Doogal

Not to be confused with the 2016 Indian film Dangal

Doogal Congratulations, Weinstein Company! You’ve ruined The Magic Roundabout! Genre: Adventure Fantasy Directed By: Dave Borthwick Jean Duval Frank Passingham Produced By: Claude Gorsky Andy Leighton Pascal Rodon Written By: Butch Hartman (U.S. version; later rewritten without his consent by Harvey Weinstein) Starring: Daniel Tay Kylie Minogue (Re-voiced in an American accent, with some of her lines changed) William H. Macy Whoopi Goldberg Jimmy Fallon Chevy Chase Ian McKellen (Retained from the UK version) Jon Stewart Bill Hader Kevin Smith (completely silent in the French and British versions) Judi Dench Eric Robinson Heidi Brook Myers Cory Edwards John Krasinski Distributed By: The Weinstein Company (U.S. version) Release Date: February 24, 2006 Runtime: 78 Min (U.S. version) Country: United States Language: English Budget: $20 million Box Office: $26.7 million

Doogal is the official American English-language dub of The Magic Roundabout (released in France as Pollux - Le manège enchanté), a 2005 French-British computer-animated adventure fantasy film based on the TV series of the same name. Doogal was released in the United States, where audiences are not as familiar with the series on February 24, 2006. While the original 2005 FN/UK version of the movie and the 2007 revival television series it was based on the original 1963 television series had mixed-to-positive critical and audience feedback, Doogal is panned and is considered to be one of the worst animated movies or dubs ever made. It is a rare case where a dub of a movie and the original are judged on different spectrums.

Plot

This movie is the story of Doogal, an adorable candy-loving mutt who goes on a mission to save the world. Doogal must prevent the evil sorcerer Zeebad from freezing the earth forever with the power of the three mysterious legendary diamonds. Joining Doogal on his big quest are pals Dylan, a guitar-playing rabbit, Ermintrude, an opera-singing cow, and Brian, a bashful snail. Hopping on a magic train, they travel over ice-capped mountains, navigate fiery pits of lava, and sail across vast oceans on the perilous journey of a lifetime. Along the way, they learn that the most powerful weapon of all is their friendship - which even Zeebad's magic cannot destroy!

Why It's Always Crashing and Falling Down and Never Spinning Round and Round

Note: This will only focus on issues present in Doogal (the American version of The Magic Roundabout) - references to any narrative issues present in the French/UK English dubs are based on their continued problematic presence in the former

1. Overuse of pointless narration (presumably in an attempt to justify the cost of hiring Judi Dench in the role) of things that viewers can see for themselves, often undercutting several of the film's more prominent dramatic scenes (most notably Zeebad's breakout and the slow-motion climax)
2. Poor attempts at humour, consisting mostly of constant pop culture references and flatulence jokes which were not present in the original British and French version. The film therefore suffers from an incessant number of context-irrelevant and overly rapid-fire pop-culture allusions, some of the more egregious as follows:
   • One scene where the now-audible skeletons flat out mention "Here’s Johnny" from The Shining, one of the skeletons says, "Bring out your dead!" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and when one skeleton mentions Pirates of the Caribbean, another tells the other "I said no more Disney Jokes", and one yells “Wazzup” from Scary Movie.
   • Upon discovery of the hidden tunnel, Zeebad says, "Well, someone’s been watching CSI."
   • A reference to Thomas & Friends is said during the chase scene where Zeebad says "Are we gonna lose this race to Thomas the Tank Engine?", even though Thomas has nothing to do with The Magic Roundabout!
   • When the gang finds the first diamond, Dylan catches the diamond and lustfully claims "My precious" then "kidding", referencing Lord of the Rings.
   • During the camping scene, there was added sound effects where Brian is playing a video game and he mentions Master Chief from Halo, even though he never owned a gaming console in the original series and movie!
   • During the temple scene, Dylan mentions Pink Floyd when he is amazed by the alarm beams and claims that he is Neo from The Matrix when the skeletons rise upon them.
   • When Train first appears, he says, "I'm the train, and you're not", which references Saturday Night Live.
   • Ermintrude says of the skeletons, "Lookin' all Dawn of the Dead and everything.", referencing Dawn of the Dead.
   • When Ermintrude wakes up Dylan, he suddenly says "What's up, Doc?". Which is Bugs Bunny's famous catchphrase.
   • The Train says "I think I can, I think I can" when trying to climb back up the ledge which is a reference to both Dumbo and The Little Engine That Could.
   • Doogal mentions Hogwarts from Harry Potter when the skeletons merge into a giant skeleton.
   • Zeebad mentions the Star Trek convention during the chase scene.
   • There are so many random pop-culture references that we wish to add to the list, but all 27 are listed in IMDb here.
   • Screenwriter Cory Edwards, co-writer of Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, is mostly to blame for these unfunny jokes.
3. The original version of the movie was already in English - while it can be argued that US cultural preferences differ to the extent where a redub could be justified (particularly in light of the unfamiliarity of the franchise to general US audiences), the redub in question attempts to distance itself from the UK dub by exaggerating its 'Americanized' humour and dialogue to an absurd, almost self-parodying degree, indicating the WC's approach to adapting the film to be overly extreme.
4. False Advertising: The trailer claims the movie was created by Butch Hartman (though he isn’t mentioned) with the line "From the creator of The Fairly Odd Parents;" this is 100% false since he only wrote only 3% of his script for the movie that appears in the final version.
5. The majority of the original British voices have been dubbed over by celebrities more familiar to the American public (despite most of the original British cast being famous in the United States), solely for target nationality/to increase box office returns and regardless of the extent to which these actors actually fit their respective roles (such as Kevin Smith as the infamous flatulent moose). Only two members of the original British cast, Ian McKellen and Kylie Minogue return to reprise their roles.
   • However, Minogue decided to re-dub her role with an American accent, while McKellen remained the only character whose voice was unchanged.
6. It has no sense of pacing.
7. In the original version of the film, some characters like the Train and the Moose barely speak. But in this movie, they were given voices solely to provide Kevin Smith and Chevy Chase cameo appearances (also in the original United Kingdom version, the moose did not talk, but the train could do so).
8. The lip-syncing is very poor.
9. Terrible voice acting, even from famous actors such as Jimmy Fallon, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jon Stewart. Barely any of the cast show enthusiasm because of how dead they sound. Almost none of them were even trying. Especially the US actor, Jon Stewart who plays Zeebad, who sounds bored instead of villainous.
   • On a related note, the voice of Doogal provided by Daniel Tay sounds nothing like Robbie Williams. Also, why would Doogal need a voice of a child?
     • In the US trailer of the movie, they kept Doogal's original voice, but not in the actual movie.
10. Some of the characters are flanderized in this dub. For example, Doogal became a fat cowardly idiot and Ermintrude has a sassy personality (similar that of her US dub actress, Whoopi Goldberg) instead of a mature one.
11. Many scenes and bits were cut and moved around in this version for continuity. For example, a post-credit scene showing Zeebad in his prison was removed from the American version for unknown reasons, Doogal's nightmare sequence of himself and Florence in a sugar paradise were also removed, and live footage of the American actors recording for the film was added into the end credits. The sequence of Doogal plays with Florence and his friends which features the song "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra was moved from the halfway point of the film to the very end, as a credits song. Every shot that involved Zeebad's ice fortress was also cut from this movie. Glimpses of the fort can be seen in the background in a few shots, but it's never shown in full view.
12. Poor grasp of the source material, especially for an adaptation (despite American audiences' lack of familiarity with the 1960s TV basis).
13. Plot hole: It is revealed at the end of the movie that the ice enclosing the carousel could've been cracked through conventional means since Ermintrude breaks the ice with her singing.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Nice soundtrack with most of the music score carried over from the original version.
2. The animation is at least decent.
3. The fight scene between Zebedee and Zeebad is nothing short of awesome.
4. There is an unintentionally funny moment in the form of the "GET THE DI-A-MONDS!" scene.
5. The film is far superior in French and British English. It also has Tom Baker (better known as the Fourth Doctor from Doctor Who) as the voice of Zeebad instead of Jon Stewart, providing Zeebad, despite his relative lack of defined characterization, with a more imposing and menacing presence absent from Stewart's more comic depiction.
6. At least, Florence, Basil, Coral, Mr. Rusty, Mr. Grimsdale, and Zebedee don't make lame pop cultural references unlike everyone else.
7. Butch Hartman, who wrote the original draft of the American dub, apologized for ruining the movie, claiming that only 3% of his script appears in the final version (approximately only two lines of dialogue).

Reception

While the original UK-dubbed version received mostly positive reviews, the US-dubbed version has become pretty infamous for its an overabundance of pop culture references and flatulence jokes, Butch Hartman revealed in a 2017 interview during the Weinstein scandal and the MeToo and Time's Up movement that his actual script was actually re-written, and even re-recorded, without his consent by Harvey Weinstein and his distribution and production company The Weinstein Company with a screenplay by Hoodwinked! co-director Cory Edwards. At least 3% of his actual script made it into the final cut.

Also unlike the French-British CGI film, which was a success at the box office worldwide, the American version miserably failed at the box office, holding a record (for the time) of having the worst opening week for a computer-animated movie ever, only gaining $3,605,899 on its opening week and $7,417,319 overall domestically out of its budget of $20 million. The record was later surpassed by 2008's Delgo at $511,920 on its opening week and $694,782 worldwide against a budget of $40 million.

Trivia

1. So far, this is the only film to be produced by Action Synthese.
2. The U.S. failure of the movie alongside with The U.K. failure of The Hottie and the Nottie led to Pathé UK giving up UK distribution rights in 2010, with one of their films Chatroom being transferred to the now defunct Revolver Entertainment. The company then began producing biographical films such as The Iron Lady, Philomena, Pride, Florence Foster Jenkins and Judy and since then only distributed of Pedro Almodóvar's films in the U.K..
3. This was the final film to be produced by bolexbrothers before it was acquired by DHX Media.
4. A sequel to this film was in development in 2004 by Action Synthese before the film was released. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view), Action Synthese shut down in 2013, and the sequel, along with an animated film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz and a CGI film of Space Goofs called Stupid Invaders (not be confused of the video game of the same name released in 2001), were both canceled.

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External links

• Doogal at the Internet Movie Database
• Doogal on Rotten Tomatoes