Development
On November 7, 1988, HBO aired an animated television special titled Madeline. The teleplay was an adaption of the first book written by Ludwig Bemelmans. The later series was written by Judy Rothman who would become a writer, story editor, and lyricist for nearly all subsequent Madeline animated projects. The special was produced by DIC Enterprises and Cinar (now part of WildBrain). [5] [6] The special featured Christopher Plummer as the narrator, [7] and featured original music and songs by veteran Sesame Street songwriter and composer Joe Raposo [8] [9] with lyrics by Rothman. The cast for all six specials is as follows: [4]
- Marsha Moreau as Madeline
- Judith Orban as Miss Clavel
- Julian Bailey as Pepito
- Anik Matern as Chloe
- Liz MacRae as Danielle
- Sonja Ball as Nicole
The special was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (One Hour or Less). [10] In 1990, the special was released onto VHS by Hi-Tops Video. The success of the special led to CINAR and France Animation producing an additional five specials, all adapted by Rothman from the other five original books, for The Family Channel. [5] The cast of the original special and Plummer all returned for the subsequent specials. [7] These specials featured music by Jeffrey Zahn, who replaced Raposo after his death in 1989. The theme song from the original special, "I'm Madeline", was reprised in each of the subsequent specials. The specials were released on video by Golden Book Video and Cinar/Sony Wonder in Canada.
With the success of the specials, The Family Channel commissioned a television series by DIC, which had been involved in the first of the six specials. The first season aired a total of 20 produced episodes from 1993 to 1994. [5] Christopher Plummer reprised his role as the narrator, [7] but most of the voice actors from the specials were replaced. In addition, Jeffrey Zahn was replaced by Andy Street; compared to the previous specials, however, the series featured only one song per episode (a few of them with a reprise/finale) in addition to the opening theme "I'm Madeline".
In 1995, an additional 13 episodes were produced by DIC for ABC under the title The New Adventures of Madeline. [5] A new theme song, called "Hats Off to Madeline", was used as the new opening theme, with the music by Andy Street and lyrics by Judy Rothman; [11] some early airings of those episodes featured "I'm Madeline", but sung by the new voice cast. Most of the voices of the children characters were replaced, with Andrea Libman assuming the title role, while Plummer, Louise Vallance and French Tickner returned from the voice cast.
Shortly after its airing on ABC, both the network and DIC were acquired by The Walt Disney Company. The 39 produced episodes and specials began to air in reruns on the Playhouse Disney block of Disney Channel. In April 1998, DIC launched a direct-to-video division that produced films for Disney and distributed worldwide through Buena Vista Home Entertainment. The first film produced for this division, [12] Madeline: Lost in Paris , was released in August 1999. [13] Most of the cast members from the 1995 iteration returned with Lauren Bacall and Jason Alexander also voicing new roles. DIC afterwards produced 26 new episodes for Playhouse Disney. [14] Christopher Gaze replaced Plummer as the show's narrator due to DIC refusing to work with the AFTRA union. The show won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Animated Program.
The two Christmas episodes called Madeline at the North Pole and Madeline at Santa showed Lord Cucuface bringing Miss Clavel and the girls to the North Pole when a winter heatwave strikes Paris and is scheduled to last through Christmas this year bring warm, spring like weather to France in December.
Two more films followed ahead: My Fair Madeline, which aired on Nickelodeon in November 2002 as part of the DIC Movie Toons series, and Madeline in Tahiti in 2005.
Madeline has continued to be shown in syndication. In the 2006-2007 season, the series was shown on CBS' KOL Secret Slumber Party Saturday morning block. [5] Qubo also aired reruns of the series from October 6, 2018 to February 22, 2021. [15] The series was also included in the On-Demand section of Sprout from 2015 to 2017, when the channel was rebranded to Universal Kids. As of September 2019, all broadcast and home video rights of Madeline are owned by WildBrain.
The 1993 series was originally released by Golden Book Video on all single VHS volumes, and Sony Wonder on both VHS and DVD. The DVD versions contained 2 episodes each, sometimes with the original specials. The 2000 series was released by Lions Gate Home Entertainment and Trimark Home Video in 2001 and 2002 on all VHS and DVD sets. In these DVD sets, the theme song was changed to a different song titled "Our Madeline" to match the Sing-a-Long versions. In 2008, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released 2 DVDs titled "Next Stop, America" and "Meet Me in Paris", each containing 3 episodes. In 2010, Shout! Factory released 5 single-disc collections of the series.
In September 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment released 3 single disc collections featuring content from the animated series as well as the original TV specials. "The New Adventures of Madeline - Adventures in Paris" contains 6 episodes from the 2000 series, [22] while "Madeline's Merry Musical Melodies" features various musical interludes from the animated series. [23] "Bonjour Madeline" contains all 6 original TV specials. [24] Later in May 2014, Mill Creek re-released the three single disc collections together in one three-pack set, [25] followed by "Madeline: The Complete Collection" on DVD in Region 1 for the first time in August 2015. [26] This six-disc collection features all six original specials produced by DIC Entertainment and CINAR between 1988 and 1991, as well as all 59 episodes from the "Madeline" TV series (1993, 1995, 2000–2001).
Sing-a-Longs
In 2001, DIC produced two direct-to-video releases which featured songs and clips from season 3 of the television series akin to Disney's Sing-Along Songs series, which were titled "Sing-a-Long with Madeline and her Friends" and "Sing-a-Long Around the World with Madeline".
They were originally released by Lions Gate Home Entertainment and Trimark Home Video on September 25, 2001, and March 25, 2002, respectively, [27] and later reissued together by Mill Creek Entertainment as "Madeline's Merry Musical Melodies" on September 10, 2013, as well as being available for digital download.
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