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Anyone familiar with Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation shows of the 1960s onwards should find this rare 1981 offering from South Africa interesting. I understand that 39 episodes were made in total although only 37 were transmitted. The first 13 episodes have been released on DVD. The story involves a space defence force based in Cape Town protecting the planet from sinister forces. The spoken language is Afrikaans and I have been unable to find either a dubbed version or an English subtitle set. This makes evaluation quite difficult as the show appears to be in the form of a serial and has rather a lot of dialogue. The budget was clearly a lot less than that of the Anderson shows. It cannot compete with the sheer visual complexity and variety of the likes of Thunderbirds, Stingray and Captain Scarlet. Most of the verbal action takes place in half a dozen or so set locations and these areas are quite nicely detailed. Where Interster scores well is the catchy soundtrack and realistic puppet movements. There are no visible strings so I assume that the puppets were controlled electronically. This would put the show on a par with the puppets of the Terrahawks series which was also made in the 1980s. It would be nice to see the whole series released with subtitles, making it available to a much larger potential audience. A fanbase set of subtitles would be of benefit, however, having created scratch srt files myself for half hour programs, I know just how time consuming an operation this is.

Cécile Aubry was a French actress know for such films as 'Manon' (1949) and 'The Black Rose' (1950). In the late 1950s she began to write children's stories and also at this time made several short films. One of her stories called 'The adventures of Poly' was accepted for television and was made into a black and white, thirteen part, fifteen minutes per episode series. It was aired in France in 1961 under the screen title 'Poly'.

Poly is a cute pony with a blonde mane in a traveling circus. One day the circus arrives at the village of young Pascal. Pascal becomes friends with the mistreated animal and decides to rescue it. Aided by local children he hides his new four-legged pal in the woods and so the adventure begins.

The character of Pascal was played by Aubry's own son Mehdi, who was just four years old at the time. Mehdi turned out to be quite a natural in front of the camera and four years later he would go on to play Sébastien in Aubry's more widely known series 'Belle and Sébastien'. Cécile Aubry directed Poly herself with the support of a small production crew. She wisely set the story in her home village of Saint-Cyr-sous-Dourdan, a picturesque area south of Paris. The cast was mainly made up of local residents, children and amateur actors. They would later be dubbed by professional voice artists. Aubry's local knowledge of the area, (she lived there for almost sixty years) resulted in some good location choices. The rural French countryside is a visual treat. The birds twitter, the children race around, hide Poly in a haystack and are then treated to a ride on top of a hay cart towed by a tractor. It certainly has charm. It reminds me of some of those early British Children's Film Foundation (CFF) productions, with youngsters romping around in fields, scrumping apples and strawberries, letting the air out of the vicar's tyres and stuffing a potato up the exhaust pipe of grumpy old Mrs Tong's Morris 1000.

Cécile Aubry penned numerous Poly stories, nine of which made it onto the television screens. All of them featured Poly becoming involved in various scrapes both in France and around Europe. The cast changed for each show but some actors did appear more than once. I have all of the Poly series in my collection except for Au Secours Poly Au Secours! For some reason this was not released on DVD. Does anyone know if it is on VHS?

The Poly series are listed below in order of transmission.

1961- THE ADVENTURES OF POLY.

13 episodes of 14 minutes.

Director- Cécile Aubry.

1963- LES VACANCES DE POLY.

13 episodes of 14 minutes.

Director- Claude Boissol.

1964- POLY ET LE SECRET DES SEPT ÉTOILES.

13 episodes of 14 minutes.

Director- Claude Boissol.

1965- POLY AU PORTUGAL.

13 episodes of 14 minutes/ 7 episodes of 26 minutes.

Director- Claude Boissol.

1966- AU SECOURS POLY, AU SECOURS!

13 episodes.

Director- Henri Toulout.

1967- POLY ET LE DIAMANT NOIR.

13 episodes of 14 minutes/ 7 episodes of 26 minutes.. Director- Henri Toulout.

1970- POLY A VENISE.

13 episodes. (In colour).

Director- Jacques Pinoteau.

1972- POLY EN ESPAGNE.

13 episodes of 26 minutes. (In colour).

Director- Claude Boissol.

1973- POLY EN TUNISIE.

13 episodes.

Director- Claude Boissol. (In colour).

This show was a bit of a recent surprise discovery for this 1960s oggleboxer. Like a lot of Brits currently in their 50's I am familiar with 'Here Come The Double Deckers' (1970), but I wonder how many can recall this earlier CFF offering from 1968. It is obviously a forerunner to that later series. Both shows feature a gang of kids getting into all sorts trouble, with lots of mud, water and cakes etc flying around the place, and the odd song routine thrown in. Two of the children, Brinsley Forde and Michael Audreson went on to appear in the more polished Double Deckers production. The supporting adult cast includes Deryck (Please Sir!) Guyler, the always posh and prim Damaris Hayman, and Janet Webb who used to appear regularly on the Morecambe and Wise Show. It is also worth noting the presence of young Len Jones (character Steve) who also voiced puppet Joe in Gerry Anderson's 'Joe 90'. If you don't know who Joe 90 is then you are too young to be reading this. Watch out for the slightly worrying moment when the kids are all sitting on a pianola being pulled down the road behind a tow truck, when a van zooms past overtaking them. Health and Safety would go nuts seeing that today! IMDB lists about twelve episodes of 'The Magnificent Six And A Half' but I don't know if that is the total number made. If you are curious then it's worth searching for this one. Look up episode 'Ghosts And Ghoulies' here on IMDB for a different review of this rather forgotten series.