What is The Magic Roundabout? Links Merchandise Desktop Theme Frames No Frames

Welcome to a web site dedicated to providing original quality Desktop Themes for you to download and enjoy. With over 30 fun TV and soccer desktop themes to choose from be sure you visit the rest of the website before leaving - click on Frames or No Frames to access the main menu. This web page is my tribute to a true TV legend from the 60's - The Magic Roundabout.

The Magic Roundabout started off life as a short French animated children's show created by Serge Danot in 1965. However, most of the credit for the shows success in Britain must go to Eric Thompson who turned a seemingly innocent children's programme into a hugely popular programme. The Magic Roundabout occupied a 5 minute slot just before the early evening news on the BBC. The delightful animation and clever scripts by Eric Thompson (Father of actress Emma Thompson) full of witty adult remarks, conspired to ensure that The Magic Roundabout appealed to both young and old.

The programme went on to command huge audiences for a children's show - well in excess of 5 million nightly and the characters created by Eric Thompson went on to became cult figures, much like Wallace and Gromit and Homer Simpson are today. Flavoured with a laid back, often surreal look at life in the sixties, the shows hero was undoubtedly Dougal, a shaggy dog who lived on a diet of sugar; a spontaneous bouncy character called Zebedee who would announce his arrival and departure with a coiled spring like noise - boing! Dylon was a rather laid back hippy type Rabbit who also appeared to be high on something a little stronger than tobacco! Wow! A small girl called Florence was perhaps the most sensible of the Eric Thompson characters which also included Ermintrude a pink cow, Mr. Rusty and his trusty bike, and last but not least Brian, a rather happy snail. It was perhaps the Zebadee closing phrase "Time for Bed" which will be remembered as the most enduring line from the programme. This phrase was responsible for sending many million tiny tots to bed thus allowing their parents to enjoy the nightly news!

The Magic Roundabout started out in life as Le Manège Enchanté in Serge Danot's original French version. It was a simple children's series in which Dougal was called Pollux and spoke French with a heavy English accent (in much the same way as the English enjoyed Manuel's accent in Fawlty Towers, the French never fail to find an English accent hugely amusing). Dylon, the rabbit, was called Flappy and spoke with a heavy Spanish accent - it seems everyone finds the Spanish amusing! Brian the Sanil was called Ambroise and Florence was Margote. There was however, none of the subtlety in the original scripts compared to the sophisticated version produced later for the BBC by Eric Thompson. Recently re-aired on Channel 4 Television, The Magic Roundabout has captivated a third generation of fans who will no doubt look back on this series with the same fondness as many of us who witnessed the original show in the 60's. Boing! said Zebadee, time to get the at The Magic Roundabout Desktop Theme.........

Links to other Magic Roundabout web sites!

Here are a few links to other Magic Roundabout web sites I have found on the net. If you find a worthy link please drop me a line so that I can add it to this links list for subsequent visitors to explore.

Visit the webs premier History of the Magic Roundabout web site.

Visit the Magic Roundabout Picture Site

Visit the Magic Roundabout Links web page.

Meet Zebedde at this cyber web slot.

Magic Roundabout Merchandise

The Magic Roundabout Desktop Theme is based on the children's classic BBC TV show from the 60's. The Theme features themed start-up and shutdown screens, a choice of two different hi-colour (24-bit) desktop wallpaper, animated cursor set, startup/shutdown screens and new desktop icons. Also included are new windows sounds taken from Magic Roundabout TV episodes. As if that was not enough, we have included a full feature screensaver made using Screen Saver Deluxe. Instructions are provided in a Readme file and the whole theme is available in a convenient zip file to download.

If you don't have a copy of Microsoft Plus! help is at hand in the form of Desktop Themes, a shareware desktop theme manager published by Jonathan Potter at Left Side Software. Click on to get your copy.

The following thumbnails will give you an idea of the screens used in this theme.

Click here to download the Magic Roundabout Desktop Theme Version 1.0 (1.60Mb)

Problems downloading from ?

You can now use GetRight.Com's downloading Utility GetRight for Java to download this desktop theme. Click on the GetRight Download button that follows to download the Magic Roundabout Desktop Theme using GetRight for Java instead of your browsers usual download tool. Check out my Download Problems page to find out how to use this facility and for more great tips on how you can improve your downloads using Net Vampire.

If after successfully downloading the theme you think it could be improved or has bugs, then please E-Mail your comments and/or suggestions to me. If you liked this theme please tell future visitors to this web-site -

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