FF 78/79 Differences in Translation

[peppermint peppy]

Hi folks,
some questions are plaguing me now since I have watched all FF 78/79 in German language.Thank YouTube!!!
How far does this 70's serial differ from Blyton's originals in English language regarding the pure story ignoring the time which they are from?
E.g: In the German dubbing version of "Five have a wonderful time" - the title of this story was translated into "Fünf Freunde und ein Zigeunermädchen", back into English language "Five and a Gipsy Girl" - I can't detect a gipsy girl. Yes, there are gipsies in on this story but not a special gipsy girl in this episode.
Thanks for your replies.

[Petermax]

How far do this 70's serial differ from Blyton's originals in English language regarding the pure story ignoring the time which they are from?

If we start with the episode titles, there is no change whatsoever from the books apart from Five On Kirrin Island. This episode was a combination of two books, Five On A Treasure Island and Five on Kirrin Island Again.

As you can see from the 1970's series episode list, the titles remained very much intact.

The stories obviously had to be compressed and certain sections omitted in order to fit into a 25 minute programme slot. In many episodes the action commenced 2 or 3 chapters into the book. Five Go Off In A Caravan is a typical example of this. If anything, more liberties were taken with the stories in the 1990's HTV series.

The scripts of the 1970's series retained the 1940's/50's form of English used in the books. A curious and quite pleasing combination of 1950's middle class speech and manners superimposed on a 1970's backdrop. Words such as super, rather, and smashing were generally not in use by the 70's, and no-one that I knew of addressed their parents as Mother and Father. An adjustment was obviously made to the scripts later in the series, as George is heard to use the more modern Mum and Dad when addressing her parents.

As to why the German episodes have different titles altogether is hard to fathom. It is of course possible that some of the titles were difficult to translate in an exact manner, hence the changes. I have also noticed this anomally on some episodes of the 1990's series Dutch DVD set.

[peppermint peppy]

Many thanks for your full account.It has helped me along.

[Wolfgang]

Hi folks,
some questions are plaguing me now since I have watched all FF 78/79 in German language.Thank YouTube!!!
How far does this 70's serial differ from Blyton's originals in English language regarding the pure story ignoring the time which they are from?
E.g: In the German dubbing version of "Five have a wonderful time" - the title of this story was translated into "Fünf Freunde und ein Zigeunermädchen", back into English language "Five and a Gipsy Girl" - I can't detect a gipsy girl. Yes, there are gipsies in on this story but not a special gipsy girl in this episode.
Thanks for your replies.

In the book Jo had her second appearance, therefore the German title is okay - for the book. The new German title of the book, but not the audioplay, is "The Famous Five and the wild Jo", it doesn't make sense either if Jo doesn't appear in this episode (haven't watched it for ages so I can't tell).