It isn't just Doctor Who who can't give up time-travelling. Both The Magic Roundabout and Captain Scarlet are returning from the children's TV graveyard in new animated forms.

Steve Pratt looks at our fascination with the heroes of old and why programme-makers are prepared to pay up to £30m for this new lease of life.

OLD TV shows don't die. They're repeated, become cults and are then resurrected in a different form. As The Magic Roundabout gets a new lease of life on cinema screens, Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet returns to the small screen with a new look.

Forty years have passed since Dougal and his friends first climbed aboard The Magic Roundabout. Two years later, in 1967, super-puppet Captain Scarlet began battling a mysterious alien force. Both series were made for younger audiences but also attracted more mature viewers, perhaps that's one reason for their longevity.

Messing with a much-loved format is a risky business, particularly with The Magic Roundabout as they were only ever five-minute episodes. A feature film is a much longer proposition. So the makers have pitted Brian, Ermintrude, Dylan and Dougal against the evil sorcerer Zeebad. They must capture three magic diamonds to reverse the permanent freeze that's turned their world into a very large block of ice.

It all began back in 1963 when English animator Ivor Wood's creation of a legless, long-haired dog was put at the heart of a quirky French series called Le Manege Enchante, set in a magic garden containing a magic roundabout.

Pollux, as the dog was christened, was one of the stop-frame animated characters in Serge Danot's series, which was bought by the BBC and handed over to Eric Thompson, the late father of actress Emma Thompson. He narrated the five-minute episodes, not translating the French storylines or dialogue directly, but inventing his own plots and character names.

At one stage, eight million viewers watched the show, a massive audience for what was billed as a children's programme. The series was revived briefly in 1991 on C4 when some unseen episodes were discovered, bringing The Magic Roundabout to a new generation.

The series has achieved iconic status and attracted several theories as to its true nature. Some viewed it as political satire, while others thought it was some dark drug culture fantasy. And what exactly did Zebedee mean when he ended the stories with the words, "Time for bed"?

The film, which has been four years in the making, uses Computer Generated Images (CGI) to bring the characters back to life. They've all been given distinctive voices, including those of Jim Broadbent (Brian), Ian McKellen (Zebedee), Joanna Lumley (Ermintrude) and Bill Nighy (Dylan). Most intriguing is having two of the pop world's biggest names lending their voices - Kylie Minogue is Florence and Robbie Williams is Dougal. For Minogue, it brought back memories of her childhood in Australia. What struck her was "the madness of it all, with all those characters running round in circles and the crazy music". She says: "When I first got the request I just thought it's one of those opportunities that comes up where there's no hesitation. You just go, 'I'd love to do that, when can I do it?'. And you hope against hope that it's not taken away from you."

Williams admits to being very scared of animation when he was a kid. "I don't know why. I was easily scared I suppose. Doctor Who was no problem, but as soon as The Magic Roundabout came on, I used to hide behind the sofa," he admits.

The chart-topping singer is happier with it now.

"I've started to get into animation and really enjoy the escapism. I'm very proud that I was asked to take part. It's been very exciting for me. And doing this kind of film work, you don't have to get up at all funny hours of the morning, only to sit around all day and do one take that lasts just 15 seconds."

HAVING seen the live action version of Thunderbirds flop in cinemas last summer, Gerry Anderson must be glad he hasn't gone for real actors in his New Captain Scarlet on ITV1.

Not that he's stuck with the format that was such a feature on his TV puppet shows. He's cut the strings and opted for the latest motion capture system and cutting edge CGI to create the adventures. The 26 episodes have cost £30 million. "The New Captain Scarlet is the most advanced and adventurous production I've ever made, taking family sci-fi action adventure to another level and CGI television animation into a new dimension," he says.

The puppets may have been replaced by CGI actors but the story remains the same. Captains Scarlet and Black, agents of elite security force Spectrum, investigate alien signals from Mars. Both men are destroyed by the evil Mysterons, who declare war on planet Earth.

The Mysterons attempt to rebuild the men to use as weapons of destruction. Scarlet escapes, only to find he's now virtually indestructible.

Black, however, goes over to the other side. Spectrum must protect Earth with air defence in the hands of an all-female squadron of fighter pilots, the Angels, led by the tough and feisty Destiny Angel.

Anderson recalls how the original series, Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons, became a worldwide hit and how they've been repeated on TV again and again around the world.

"The children who originally watched Captain Scarlet are now adults, many of them parents themselves. So Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons continues to be known and loved by family audiences around the world today. It was a perfect show for a remake," he says.

Anderson built his own CGI studio at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, where he has his permanent offices. Several hundred computers along with a team of directors and crew, were installed to create the New Captain Scarlet.

"I was keen to ensure that the female leads were given a larger slice of the action, to reflect the changing role of women in today's society."

He wanted all the characters to be able to walk, run, jump, fight and imitate all the human movements you'd expect to see in a live action sequence. To give each character its own individual body language, the motion capture system was used. Photo-reflective sensors were attached to an actor's body suit, with their movements recorded and transposed on to pre-built CG figures.

* The Magic Roundabout (U) is previewing in some cinemas now before going on general release tomorrow

* The new Captain Scarlet premieres during ITV1's Saturday morning show Ministry Of Mayhem tomorrow

Published: 10/02/2005