Hector's House
| Hector's House | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Puppets |
| Created by | George Croses |
| Starring |
Paul Bacon (1965-1970) Denise Bryer (1965-1970) Lucie Dolène (1965-1970) |
| Country of origin | France |
| Original language(s) | French, English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 78 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 5 Minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC One |
| Original release | 5 June 1965 – 10 February 1970 |
Hector's House (originally La Maison de Toutou) is a children's television series using hand puppets. Like the better-known The Magic Roundabout it was a French production (by Europe Images SA and Tellytales Enterprises) revoiced for a British audience. A gentle series, it was first broadcast in 1965. Its French title was La Maison de Toutou and the French version was written by Georges Croses. La Maison de Toutou translates as "The House of the Doggie" and in the French version, Zsazsa is known as ZouZou. In the United Kingdom, it was first shown on the 9 September 1968 and the series of 78 episodes continued as a repeat cycle until 12 September 1975 for its 5-minute-long screenings on BBC 1 at 5.40 p.m. before the News.
Characters
The main characters, affable Hector the Dog and cute Zsazsa the Cat, live in a house and beautiful garden. Kiki the Frog, dressed in a pink smock, is a constant and at times an intrusive visitor, through her hole in the wall. Despite Hector's willingness to endlessly help them out, Kiki and Zsazsa often played tricks on him to teach him a lesson, leading him to say his catchphrase at the end of the episode, "I'm a Great Big [whatever he was] Old Hector.
Voices
Hector's voice was performed by Paul Bacon, who died in 1995. The voice of Kiki was by Denise Bryer, who also had roles in Noddy, Terrahawks and Labyrinth. The voice of Zsazsa was supplied by Lucie Dolène. About 78 episodes were made, each of 5 minutes' duration. A DVD featuring some of these episodes has been released.
The Goodies
Characters from the show appeared alongside various other puppet characters in an episode of The Goodies, in which the puppets take over the running of the United Kingdom as a "puppet government."
The One Account
In 2003, characters from the series featured in adverts for The One account.