Tintin Forums

I am a fan from way back. But new to this board. I don't have a lot of knowledge - therefore please excuse the fact that my questions will cover ground that well-informed fans will probably already know. I have tried to do some research - but I am finding a lot of conflicting information out there. I also wish to make a suggestion that would be helpful to other folks like me.

Excuse the length of this post. But I hope that as various people answer my questions - other folks will get a clarity that is currently eluding me!

1) First the suggestion. A lot of people use Wikipedia as a resource. I thought that I would find answers to the questions I'm about to ask on Wikipedia. But I didn't. Is there a resolve among Tintin fans to ensure that the Wikipedia articles on Tintin are as good as they can be?
As Wikipedia can be edited by anyone - it would seem to be a great project for fellow enthusiasts to turn their attention to.

2) My main questions relate to the Belvision episodes. I am finding conflicting info on these points.

I gather that there were the following 6 stories - that were divided up into 104 episodes
Objective Moon Espionage
The Crab with the Golden Claws
The Secret of the Unicorn/ Red Rackham's treasure
The Shooting Star
Black Island
The Calculus Case

3) Were the Belvision episodes made in black & white? Or were they made in colour?

4) I assume that they were originally made with French or Flemish voices. This query relates to the version played on BBC in the 1960s & 1970s. Were the English voices overlaid by Belvision? Or was that work done by the BBC in UK?

5) If as I suspect - the latter - that might theoretically complicate the ownership of the English language versions. The visual would obviously be owned by Belvision. But the audio soundtrack created by the BBC might be arguably owned by the BBC. That could complicate any DVD release of the English-language versions. Belvision may not have physical possession of the master-tapes aired by the BBC. And even if they did have a set - could they release content that includes audio created by the BBC?
Conversely - even if the BBC possesses master-tapes of what it created - it doesn't own the underlying rights to the stories, visuals and name.
This might be one reason why the English-language version of the 104 episodes (apart from the "The Calculus Case") aren't readily available on DVD.

6) I am truly confused as to what has been released - either on VHS or on DVD - of the 104 episodes of the English language episodes. (Leave aside for a moment the DVD release of "The Calculus Affair")

Here is some text from the current version of Wikipedia
Several video releases were made, in both English and French. No DVD set has been released, though The Calculus Case was released on DVD as a full length film.

The video releases made in English. Presumably on VHS?
Did these have the the original audio recorded by the BBC?
On what label(s) were these releases made?
And in what years were the releases made?

Do we know under what titles the various tapes were released? Were they released under the titles of the 6 stories?

Did these video releases cover all 104 episodes?

Over how many tapes were the episodes spread?

Since the total of all 104 episodes would be 520 mins (8 hours 40 mins) I'm guessing that that would be spread over several tapes.

Are these VHS tapes ever offered for sale on eBay or via Amazon private vendors? Or other online sellers?


7) Another line of text from Wikipedia

The Calculus Case was later re-packaged and sold as one long film only in English and in the U.K

Is that essentially the individual Belvision episodes that comprised the story "The Calculus Case" (or "The Calculus Affair") just strung together? Was there any effort made to meld the episodes so that it seems to be a seamless story?

Is this Anchor Bay version in English?


8) I understand that Belvision made two films of Tintin stories.

In 1969, they combined parts of two stories - 'The Seven Crystal Balls' and 'Prisoners of the Sun' - into one film released under the title "Tintin and the Temple of the Sun"

Was this released in English language?

If so - were the English voices the same ones who provide the voices for the BBC version of the Belvision TV series? Or different actors?

9) In 1972 - Belvision made "Tintin and the Lake of Sharks".

Were the English voices the same ones who provided the voices for "Tintin and the Temple of the Sun"? Or different actors?

10) I know that the 104 Belvision episodes were shown on US TV in the 1960s.
Did those episodes use the BBC audio wth English actors? Or were they re-recorded with American voices?

11) I see that there have been English-language versions of The Calculus Case/ Affair released in both UK and US. I assume that the version released in the UK features the BBC recorded voices. Is the version released in the USA the same as the UK version - ie with the BBC audio? Or was the audio re-recorded for the USA?

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Thank you for your patience in reading through all these questions. I look forward to being enlightened by replies from fans much more knowledgeable than myself.

Whew, Sgt.! There's a lot there, isn't there? It might be helpful to keep the questions coming gradually, rather than throwing them all in at once, but let's have a go with what you've got:

The stories you list are the ones made in colour. Belvision had perviously made adaptations in black and white, using limited animation (in the manner of John Ryan's Captain Pugwash or Mary, Mungo and Midge), where cut outs are moved to give on-screen motion. At least a couple of these were broadcast by the BBC, and are discussed in this thread.

Some were made in French, in Brussels, and dubbed into English; some of the cartoons were also made in America (by Larry Harmon), for Belvision (much as episodes of The Simpsons are made over-seas for the parent company in the U.S.), and these were made in English, and then dubbed into French.
There is as yet no definitive answer to how they were shown here: although the BBC did broadcast the series with episodes dubbed in English by a British cast, it can't be said if they re-dubbed everything, or if it was only done to the French-language epsiodes, and the American tracks left as-is.
It is also not clear (apart from the B&W stories they showed) if the voice work was done by the BBC, for the BBC, or whether the distributor had them dubbed, and then provided them to the BBC.
The early B&W stories had Gerald Campion as the voice of Tintin, and Deryck Guyler doing the other voices.

Possibly, but the question is moot: the BBC don't have the epsiodes in any state.
They didn't own them, they just "rented" them, as it were, and when their rights to them ended or lapsed, as far as can be told, the prints will have been returned, destroyed or discarded. So the biggest barrier to releasing the versions used by the BBC is unavailablity.

All of the colour Belvision series have been released on VHS; they are readily found in charity shops, on eBay, and from second-hand VHS dealers, as they were out for quite a number of years. All appear to use American voices, but as they were on a variety of labels - including Virgin Home Video, who promoted them quite heavily - it's hard to say for sure. BASF even included them at one point as free gifts on what were otherwise being sold as blank tapes... (I got The Shooting Star that way!)
None has ever been released in episodic form; instead, they are always edited into "features".
The double-album stories (Unicorn/ Red Rackham and the Moon books) will be found as single tapes.
When buying, don't confuse them with the Nelvana series, which looks similar on VHS.

Your arithmetic, although apparently sound, shows a misunderstanding of how the stories were made up - that is, very cheaply!!
The fact is that, once the first couple of episodes were in the bag, the stories were (roughly!) three minutes of re-cap and repeat, and two minutes of "new" material - and even that might use repeated sequences of a character running, or a car on motion or what-have-you. Essentially they had a minute of the day-before-yesterday's episode, the two new minutes from yesterday, and a couple more minutes of story for today. This means in the edited version, they more-or-less had two minutes of "new" story to work with per episode, and the feature versions run shorter than you imagine. It has been discussed here too.

Yes, it runs like a (short) movie.

Yes, and it is readily available in this set, along with the two other films.

We've no way of knowing, and it's possible that we may never know, as finding out who dubbed what is proving to be a very difficult task to unravel, indeed if it is possible at all.

Most likely the BBC were the ones to be be doing "re-recordings", as several of the series already had American audio tracks, so it would have been simple for them to complete the process with the actors already in place. Anyway, as said before, the BBC versions no longer appear to exist - unless anyone recorded them off air?

It used to be, but now there is a clique on Wikipedia who block any attempts to diversify and prevent others from putting in details that, for them, "go against the rules". It does not matter if it is minor or major: this clique will overwrite anything that they personally do not approve of and whine to the administrators when they do not get their way.

This is particularly true about subjects to do with fiction such as comics and movies. For example, there used to be whole articles devoted to individual characters from the Tintin stories such as Muller (Black Island), Boris/Jorgen (Sceptre, the Moon) and Frank Wolff (Moon). Now these have all been reduced to a simple list with just a paragraph or two for each of the characters.

Some bloke insisted on this, claiming that it was to do with the rules, and no amount of reasoning would convince him otherwise. Personally I think that people like him just get a feeling of power in denying others the right to spread knowledge.

I, for example, used to be a great contributor to Wikipedia but events like the one above put me off. The final straw was when that bloke insisted that articles on the Tintin supporting characters should be reduced to a mere list with the minimum of detail. For example, I had written a major entry for "Bab El Ehr" detailing how he developed over the course of the various publications of "Black Gold" which I found interesting. But the bloke decided that it should be reduced to just a couple of paragraphs.

All that work for nothing. All to provide some bloke with a feeling of power by destroying it all. I'd had enough - I have not contributed to Wikipedia since.

mct16

Thanks for your response on this point. And I am certainly aware that there can be unhelpful people on Wikipedia. Sometimes they are Wiki purists who are overly concerned about Wiki layout. Though there are no set-in-stone rules about how an article should look. The other type of person who can be troublesome are fanatics on the specific topic - who wish to argue about facts.

It sounds as if there has been trouble more with the former types than the latter.

The specific area that I think could/should be improved would I think be entirely non-controversial. And that is providing clarity on what has been released and what has not been released on VHS and on DVD. Those things are absolutes. And laying the info out with clarity is certainly not anti Wiki policy. The key thing is to provide sources for the info conveyed. Either as "in-line" references or as external references. Even though you may start from a position of personal knowledge - major details ought to have a verifiable reference. eg a link to a database or reputable online article (such as this website).

I think it's such a basic piece of info that casual fans would want clarity on. And this area IS confusing to the non-expert.

There was a lot! And thank you very much for being so patient and helpful in tackling so many of my questions.

A few comments arising:

Understood. As per my reply to mct16 - I still think there would be merit in clarifying this info somewhere. What you provided in your answer was exceptionally helpful to me - but it still required following various links to earlier threads. I am just thinking that it would be great to have a single page where the entire topic of what has been available on VHS and then on DVD - broken down into the Belevision series, the films etc etc. Plus variations relating to various major territories etc., etc.
All distilled into one easy-to-follow page. If there is a preference that it be here - that would be fine. The wikipedia article could link to here. Just a thought...


Thank you for this. I had omitted to think about or discuss the issue of voices recorded in the US. So are you saying that - in respect of the 104 episodes - there is no certainty as to whether what the BBC aired in the UK were episodes that had voices dubbed in the UK by the BBC itself. Or were the episodes prepared in the USA for US TV. Which may well have included English actors domiciled in the US. There were plenty of them in the 60s. cf Batman episodes etc.

I had always been curious as to who did the opening "HERGE'S ADVENTURES of TINTINNNNNNNNNNNNN" announcement. Such an American styling and voice. And very reminiscent of the introduction of Johnny Carson.

Given this - and given that it would have been a lot of fiddling about for what in BBC terms was just a 5 minute kiddie item filling up a short space - is it possible that what the BBC broadcast of those 104 episodes were actually the AMERICAN produced episodes? With voices done in the US. Including US-based British actors providing the voices for Haddock & the Thompsons etc?

Also arising from this possibility. The BBC was notorious for wiping its video tape content in the 60s of what it considered ephemeral pop culture flotsam. Whereas the US TV companies routinely retained vast amounts of content for the purposes of repeats in syndication.

Is it possible that (and has it been explored) that all the episodes produced and aired in the US probably exist in America. And could thus receive the same process that yielded the "Calculus Affair/Case" self-contained film?


You say that the 1980s VHS releases had all American voices. Does that include voices that we Brits recall as being voiced by British actors? eg Haddock and Thompsons?

As you say - it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the packaging of the 1980s VHS releases of the Belvision and the 1990s VHS releases of the Nelvana series. What a nuisance!

What I have seen on Beatles websites (which are notoriously obsessive on these matters!) are pages that itemize each and every separate release. With the name of the label, release date etc. And a scan of each cover. To assist fans in distinguishing between different releases. A lot of work of course. But incredibly helpful to the fans.

Is there at least a list of the titles of the various Belvision VHS releases (and respective labels) to provide some clues for those who are searching?

That one's easily answered and has been discussed on the forums previously.
It's the distinctive voice of Paul Frees. He was the narrator (used more in the episodic versions than in the compilations) and also Haddock and The Thompsons, in the US dub of the most of these cartoons. He also did some of the voices in the Beatles cartoons.
More Paul Frees info in this thread
(scroll down to Pelaphus's post)
He has a page on Wikipedia.

By the way, the first story is titled 'Objective Moon'. 'Espionage' is just the title of the first episode. As far as I can tell 'Objective Moon' was produced by Larry Harmon Studio circa 1959, all the others were produced by Belvision 1960-1963, The Calculus Case 1965.

That reminds me, while the DVD release of The Calculus Case is a compilation version, the script PDF included on the disc is a complete episodic script, with all the narrator’s intros, episode titles and cliffhanger summations! Fantastic!

Well, yes. There is work being done to try and research things like this, but as has been said, the epsiodes shown by the BBC didn't have any credits, and neither did the Radio Times listings, so it is difficult to say now what exactly was screened.


It's entirely possible, or it could just have been that they got given an English dub in the U.S. for any market.


We have found out that the voice-cast for the U.S. consisted of Dallas McKinnon as Tintin (at least some of the time), Paul Frees (see Rocky's post) as mostly everybody else and the narrator, and perhaps Larry Harmon himself as possibly some Tintin duties and additional voices. McKinnon and Frees were veteran voice actors, often called upon to do British and other foreign accents, so they would certainly have had it covered.


Yes, entirely possible, but the jury is still out without evidence. I can't see that the BBC was particularly bothered by the dubbing process, or dismissive of the content of this and other children's programming slots: far more dubbed content appeared then than now, and they went to the bother of commissioning entirely new stories and soundtracks for The Magic Roundabout, The Flashing Blade, The Aeronauts etc., that Tintin would have been relatively trivial to take care of. However, if an English version was already available, they might have used it.


I know it's a common view of the BBC, but it is a little unfair.
When the BBC TV was set up, there was no means of recording what it produced, so no provision was considered for it to preserve material; it thus had no right to spend money on archiving, as the charter it worked to didn't include it.
When the facilities came to record output, it did start to do so, but it was very limited in what it was allowed to do; Equity, the actors' union, actively prevented it from repeating material well into the Fifties (recordings were to be for in-house review only), and when Equity did relent, they only sanctioned a very small number of hours of repeats per channel per year. Furthermore, as late as the 80s, any performer could veto a U.K. repeat.
Rights also lapsed if/ when someone else gained them - so a movie being made of an in-copyright book which the BBC had previously adapted meant the BBC had to destroy its version if still held by them, or at least remove it from any sort of release. The Peter Cushing version of Orwell's 1984 was denied any sort of showing for many years, thanks to the American movie of the Fifties (it actually only survived by accident, as it was marked for destruction, then mislaid, and rediscovered some years later).
When certain rights to the Fifties film expired, a new window of opportunity opened, and the play was later shown on BBC TV as part of an anniversary celebration, and slated for home-video release. But that was thwarted when the John Hurt vehicle came out, and the Cushing play was withdrawn again...
Some material was sold abroad, but as the vast majority of what the BBC could hold was virtually unusable, funding the constant growth of the archive took money away from new productions, which sadly led to junkings.
This was fairly wide ranging, not a purge of pop-culture: classic serials, drama and comedy suffered, as did current affairs (famously the Moon landing coverage went).
They also had to economize on materials such as video tape, which was extremely costly, and had to be reused (the Moon landing coverage actually went in favour of recording the Milk Cup Final).
Bought in series such as Tintin, and the foreign productions listed above, mostly never belonged to the BBC, and the terms of their "rental" agreement will almost certainly have insisted that they didn't keep copies beyond their allotted term.
We're fortunate that accidents (as mentioned above) sometimes did happen, as it was through one such oversight that the BBC retained a unique print of Tintin and the Golden Fleece, in its English dub, which was discovered in a batch of material sent to the BFI, making it available for a screening at the NFT in London.
So I too would love to have a complete run of Doctor Who, but if it had meant that they couldn't afford to make it now because the money was going on preserving the early stuff, I'm not sure what my answer would be. And every time an Equity actor moans about the BBC having got rid of material, they should be reminded that if they were so worried about it, why did Equity render the material unusable, and by not offering to pay for archiving? But I digress... ;-)


But that's what we do have - the Belvision cartoons have all been released, in English, in "movie" form, in the version with the American sound-track. This includes the Harmon Moon episodes. What we are waiting for (and may never get) is a DVD release of the same.

To be honest, I wouldn't be prepared to say that I ever thought they sounded particularly British, if I was bothered to make a guess (which as a child in the Sixties I probably would never have thought to).
Actually, it is probably better put the other way round: if listening to the VHS tapes I have today, I couldn't say that they weren't exactly as I recalled the voices sounding from when I was small.

It certainly would be useful, but I know of no such resource; I'd imagine that this is partly because without access to a central source (whoever, or whatever, controls the international licensing of the cartoons), it would be hard to get names and dates for all of the releases. Also, unlike with Beatles recordings, there doesn't seem to be any great difference between releases, or particular interest in being completist about it.
Personally, I just looked for tapes, and bought them as I came upon them. Practically this is all I have needed: Black Island on Lollipop and Black Island on Virgin VHS is probably going to be close enough to the same thing, and most people only really want the story.

However, I can see that there is a home for such information here, and I have already spoken to Harrock n Roll about a need to overhaul the animation section of our guides, so perhaps we could use this as an appeal for help, to get it started here.

If anyone has information on the following, could they please e-mail me at the following e-mail address: simon<remove this>@<remove this>tintinologist.org

- Belvision epsiodes recorded off-air, and their source (date, country and station)
- Belvision episodes on pre-recorded video (format(VHS/ Betamax etc.), date (if known), country, label, catalogue numbers etc.)
- Nelvana episodes on pre-recorded video (format(VHS/ Betamax etc.), date (if known), country, label, catalogue numbers etc.)

Once any results come in, I'll try and compile a picture of what went on, and came out where, and we'll have a firmer basis to get the data out there for everyone!


Yes, isn't it? I was checking it out again last night, and it's a real gem!
Oh, and thanks for the memory jog on the Paul Frees connection, Rocky!

My pleasure, Jock123! Don't forget that the BBC were not the only ones to broadcast episodic Belvision in the UK. ITV broadcast Star of Mystery (i.e. The Shooting Star) in 1987 and Unicorn and Rackham in 1990. I have done some research into UK Belvision broadcast dates and will email my data to you.

Do you know, I'd completely forgotten that!

That would be fantastic - much appreciated!

I've done some investigating just now (for which read "tapped away on the computer, and walked as far as the spare room"), and come up with the following.

The oldest video I have to hand (one of two I could find in the spare room - my VHSs are mainly in boxes, and most of those are in Scotland) is on the ArTel label, copyright 1980, and is the Prisoners of the Sun Movie, running 80 mins. It is packaged as The Adventures of Tintin: The Seven Crystal Balls and The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun.

This shows how things can get complicated, with a split front cover image, showing the art for both books, and split rear cover text, giving a synopsis as if the stories were separate - at no point does it say it is one film! Unfortunately the tape is snapped, and the cassette isn't even in the box at the moment, so I've got no other info such as a catalogue number.

The other one I came across is The Adventures of Tintin: The Shooting Star, on Virgin Video. Running time is given as approx. 44 mins on the tape, and approx. 43 mins on the box. The Catalogue number is VVD 261, and it is copyright 1987 by DD Distribution.
The back is interesting as it shows pictures of two other tapes:
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn/ Red Rackham's Treasure, Cat. Nº VVD262; and The Adventures of Tintin: Destination Moon/ Explorers on the Moon, Cat. Nº VVD263.

It is notable that the first tape, dating as it does from 1980, predates the need for a British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) certificate. However, that suggested to me a further avenue for investigation, so I looked up the certification dates for Tintin stories, and came up with the following for the Belvision stories:

13/11/1986 - Video Collection International - 59m 32s
Les Aventures de Tintin - The Crab with the Golden Claws

29/12/1986 - The Video Collection - 39m 53s
Les Aventures de Tintin - Black Island

26/10/1987 - Virgin Video - 43m 51s
Explorers on the Moon

29/10/1987 - Virgin Video - 43m 9s
Les Aventures de Tintin - The Shooting Star

9/10/1987 - Virgin Video - 36m 30s
Les Aventures de Tintin - The Secret of The Unicorn

29/10/1987 - Virgin Video - 59m 13s
Les Aventures de Tintin - Red Rackham's Treasure

22/07/1988 - Virgin Vision - 70m 21s
The Adventures of Tin Tin - The Seven Crystal Balls & Prisoners of the Sun

22/07/1988 - Virgin Vision - 73m 32s
The Adventures of Tin Tin - The Lake of Sharks

26/04/1989 - Virgin Video - 57m 11s
Hergé's Adventures of Tintin - The Calculus Case

So, there's a bit of a start towards establishing some release information. ArTel were an early starter, then Video Collection International and The Video Collection (I'm assuming that they might be the same company), then Virgin Video and Virgin Vision (which again appear to be variations of the same company).

Although the cover on the back of my Shooting Star tape confirms that the Moon books had a single release, the Explorers name was used for the classification, rather than Destination Moon or Objective Moon (and certainly not Objective Moon: Espionage). It is also notable for not mentioning Tintin or Hergé in the official title.

Prisoners of the Sun is classified under the portmanteau title used on the ArTel tape, rather than identifying it as the feature.

It's also interesting to me that Tintin and the Lake of Sharks appears to be registered as just that, rather than the curious Mystery of Shark Lake-type variants which seem to be used to introduce some editions.

I have left the variant spellings of "Tintin" and "Tin Tin" as they were on the BBFC site.

As I mentioned earlier, 'Espionage' is the title of the first episode. Some internet sites' listings have mistakenly added it to the story title.