Hector's House


Hector's House is a gentle children's television series using hand puppets, first broadcast in 1968. Like The Magic Roundabout it was a French production revoiced for a British audience. Its French title was :fr:La Maison de Toutou|La Maison de Toutou and the French version was written by Georges Croses. La Maison de Toutou translates as "The House of the Doggie". The dog Toutou was renamed Hector in the English version, and ZouZou became Zsazsa. In the United Kingdom, it was first shown on 9 September 1968, and the series of 78 five-minute episodes continued on a repeat cycle of screenings on BBC1 at 5:40pm, just before the News. The last repeated episode was broadcast on 12 September 1975. Translated by Frank Hilton, dubbed into English via World Wide Pictures.

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 play 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 Old Hector."

Voices

Hector was voiced 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 five-minute episodes were made.