A Nostalgic Roundabout: Dougal and the Blue Cat

Even as kids, we sometimes let the "supposed to like" lists lead us away from things we love.

One of my biggest “when I was a kid” flexes is that not only did we not have a video player (I can't say VCR any more and assume a reader knows what that means)¹, we didn't even have a TV, as my father (rightfully) imagined if we had one, he would watch non-stop sports all the time. Boomer parents kind of thought TV was a brain-rotting devil, so the way I consumed “movies,” more often than not, was through “storybook” record albums, which told an abridged version of the movie story, augmented by sound bites and effects from the film itself.

Dougal and the Blue Cat was one I borrowed – I forget from whom. But I do know that I was initially young enough to be interested in The Magic Roundabout, a TV stop-motion animated show I couldn't see because, again, no TV. Plus it was on English TV channels, which not everyone in Ireland could receive. Soon enough I was at the age where I decided it seemed like a baby-ish show, and I was embarrassed about having ever listened to the album². Parents, whose perception of time is different, couldn't always catch on fast enough, so my father kept doing imitations of the voices on the record long after I was comfortable admitting I ever listened to it.

I was way wrong, and I only found out years later. The Magic Roundabout actually had a significant adult fan base, in part because of the way it came to the UK. Originally a French cartoon, with a full cast of voices, it was purchased for the BBC on the cheap, without paying for the original scripts or multiple actors. So the entire show would be narrated by actor Eric Thompson – you might know of his daughter, Emma – who also wrote the English-language scripts himself based on what he imagined the stories were, occasionally dropping in grown-up references to things like NATO or the Conservative Party that would fly over kids' heads. It was the '70s, and thus a stoned-looking rabbit character with a guitar was renamed “Dylan.” French audiences suspected that the canine protagonist Pollux was renamed Dougal as a dig at De Gaulle, but nobody ever confirmed that, to my knowledge. Dubbing was easy, since none of the characters' lips ever moved.

The cartoon played for five minutes before the news, but Dougal and the Blue Cat was a full-length movie spinoff. With slightly more of a budget, the BBC paid for ONE additional actor besides Thompson, Fenella Fielding, to play the female antagonist The Blue Voice.

Many years later, a CG Magic Roundabout movie was made, but Harvey Weinstein was confused by it, and replaced big-name English actors speaking English with American comedians – idiotically, Tom Baker, for example, was overdubbed as the main villain by Jon Stewart, while Kylie Minogue doing an American accent overdubbed herself doing an English accent. Presuming both that Americans wouldn't know what a roundabout is, or how to pronounce “Dougal,” Weinstein renamed the movie “DOOGAL” and the result was a disaster that everyone involved disowns.

Dougal and the Blue Cat is not that movie, nor remotely like it. And recently, in my forties, I found it on YouTube and finally watched it for the first time.

It's important to note something first: as a kid, up through maybe the age of eight, I had no conception whatsoever of racism. I grew up extremely sheltered, among the Irish aristocracy and their kids, in the wing of a Downton Abbey-like house. I was an Anglo-American child of immigrants, but everyone was white, so I passed, and only years later would I meet the Irish working class and encounter anti-English prejudice. I knew about the word you couldn't say, that I initially thought was “knickers,” but couldn't emotionally conceive of why it was worse than any insult. And when you don't see other races at all, you don't see racism, at least overtly.

So it's safe to say an animated film about a tyrant who wants to make everything blue and eliminate all other colors went a bit over my head in terms of its actual message. (Yes, I am aware of the online conversation about lengthy personal anecdotes ruining movie reviews, and I'm doing it anyway, because in this case I think it's crucial to context, and anyway, this is more an essay about changing perceptions than it is strictly a review...but feel free to yell at me on social media or wherever, because all engagement helps. I shall now continue...)

Buxton the Blue Cat Busy “Being Evil!”

Into the snug, cozy, enchanted garden with its wondrous carousel comes Buxton the blue cat, and aspiring tyrant in the service of disembodied, fascist “Blue Voice” who regularly declares, 'Blue is beautiful! Blue is best! I'm blue...I'm beautiful...I'm best!” Dougal immediately cottons to Buxton's rottenness, having overheard his scheme from the get go, but the cat is so good at playing cute and fake victim that nobody listens to their doggo friend.

Buxton speaks with a strong Northern accent, which may lead some to assume he harbors a bit of class resentment, as kids would once have been sent to school to lose it and speak “properly” (English accents are, to some degree, deliberately classist). More likely, though, it's the fact that when an actor like Eric Thompson has to do every single voice, extreme accents help to differentiate the characters. Besides, Buxton himself avoids any attempt to make his motivations relatable, as he constantly addresses camera with the line, “I'm so evil!” He even plans to betray the disembodied, all-powerful Blue Voice, which as presented would be a bit like challenging God, or more likely Satan, to a fistfight.

The devious Buxton makes an abandoned treacle factory his home, swiftly turning it into a palace and a dungeon, complete with an army of dreadlocked soldiers who obey unthinkingly, and imprison every major character save Dougal, who escapes. Dougal must infiltrate by dying himself blue and pretending to be an altogether new dog named Peter – a joke at the expense of the popular BBC children's show Blue Peter. To an adult, a repurposed factory in the service of fascism has evident connotations, which adults alive in the '70s might even have remembered firsthand. To a kid, however, the primary joke may be that cats can get away with anything because they act cute.

The way the story resolves is somewhat abrupt and fittingly bizarre – years before Despicable Me, it involves an attempt to steal the moon. And its subsequent shot at redeeming Buxton as simply the victim of a more powerful fascist feels unearned, as, again, this is a character who has declared on multiple occasions that his motive for misdeeds is being evil. The need to teach kids the importance of forgiveness takes a bit of a backseat to logic here, though the reveal that Buxton isn't actually blue makes a point about racial self-hatred to the adults in the room. As always, everyone takes a ride on the carousel and feels magical again.

Nobody's going to say this is some of the greatest animation ever – it's stop-motion with simple characters, who mostly don't move their faces at all and are designed as simply as possible. The wizard Zebedee, Dougal himself, and Brian the snail don't even have legs, so as to animate more easily. However, they do exist in an immersive, fully constructed world that feels deep and welcoming. It has an atmosphere similar to modern slow-paced video games like Animal Crossing with its inviting vibe. Indeed, when blue cacti pop up everywhere, modern gamers may think of the thorns in Disney Dreamlight Valley.

Dougal and the Blue Cat is a musical, though the songs are kept reasonably short. I hadn't realized until revisiting just how deeply some of them had earwormed into my subconscious, without my realizing exactly what they were. That is, except for Florence's Sad Song, an all-timer that I've always remembered, with its unforgettable lament:

                                         Shall we ever see the sun again?

                                         Shall we ever feel the rain again?

                                        Shall we ever play our games again?

                                        Or will the games we play end here?

I always used to mishear that last line as “AND hear,” and was irritated it made no grammatical sense. Hearing it post-pandemic lockdown hits anew.

The Magic Roundabout looked so similar to shows like Postman Pat that I'd dismissed it unfairly, just as I had once dismissed all anime because I didn't like Once Upon a Time in Space or Speed Racer. I've no idea if the French originals played to adult sensibilities, but the English dubs certainly had more on their mind, whether subconsciously or otherwise. Thompson was likely on lots of deadlines to rewrite every episode and the movie, and the references may have simply spilled out, but that feels dismissive to say. He contributed an iconic element of what, in its repurposed form, became an intrinsically British piece of pop culture. Buxton himself could not have conquered and re-shaded a foreign production so effectively, which is ironic as all heck.

You don't have to take my word for it. Watch the movie exactly as I just did...on YouTube!³

1. [Editor’s Note] - I’ve found in my years teaching at UC Riverside and Boise State that young people know what a VCR “is”, but they have no idea what VCR means. I chalk it up to the fact that they, like Gen X, are a nostalgic generation. Our classes often begin with discussions of the latest vinyl record they purchased.

2. [Editor’s Note] It’s sad to see the “supposed to like” list kill a kid’s love for something, but it happens to everyone. I avoided talking about the D&D Cartoon for years because I actually liked Uni and don’t get me started on my love of Orko.

3. You can also buy copies of Dougal and the Blue Cat (with Extras) at Amazon in NTSC format or from the British Film Institute formatted for Region 2. These versions come with both the English and French versions as well as critical commentary.