the Snowman, and this is not a great cartoon....

Best wishes

Viv

[Jen-Jen]

Thanks for the video link Viking Star. It's hard to tell what the series will be like with such awful sound - but I thought that Kirrin cottage looked nice. And from an animation point of view, the flash animation for this series is far superior to other cartoon series made with flash.

Today there was a tiny tiny article in one of our Australian newspapers announcing that the series was about multicultural kids who use technology to catch baddies that pretend to be environmentalists. What is it about baddies prenteding to be environmentalists!? It seems to be a common theme amongst lots of todays books and tv shows. Supposedly the series is faithful to the books, but with a contemporary twist.

[Rob Houghton]

It seems to me that this cartoon could have been about ANY four kids and their dog. It could have been a completely original cartoon series about kids solving crimes.

The only problem is, if Disney had followed that route it just WOULDNT have been original. It would have been like a copy of Scooby Doo or The Famous Five...

So they do the obvious thing: use Enid Blyton's title, which is world famous, and which will allow them to market toys, games, spin-offs, and make loads of money out of something that is very un-Blyton in all except title. It's just a cheap way of making fast money, for both Disney and the company who holds the copyright.

As long as the original series of books aren't removed from the shelves then I can live with it, but to even think that these cheap creations can take over from the original books is a tasteless idea to me!

Of course, as Enid said, it's the kids views that matter. But if they like this cartoon series it doesnt really follow that they will like Enid's versions.

As for encouraging children to read the proper Famous Five books, I don't see how it will. Kids will be expecting slangy dialogue, 'sexy' characters and multi-culturalism, not to mention more 'exciting' and modern plots, and they just simply won't find any of these in the original Blyton stories. They'll appear even MORE old fashioned by the side of this modern series, and even less attractive to those who have watched and enjoyed the series.

[Keith Robinson]

As an animated series, it looks okay -- I can certainly see that it would appeal to kids. But as far as I can see, it's been dubbed "Famous Five" for marketing reasons only. As far as TV is concerned, any gossip about their new show is good, so why not stir up feelings if it gets people watching?

We're all wondering whether us "older" Blyton fans will give this series a second glance, but honestly, we wouldn't give it a first glance if it weren't for its "Famous Five" tag. We wouldn't even know it's playing! So Disney have already won an audience of curious older folk, if only for the first episode.

Meanwhile, younger Blyton fans will switch on for the same reason the "oldies" will -- out of curiosity -- only I expect many of those younger fans will become hooked. After all, Famous Five or not, the series is probably pretty cool! Again, here Disney have an instant audience just because of its Famous Five connection.

I firmly believe Disney just wanted to launch a new TV show about some kids and a dog solving adventures, something like Scooby Doo, and they used Enid Blyton's name as a launching pad. Obviously there's no real desire to make it anything like Enid Blyton's world, because that would be a dismal failure -- they'd maybe win an audience of impressed, appreciative "old" Blyton fans, but would totally lose the battle for overall ratings. Any connections to the original Famous Five are token nods only, probably mentioned in the first two minutes and thereafter completely ignored.

[Timmy]

Hallo liebe Fünf Freunde Fans,

von meiner Seite aus hat diese Zeichentrickserie keine Chance. Ich bin wahrlich kein Mensch der sich Neuigkeiten verschließt aber was zuviel ist zuviel. Ich glaube Enid Blyton würde sich im Grabe umdrehen wenn sie sehen würde was man aus ihren Büchern gemacht hat. Die Bücher wurden vor der Zeit des Handys und des Computers geschrieben und dort sollte man sie auch belassen !!!!


Es gab Gerüchte das eine Fernsehserie mit Erwachsenen als Fünf Freunde auf den Markt kommen sollte ist da was dran ? Hoffentlich nicht noch so eine schwachsinnige Idee...

Man sollte tunlichst daran denken die 78`er Serie auf DVD zuveröffentlichen und das in vielen Sprachen (englisch,französisch,deutsch u.s.w.)
Ich glaube der Lizenzinhaber dieser Serie weiß gar nicht was er für ein Geld machen könnte wenn er diese Serie als DVD auf den Markt bringen würde !!

With all due respect this is an English speaking forum and therefore very few of us can understand what you are saying, which sadly makes your posts, that may be very interesting, fairly pointless.
Tony

[peppermint peppy]

Timmy - I'm in complete agreement with your opinion.
Why not put my shirt on a good,old and approved steed instead of a very young thing which seemed to be a very strange and poor imitation of Scooby-Doo.
I have heard that those F 5 will smash no smuggler's top but a bigger factory which produces bootlegs.Hope it isn't this one which is producing the FF 78/79 DVD-Collection at the moment.

[Enikyoga]

How come they always want to update Blyton but not Jane Austen? How would it look if Jane Austen's novels and movies such as Jane Eyre were updated for the 21st Century Generation. This "updating business" of Blyton's works such as The Famous has run amock.

Eni Kyoga

[Lucky Star]

My German is very rusty but the following is an attempt to translate Timmy's post (above).

Hallo dear Famous Five fans

In my opinion this series has no chance. I am certainly not one to ignore new things but enough is enough. I believe Enid Blyton would turn in her grave if she knew what they have made of her books. The books were written before the advent of mobile phones and computers and they should be allowed to remain in that time.

There are rumours that a TV series with the Five as adults may be made, is there anything to that? Hopefully not, what a dumb idea...

They should rather consider releasing the 1978 series on DVD with translations into other languages (English, German, french etc). I believe that the licence holders of that series do not actually know how much money thet would make if they marketed it on DVD.

I do hope I've done the post justice, I believe I've got all the salient points anyway.

[peppermint peppy]

Rusty??? Not rusty-very good Lucky Star!!!Where did you learned it or have you used a translating program online perhaps?

[Moonraker]

Rusty??? Not rusty-very good Lucky Star!!!Where did you learned it or have you used a translating program online perhaps?

Of course, you could have translated it, Peppy!

[Pippa-Stef]

I have a lot of contact with the younger people, and I can say, from an informed view, that the ones who have read the book and bothered to look at what has been done to the five- Are just as outraged as anyone on the forum! (If I can say that)

The thing is that it's most likely to become an fenonenon (Sp?) all of it's own.

Now to give a fair opinion and a balenced view, I have asked a friend of mine with the disney channel to record the program's first episode for me.

I have no doubt in my mind that this is media gone mad, and political correctness. There should be no need to update the series in the first place because Children reading the books should know what tyime period they are set in. This means that they should be read and seen within context.

If there was a real need to draw a new audience into the Famous Five or for that matter the world of Blyton, then I can see at least two options:-

1) Show the 1996 series on TV again
2) make a new series with the orginal characters, like the 1996 version (Or 1976) and involve people form around the country!

This is basically some Scooby Doo look-a-like gone mad, (Expect- I'm betting- Timmy doesn't talk)

It's been American-ised! (Sorry to Any Americans on the forum) but the Text's had to be changed when they were published in America to start with! They people who wrote Lizzy Macguire wrote this.

I'm sorry! But it makes me mad to think that A Children's classic has bee mucked about to the extent of being totally un reconisable as what it was orginally.

Sorry, but that's the way I feel!