Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds

DOGTANIAN AND THE THREE MUSKEHOUNDS
Made by: BRB International Shown on: BBC Years shown: 1985
Theme tune: “One for all and all for one, Muskehounds are always ready/One for all and all for one, helping everybody/One for all and all for one, it’s a pretty story/One for all and all for one, that’s how it should be/La-la-la la-la-la, they cross their swords and pray/La-la-la la-la-la, they’re never far away/La-la-la la-la-la, they say a prayer and swear they’re faithful to their king.”

Those crazy folks at BRB International! Fond of classic French literature and cuddly animals, this combination proved deadly; before their assault on Jules Verne (see Around the World with Willy Fogg), they thought they’d give Alexander Dumas’ Dartagnan and the Three Musketeers an overhaul of the canine kind. But the cynicism stops there, because Dogtanian was my absolute favourite show when I was six years old - I was positively obsessed with it.

Dogtanian himself was a floppy-eared beagle from 17^th century Gascogne, who travelled to Paris with the ambition of becoming one of the king’s elite Muskehounds. Initially, he was useless in all areas of swordsmanship and valour, but he was taken under the wing of kindly Porthos (an Old English sheepdog/bear), wise-cracking Athos (a German Shephard), and ladies’ man, Aramis (a King Charles Spaniel), the king’s three Muskehounds. Together they defended the King of France against the sinister Cardinal Richelieu and his henchmen, and Dogtanian also fell in love with Juliet, a maid in waiting (actually a Cocker Spaniel, I think.) The path of love didn’t run smooth, of course, and the frisky mutt had a near-thing with M’Lady, a mysterious and beautiful feline informant in a cloak, who helped Dogtanian when he was in trouble. But Juliet soon put a stop to this, and smashed a vase over Dogtanian’s head when she found out.

The whole saga ended happily, naturally enough, with the king making him a fully-fledged Muskehound, and he and Juliet married and had kids who, amazingly, were carbon copies of either their mother or father - no mongrels here.

Like all BRB International productions, they were originally broadcast in French, and, it seemed, at a much faster tempo, because the dubbing was always completely out of synch, but I didn’t care. I also didn’t mind that one of the lines of the English version of the theme song sounded a lot like “Kids are pretty corny” (see above for actual lyrics), which was always rather hypocritical in my mind.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 9/10

Denver the Last Dinosaur

DENVER THE LAST DINOSAUR
Made by: World Events/Calico Productions
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: 1988
Theme tune: “One, two, three, four!/Denver, the last dinosaur/He’s my friend and a whole lot more/Denver, the last dinosaur/Shows me a world I never saw before.”

Before Steven Spielberg brought the extinct back to life on the big screen, a bunch of cartoon Californian kids discovered a dinosaur egg while out skateboarding. He hatched into Denver, a bright green dinosaur of undetermined type, who was so annoying that he had to be related to Barney. Mind you, the kids were worse. Wearing loud shirts and sporting dodgy hairstyles, they were obsessed by being ‘cool’, riding bikes and finding great places to skate; there was Jeremy, Wally, Shades, Mario, Casey, and her kid sister, Heather. Their adventures were lame and laid-back in the extreme; Denver had the most unlikely villain ever, in the concert promoter (!) Morton Fizzback, out to exploit Denver for a quick buck. But what worried me more was the suggestion in the title theme that Denver might have been more than just friends with the kids. A nasty thought, I know, but implied, you have to admit.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 3/10

(Thanks to www.tvacres.com for the borrowed pic)

Defenders of the Earth

DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH
Made by: Marvel Productions/King Features Entertainment
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1986 onwards

Pooling together a whole bunch of comic book heroes, Defenders was set in 2015, when the earth is under attack from evil extra-terrestrial quarters. In retrospect, the makers should perhaps have set the date a little further into the future, unless they knew something that we don’t. Anyway, Ming the Merciless, whose name always gets a cheap laugh, was the warlord bent on destroying mankind, and only one group of disparates can stop him. The main players were Flash Gordon (who, of course, took on old Ming in the camp 1980s film Flash Gordon), strong-man Lothar, the purple spandex-sporting Phantom, and Mandrake the magician. But it was always a bit like a Saturday morning trip to the Wal-Mart, because they all had their kids in tow: Flash’s son Rick; Jedda, the daughter of Phantom, and Lothar’s son, LJ (Lothar Junior, I assume.) Also tagging along was an orphan, Kshin, and her pet alien, Zuffy. Because, in 2015, no orphan need ever be lonely because they will all have pet aliens.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 2/10

(Thanks to www.80snostalgia.com for the borrowed pic)