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Nevertheless, I feel David Fox's rendition of Haddock's voice was excellent. They didn't really make an attempt at falsification of an accent, which would have ruined the voice, and the Captain is much more believable than say, the voice in Tintin in the Lake of Sharks, which sounds like something from Popeye.

When they made the Beanos Dennis the Menace into a cartoon his voice still drives me nuts

And in a weird coincidence, the chap that played Dennis the Menace - Richard Pearce - also played Tintin in the BBC Radio adaptations.
I think the voices in that were way better than the voices in the cartoons, which are just nauseous (sp?). I haven't actually seen those Belvision ones though; when were they made?

Speaking as an American viewer, I must respectfully disagree ... it's rather easy, in fact, to determine that the voice actors in the Nelvana series are Canadian, because of certain vowel sounds particular to English spoken in regions of that country, and yes, the ever popular "oo" in place of "ow" (as in "aboot" for "about", though not quite so cliche-broad) is among them.

Also, I must admit, if one has a fondness for ubiquitous (that is, ever-working) Canadian actors, some of the names are familiar. Wayne Robson, who does Calculus, for example, has been seen in the US on many American shows filmed in Canada. (I remember first seeing him on the J. Michael Straczynski-run syndicated 3rd season of the 1980s TWILIGHT ZONE in the episode "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", scripted by Harlan Ellison. He had the lead, but the star player was Tony Franciosa.)

And I must admit to simply adoring Tintin's English-language voice upon first hearing -- it almost precisely matched the voice in my inner ear. Even if some of the line-readings were too broad, I thought the persona and pitch were dead on. (The broadness, by the way, is due not to the actor, but to the voice direction, which ranges from only-adequate to abysmal, IMHO. It spreads to most of the performances [which is how you can tell the fault lies with the voice director], and is at its most offensive with the outrageously grating, even condescending overplaying of General Alcazar.)

Colin O'Meara's Tintin voice in the Nelvana series reminded me (pleasantly) of Larry Harmon, in the "American" English Belvision cartoons I watched as a kid. Tell the truth, the Nelvana voice that took me a LONG time to get used to was David Fox as Captain Haddock. I think as an actor he does a perfectly competent job, but the timbre seems just too high for a gruff old salt. Speaking musically, Fox is a tenor, and Haddock has always struck me as a baritone. Of course, I must admit, the first Haddock voice I ever heard was that of the amazing Paul Frees (who did all the voices EXCEPT Tintin and Snowy for the Belvision dubs), who did it nice and deep. Most of you might know Frees as the voice of Boris Badenov in ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, or Meowrice the Money Cat in the film GAY PURR-EE.

However -- I have since heard the most perfect Haddock -- EVER. If any of you have the Netherlands cast album of the musical (not the Belgian cast, singin' in French -- the original Dutch cast, under the title KUIFJE: DE ZONNETEMPEL), check out Henk Poort. (I recently saw the show on tape -- it was recorded for Netherlands television by Canal + -- and Poort is absolutely as amazing as he sounds. If you're not inclined to buy the CD, go to the musical website -- www.musicaltintin.com or www.musicalkuifje.com -- and check out the sample audios from the Netherlands side.

Speaking as an American viewer, I must respectfully disagree ... it's rather easy, in fact, to determine that the voice actors in the Nelvana series are Canadian, because of certain vowel sounds particular to English spoken in regions of that country, and yes, the ever popular "oo" in place of "ow" (as in "aboot" for "about", though not quite so cliche-broad) is among them.

Speaking as a half-half (Amerc-Canadian), though I agree that Tintin's accent is clearly eastern Canadian to the trained ear (I emphasize eastern, as we don't speak that way in the urban areas of British Columbia, for example), I absolutely stand by my statement that this fact would be lost on 95% of his viewers, of either nationality. I studied linguistics and have lived in several regions... even with this training, I often find it a challenge to pick out the accents of other Canadians. It's not nearly that pronounced to the average viewer.

The giveaway that you note ("Canadian raising") is present in Colin O'Meara's voice, but that feature of the eastern accent (his name makes me suspect he's from Nova Scotia) isn't nearly as pronounced as the pop culture makes it sound. For one, nobody -- not a single human -- in Canada actually says "aboot" the way television loves to portray it. The diphthong that the Ontarians and such use is [^w] in linguistic terms (a lot like the Dutch "ui") as opposed to the [aw] of American English. "uh + w" instead of "ah + w." There is no [u] vowel ("oo") at all in Canadian raising. I, as a Vancouverite, do not do this in any event, though there are some who do.

Speaking musically, Fox is a tenor, and Haddock has always struck me as a baritone.

I fully agree, although I thought his Belvision voice was off too... :)

At the Greenwich day, MT&LL-C mentioned that the French language version of the text runs about a fifth longer than the English equivalent (English has shorter words and fewer of them, apparently).

My guess is that is what makes the English Tintin sound slow and simple - the English-language actor is lip-synching as best as possible to the mouth movements done for the French dialogue. Tintin has the majority of the stuff to say (he’s in it more than any other character), and what he has to say is generally straight. Many of the other characters can get away with saying very little, or by didnt of them having comedy dialogue which doesn’t have to fit so well - the Captain exploding into one of his outrages, for example.

Jock123: At the Greenwich day, MT&LL-C mentioned that the French language version of the text runs about a fifth longer than the English equivalent (English has shorter words and fewer of them, apparently).

Hm, that's interesting. To be honest, having watched the episodes in both languages, I always thought that the English Tintin was speaking a bit more (there are a number of moments when he says nothing in French, but makes a comment in English, curiously enough), but I could be wrong. A moment in Secret of the Unicorn certainly backs up the translators' theory, when in English, he says to a dying Barnaby "Sparrows?" while in French he asks rhetorically, «Qu'est-ce qu'il voulait dire?» ("What did he mean?")

Of course the English language has considerably more words in it than the French language, but I realize that that's not what you meant. :)

Jyrki21
«Qu'est-ce qu'il voulait dire?» ("What did he mean?")
That is a good demonstration of the point. There are far more characters in the French than the English - for the purposes of fitting dialogue to the balloons, the translators would have had to count all the punctuation and spaces too - 29 in French, 17 in English. This is quite an extreme difference, but an entire book might have given closer to the 20% average.

Of course the English language has considerably more words in it than the French language, but I realize that that's not what you meant. :)

There are actually three words in both “the English language” and “the French language”, but that’s not what you meant either… :-)

Just a little observation which (if I'm right) may question the intitial language this series was made in.

Try watching both English and French versions of "King Ottokar's Sceptre" - specifically, the bit where Tintin and Snowy are thrown out of the plane. This is from memory, so it might be a bit hazy - one of the scenes shows the hay cart, and then the suitcase crashing down in the foreground. Whilst this happens, Tintin's shout as he falls into the hay seems to be the same one in both languages, and to my mind, done by Colin O'Meara.

So which came first ?

Richard: Try watching both English and French versions of "King Ottokar's Sceptre" - specifically, the bit where Tintin and Snowy are thrown out of the plane. This is from memory, so it might be a bit hazy - one of the scenes shows the hay cart, and then the suitcase hitting crashing down in the foreground. Whilst this happens, Tintin's shout as he falls into the hay seems to be the *same one* in both languages, and to my mind, done by Colin O'Meara.


I haven't yet watched Ottokar, but I believe you're right that English might have played a larger role in all this than might be apparent from all the French writing.

As mentioned, I've watched most of these in English, but I often switch over and re-watch parts in French to see how things were translated. And unmistakably, the animation of the character's mouths matches the English text! It's possible, of course, to read whatever you want into animated mouths flapping up and down, but I'm more and more sure every time I watch that their mouths open broadly or roundedly in time with the appropriate English vowels (ah, oh, etc.) when it seems to be much more haphazard in French.

Anyone else notice this? It'd be entirely consistent with the makeup of Ellipse and Nelvana, not to mention the written French everywhere...

Perhaps the reason for the slow speaking at points in the English version is a result of needing to find a happy medium between the speed that each language is spoken at - whenever I watch the French versions, it strikes me that it sometimes seems almost a rush to get all of the words out in time before someone else starts talking.

Regarding the dominant language, perhaps the French signs and visuals are simply there for authenticity ? English signposts wouldn't be found in the Loire valley.

And at least the lip sync isn't as bad as the beginning of Belvision's "Asterix and Cleopatra" ! (and therein lies the joke).