Madeline (TV series)

Madeline is an animated preschool television series produced by DIC Entertainment, L.P., part of the Madeline media franchise. It began as a series of six television specials from 1988 to 1991, and then continued as Madeline and The New Adventures of Madeline from 1993 to 2001. The show is narrated by Christopher Plummer.

Background
In 1960, the Madeline stories were adapted to a one-hour color episode for the NBC series The Shirley Temple Show. Madeline was played by Gina Gillespie, child actor Michel Petit played Pepito, and Imogene Coca portrayed Miss Clavel. The episode, as Madeline's first appearance on television, has been released to DVD.

Characters

 * Madeline (voiced by Tracey Lee Smythe in season 1 and Andrea Libman in seasons 2 & 3) is the central protagonist of the show. She is a kind, caring, and brave little redheaded girl who is also the bravest of her group despite being short. She lives in a boarding school with eleven other girls and their instructor, Miss Clavel.
 * Miss Clavel (voiced by Louise Vallance in seasons 1 & 3) is a teacher that oversees the boarding school in which the girls live. She and her students say grace before every meal. She is seen to be a caring and wise maternal figure to the girls.
 * Eleven Little Girls are eleven classmates that accompany Madeline in her adventures and live in the boarding school as her. Their names are Anne, Chloe, Danielle, Ellie, Janine, Lulu, Monique, Nicole, Nona, Sylvie and Yvette. In the first few seasons and specials, only Chloe, Danielle, and Nicole had significant roles; by the third season, all the girls have become more vocal and display their own individual personality.
 * Chloe (voiced by Vanessa King in seasons 1 & 2 and Veronika Sztopa in season 3)
 * Danielle (voiced by Kelly Sheridan in season 1, Tracey-Lee Smyth: season 2 and Chantal Strand in season 3)
 * Nicole (voiced by Kristin Fairlie in season 1, Veronika Sztopa in season 2 and Britt Irvin in season 3)
 * Pepito (voiced by A.J. Bond in season 1, David Morse in season 2 and Michael Heyward/Kyle Labine in season 3) is the son of the Spanish ambassador who lives next to the boarding school. Despite being mean and aggressive to Madeline and the girls at first, they soon become friends and he develops a secret crush on Madeline.
 * Genevieve (voiced by Louise Vallance): Once a stray dog, now the school's pet. Madeline has more affection toward her, because she rescued her from drowning in the River Seine.
 * Lord Cucuface (voiced by French Tickner) is the administrator of a chain of boarding schools. He maintains a close friendship with Miss Clavel.
 * The Narrator (voiced by Christopher Plummer in the specials, seasons 1 & 2 and Christopher Gaze in season 3 )

Additional voices

 * Long John Baldry
 * Kathleen Barr
 * Nigel Bennett
 * Susan Blu
 * Jay Brazeau
 * Jim Byrnes
 * Garry Chalk
 * Caroline Chan
 * Brent Chapman
 * Babz Chula
 * Joely Collins
 * Jennifer Copping
 * Ian James Corlett
 * Brenda Crichlow
 * Deborah Demille
 * Alex Doduk
 * Michael Donovan
 * Justin Escabedo
 * Andrew Francis
 * Merrilyn Gann
 * Christopher Gaze
 * MacKenzie Gray
 * Adam Harrison
 * Phil Hayes
 * Kirosha Hemmings
 * Paige Heuser
 * Mark Hildreth
 * Pam Hyatt
 * Hailey Jenkins
 * Andrew Kavadas
 * Peter Kelamis
 * Corrine Koslo
 * Marilyn Lightstone
 * Norma MacMillan
 * Sam Mancuso
 * Blu Mankuma
 * Brenda McDonald
 * Danny McKinnon
 * Don McManus
 * Scott McNeil
 * Maxine Miller
 * Chris Molineux
 * Wezley Morris
 * Kathy Morse
 * Jane Mortifee
 * Richard Newman
 * Luke Palmer
 * Jayne Paterson
 * Taylor-Anne Reid
 * Robert O. Smith
 * Tabitha St. Germain
 * Denis Thatcher
 * Jane Thompson
 * Kaitlin Turner
 * Carolyn Tweedle
 * Samuel Vincent
 * Mark Weatherly
 * Peter Wilds
 * Alec Willows
 * Dale Wilson

Television specials (1988–1991)
On April 9, 1988, HBO aired an animated television special titled Madeline. The teleplay was an adaption of the first book written by Ludwig Bemelmans. The later series was written by Judy Rothman who would become a writer, story editor, and lyricist for nearly all subsequent Madeline animated projects. The special was produced by DIC Enterprises and Cinar (now part of WildBrain). The special featured Christopher Plummer as the narrator, and featured original music and songs by veteran Sesame Street songwriter and composer Joe Raposo with lyrics by Rothman. The cast for all six specials is as follows:


 * Marsha Moreau as Madeline
 * Judith Orban as Miss Clavel
 * Julian Bailey as Pepito
 * Anik Matern as Chloe
 * Liz MacRae as Danielle
 * Sonja Ball as Nicole

The special was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (One Hour or Less). In 1990, the special was released onto VHS by Hi-Tops Video. The success of the special led to CINAR and France Animation producing an additional five specials – all adapted by Rothman from the other five original books – for The Family Channel. The cast of the original special and Plummer all returned for the subsequent specials These specials featured music by Jeffrey Zahn, who replaced Raposo after his death in 1989. The theme song from the original special, "I'm Madeline", was reprised in each of the subsequent specials. The specials were released on video by Golden Book Video and Cinar /Sony Wonder in Canada.

Television series (1993–2001)
With the success of the specials, The Family Channel commissioned a television series by DIC, which had been involved in the first of the six specials below instead of the rest. The first season aired a total of 20 produced episodes from 1993 to 1994. Christopher Plummer reprised his role as narrator again while the opening theme is "I'm Madeline". However, most of the voice actors from the specials were replaced. In addition, Jeffrey Zahn was replaced by Andy Street; compared to the previous specials, however, the series featured only one song per episode (a few of them with a reprise/finale) in addition to said themes.

In 1995, an additional 13 episodes were produced by DIC for ABC under the title The New Adventures of Madeline. A new theme song, called "Hats Off to Madeline", was used as the new opening theme, with the music by Andy Street and lyrics by Judy Rothman; some early airings of those episodes featured "I'm Madeline", but sung by the new voice cast. Most of the voices of the children characters were replaced, with Andrea Libman assuming the title role, while Plummer, Louise Vallance and French Tickner are the only three members returning from the voice cast.

Shortly after its airing on ABC, both the network and DIC were acquired by The Walt Disney Company. The 33 produced episodes began to air in reruns on the Playhouse Disney block of Disney Channel. In March 1998, DIC announced the launch of a direct-to-video division that would produce films that Disney would distribute worldwide through Buena Vista Home Entertainment, with a Madeline film being the first of the films they would produce. The following year, the title was revealed as Madeline: Lost in Paris, and was released in August of the same year. Most of the cast members from the 1995 iteration returned with Lauren Bacall and Jason Alexander also voicing new roles. The success of the film led to DIC producing 26 new episodes for Playhouse Disney. Plummer left the narration due to it being taken over by Christopher Gaze. The show won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Animated Program.

Two more films followed ahead - My Fair Madeline, which aired on Nickelodeon in November 2002 as part of the DIC Movie Toons series, and Madeline in Tahiti.

Madeline has continued to be shown in syndication. In the 2006-2007 season, the series was shown on CBS' KOL Secret Slumber Party Saturday morning block. Qubo also aired reruns of the series from October 6, 2018 to February 22, 2021. The series was also included in the On-Demand section of Sprout from 2015 to 2017, when the channel was rebranded to Universal Kids. As of September 2019, all broadcast and home video rights of Madeline are owned by WildBrain.

Madeline: Lost in Paris (1999)
On August 3, 1999, Buena Vista Home Video through Walt Disney Home Video released the feature-length film Madeline: Lost in Paris, featuring Madeline being drawn into a scam by her supposed "Uncle" Horst and finding the true meaning to the word "family". As with Season 2 and eventually Season 3 of the series, Andrea Libman reprised her role as Madeline.

The film was later re-released on DVD on April 3, 2010, by Shout! Factory.

My Fair Madeline (2002)
In 2002, as a part of the DIC Movie Toons series of Television films, DIC produced a film, titled My Fair Madeline, where Madeline is falsely accused of misbehavior on a trip to the Louvre and is sent to a London Finishing School, while attempting to foil the plot of two thieves. The voice cast was almost entirely replaced for the film, with Chantal Strand voicing Madeline and most notably featuring Whoopi Goldberg as Miss Clavel. Coincidentally, Goldberg played Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act. Deloris is a nun while Miss Clavel is coincidentally a nun as well.

The film was originally aired on November 17, 2002, on Nickelodeon and was later released onto VHS and DVD by MGM Home Entertainment followed on with international airings on Disney Channel, Toon Disney and Playhouse Disney.

Madeline in Tahiti (2005)
In 2005, DIC produced another film, titled Madeline in Tahiti, which is the final Madeline production to have been created. The film features Madeline and her friends going on a vacation to Tahiti to stop Miss Clavel from retiring, with Pepito sneaking along, as well as stopping a villainous plot to erupt the Tahiti-nui volcano. Chantal Strand reprised her role as Madeline while other characters were recast or reprised their roles from My Fair Madeline; most notably, Ashleigh Ball voiced both Danielle and Nona.

The film was originally going to be released on DVD in the United States by Walt Disney Home Entertainment in 2006, but this release never saw the light of the day. It was, however, released on DVD in some regions in 2007 through other distributors, and was eventually released in the United States on iTunes and Amazon Video in 2015 and YouTube in 2020.

Home media releases
The 1993 series was originally released by Golden Book Video on all single VHS volumes, and Sony Wonder on both VHS and DVD. The DVD versions contained 2 episodes each, sometimes with the original specials.

The 2000 series was released by Lions Gate Home Entertainment and Trimark Home Video in 2001 and 2002 on all VHS and DVD sets. In these DVD sets, the theme song was changed to a different song titled "Our Madeline" to match the Sing-a-Long versions.

In 2008, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released 2 DVDs titled "Next Stop, America" and "Meet Me in Paris", each containing 3 episodes.

In 2010, Shout! Factory released 5 single-disc collections of the series.

In September 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment released 3 single disc collections featuring content from the animated series as well as the original TV specials. The New Adventures of Madeline - Adventures in Paris contains 6 episodes from the 2000 series, while Madeline's Merry Musical Melodies features various musical interludes from the animated series. Bonjour Madeline contains all 6 original TV specials. Later in May 2014, Mill Creek re-released the three single disc collections together in one three-pack set, followed by Madeline: The Complete Collection on DVD in Region 1 for the first time in August 2015. This six-disc collection features all six original specials produced by DIC Entertainment and CINAR between 1988 and 1991, as well as all 59 episodes from the Madeline TV series (1993, 1995, 2000–2001).

Sing-a-Longs
In 2001, DIC produced two direct-to-video releases which featured songs and clips from season 3 of the television series akin to Disney's Sing-Along Songs series, which were titled Sing-a-Long with Madeline and her Friends and Sing-a-Long Around the World with Madeline.

They were originally released by Lions Gate Home Entertainment and Trimark Home Video on September 25, 2001, and March 25, 2002, respectively, and later reissued together by Mill Creek Entertainment as Madeline's Merry Musical Melodies on September 10, 2013, as well as being available for digital download.