Le Manège enchanté (known in English as The Magic Roundabout) was a children's television programme created in France in 1963 by Serge Danot. Some five hundred five-minute-long episodes were made and were originally broadcast between 1964 and 1971 on ORTF. However, it was in the United Kingdom that the series became best known. The English version was narrated by Eric Thompson, the father of Emma Thompson, and broadcast from 18 October 1965 to January 1977. This version of the show attained cult status, and was watched as much by adults for its dry humour as by the children for whom it was intended.