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The Famous Five (characters)

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General Literature

   The Famous Five is a fictional group of child detectives, composed of
   four children ( Julian, Dick, Anne and George and their dog Timothy,
   created by Enid Blyton.

   Blyton created several such groups for her detective series, including
   The Secret Seven and the curiously titled Five Find-Outers and Dog, but
   the Famous Five are the best-known and most popular of these.

   All the "Famous Five" books have been adapted for television at some
   stage.

Overview

   The first books in the series were written during the 1940s, and some
   of the basic concepts can now seem extremely outdated. Three of the
   children, Julian, Dick and Anne, are siblings. During their holidays,
   they are regularly sent to stay with their Aunt Fanny and Uncle
   Quentin, whose daughter, Georgina, is a tomboy always known as George.

   Every time they come together, they find themselves obliged to solve a
   mystery which usually, but not always, has a criminal behind it. The
   location of the adventure varies from book to book. Sometimes it will
   happen close to George's home, and "Kirrin Island", a private island,
   presents many opportunities for such activities. On other occasions,
   the children may go camping or hiking or be sent on holiday together
   elsewhere, but they are always accompanied by George's dog, Timothy,
   affectionately known to the children as Timmy.

   Blyton always said that George was based on a real girl she had once
   known: in her later life, she admitted that that girl was herself.

Characters

     * George (Georgina) Kirrin: Georgina is a tomboy, demanding that
       people call her George. She cuts her hair very short and dresses
       like a boy. She is headstrong by nature and, like her father,
       Quentin, has a fiery temper.

     * Julian: The eldest of the five, cousin to George and older brother
       to Dick and Anne. He is an intelligent boy and a natural leader
       whose cleverness and reliability is often noted by Aunt Fanny.

     * Dick (Richard): George's cousin, and brother of Julian and Anne,
       sometimes mistaken for George because of his behaviour and dark
       hair. Dick is the joker of the group, but also very thoughtful.

     * Anne: The youngest in the group, and written by Blyton as girlish,
       with a natural instinct to mother the others. She famously dislikes
       the adventures the Five constantly encounter, but soldiers on
       loyally.

     * Timmy: George's dog and the unofficial mascot for the group, who is
       available to attack unwanted people on George's command. Timmy is
       like a cute and cuddly toy that will be kind and gentle but when
       made angry he will attack.

     * Fanny Kirrin: George's mother, and aunt to Dick, Julian and Anne.
       Aunt Fanny is married to Uncle Quentin, and is, through most of
       Blyton's Famous Five novels, the principal maternal figure in the
       lives of the children. (Julian, Dick and Anne's parents are very
       rarely seen, and rarely mentioned, as most of their adventures take
       place on school holidays while visiting the village of Kirrin.)

     * Quentin Kirrin: George's father, and a famous inventor and
       scientist. His temper is infamous, and he has little tolerance for
       children, particularly during school holidays. In the first book of
       the series, it is established that he is the brother of Julian,
       Dick and Anne's father.

   Note - There is debate about whether Julian, Dick and Anne share
   George's surname of Kirrin (as shown in Five on Finniston Farm), which
   would imply that their father was brother to Uncle Quentin, or whether
   their surname is Barnard (as their mother is referred to as "Mrs
   Barnard" in Five Get into a Fix).

Television series

1978 series

   The Famous Five 1978 television series was produced by Southern
   Television for the ITV network in the UK, in 26 episodes of thirty
   minutes. It starred Michelle Gallagher as Georgina, Marcus Harris as
   Julian, Jennifer Thanisch as Anne, Gary Russell as Dick, Toddy Woodgate
   as Timmy, Michael Hinz as Uncle Quentin and Sue Best as Aunt Fanny. It
   also starred Ronald Fraser, John Carson, James Villiers, Cyril Luckham
   and Brian Glover.

   The screenplays were written by Gloria Tors, Gail Renard, Richard
   Carpenter and Richard Sparks. The episodes were directed by Peter
   Duffell, Don Leaver, James Gatward and Mike Connor. The series was
   produced by Don Leaver.

   The setting was contemporary (that is, the series was set in 1978.)

   One of its most memorable aspects was the theme tune.

   Intro song lyrics:
   Wherever there's adventure to be found
   Just a clue or a secret message bring the Famous Five around
   Whenever there's a mystery to be solved
   Up in the ruined castle or down in Smuggler's Top
   (Chorus:) We are the Famous Five
   Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the dog
   We are the Famous Five
   We're coming back to you, whenever there's time, time after time

   Ending song lyrics:
   Whatever awaits behind closed doors
   Strange noises in the cellar or the sound of creaky floors
   We'll never let a mystery pass us by
   Just leave a clue and leave the rest to the Famous Five
   (Chorus:) We are the Famous Five
   Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the dog
   We are the Famous Five
   We're coming back to you whenever there's time
   Coming back to you, time after time, after time

   Finnish punk rock band Widows (of Helsinki) made three different cover
   versions of the theme song, first one in early 1979.

   All the books apart from Five on a Treasure Island, Five Have a Mystery
   to Solve and Five Have Plenty of Fun were dramatised; the first two
   were excluded because the Children's Film Foundation still had the film
   and TV rights to the books (see below), and the third because it could
   not fit in the production schedule. Plans to make a third series which
   would have included this story plus new ones written purely for
   television were abandoned after the Blyton estate exercised its veto.

1996 series

   A later TV series was produced around 1996, a co-production between a
   number of companies including HTV, Zenith North and the German channel
   ZDF; this was also shown on ITV in the UK. Unlike the previous series,
   this was a period piece, set in 1953, and also unlike the previous
   series it dramatised all the original books. Of the juvenile actors the
   best-known is probably Jemima Rooper, who played George. In this
   series, to fit in with modern changes to Blyton's books and the fact
   that "Fanny" now has other meanings, Aunt Fanny was known as Aunt
   Frances.

Video and DVD

   The 1978 series was released on video with reasonable regularity
   between 1983 and 1999, many of which are still easy to find
   second-hand, although the sound and picture quality is not always what
   it could be.

   A four-disc DVD collection, containing 23 of the 26 episodes produced
   for the 1978 series (and two episodes from the 1996 series) was
   released in region 4 (Australia and New Zealand) in 2005. The box and
   disc art identify it as a release of 1996 series. (The distributor had
   licenced the 1996 series but due to an administrative glitch, it was
   supplied with master tapes and artwork for the 1978 series.) The error
   was corrected in a later release.

   The 1996 series was released in its entirety on video; only the
   adaptation of Five On A Treasure Island seems to have been released on
   DVD in the UK, although there are apparently some rare mainland
   European DVD releases of the series, available via certain websites in
   the UK (these are, of course, Region 2 DVDs).

   A three-disc DVD collection, containing 13 of the 26 episodes of the
   1996 series, was released in Australia and New Zealand in 2005 (these
   are region 4 DVDs). This release followed the erroneous release of the
   1978 series with 1996 artwork, and is marked "Revised Edition" to avoid
   confusion.

   There are also two Children's Film Foundation films of the Famous Five
   books - Five On A Treasure Island, made in 1957, and Five Have A
   Mystery To Solve, produced in 1963 - plus other film adaptations of the
   books made in countries such as Denmark.

Movies

   Two of the Famous Five stories by Enid Blyton have been filmed by
   Danish director Katrine Hedman. The cast consisted of Danish actors and
   the movie was originally released in Danish. Ove Sprogøe stars as Uncle
   Quentin. The movies are: De 5 og spionerne (Five and the Spies) (1969)
   and De 5 i fedtefadet (Famous Five Get in Trouble) (1970).

Computer Game

   In 1990 an interactive fiction computer game based on the first of the
   books, Five On A Treasure Island, was released. It was programmed by
   Colin Jordan and first released for the little known SAM Coupé by
   Enigma Variations.

   He originally started coding the game on the ZX Spectrum using his own
   "worldscape" technique. When the SAM Coupé was launched, he switched to
   it as the target platform while still hosting the code on the ZX
   Spectrum. He later ported it to the Amstrad CPC and completed the ZX
   Spectrum version. The game was also ported to the Commodore 64, Amiga
   and Atari ST by others.

Parodies

   The Five also inspired the Comic Strip parody Five Go Mad in Dorset and
   its sequel Five Go Mad On Mescalin, in which the characters express
   sympathies with Nazi Germany and opposition to the Welfare State,
   homosexuals, immigrants and Jews, in an extremely broad parody not so
   much of Blyton but of wider perceived 1950s prejudices. The parodies
   were deliberately set towards the end of the original Famous Five "era"
   ( 1942- 1963) so as to make the point that the books were already
   becoming outmoded while they were still being written, although the
   continuing popularity of the books even in the 21st Century may be seen
   to suggest otherwise.

   A story in The Guardian's G2 supplement also parodies the Famous Five.
   It argues that Anne, Dick, George and Julian are caricatures rather
   than characters, portraying Anne as having no life outside of domestic
   labour. It highlights what the writer, Lucy Mangan, considers to the
   power struggle between Dick, George and Julian while Anne is sidelined.
   It also suggests that the lives of the children are ideological rather
   than realistic, referring to a "delicious fruit cake they had bought
   from the local paedophile - sorry, red-cheeked farmer and his wife -
   that morning".

New Series

   In 2005 Chorion announced the production of a new animated series based
   on the books, to be broadcast on British television in 2007.

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   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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