The Black and White Island

By any measure, the first Tintin story to make its way to the United Kingdom was the eighth, King Ottokar's Sceptre. It was serialised in the pages of Eagle magazine in 1951, was the first entry to be published as an album by Casterman in 1958, and in 1959 Belvision's animated adaptation was broadcast on BBC Television on Sundays at 5pm.

But what exactly were the BBC broadcasting? Wikipedia claims that Belvision's animated adaptation spanned six 5-minute episodes; this is backed up by Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier's excellent Tintin companion, so I doubt this is a mistake. If you examine the Genome listings linked to above more closely, however, you will see that whatever they were showing, it was eight episodes long, and each of those eight episodes lasted for 15 minutes. Given how old these listings are, is it possible this is an error on the Genome's part somehow? (Note that the Belvision series is not to be confused with the 1990s series produced by Nelvana, which lasted for a full half-hour per episode and adapted every album in the series except for the crude Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, which Hergé never redrew to match the others, the racist Tintin in the Congo, and the unfinished Tintin and Alph-Art; that series never aired on the BBC, and was first shown in the UK on Channel 4.)

The BBC went on to broadcast the Belvision adaptation of The Broken Ear, but not until 1962, and that is also claimed by the Genome to have been shown in 15-minute chunks, when everywhere else states that adaptation only lasted 5 minutes. The Crab with the Golden Claws (the first Belvision serial to be done in colour, as the previous two were both in black and white) followed not long after, and this was in its original 5-minute format; I did wonder if the BBC's airings of Ottokar and Broken Ear were compilations edited together from the 5-minute shorts, but that wouldn't appear to account for the huge difference in running time. Showing the series in omnibus format is a tactic they appear to have used later, though; in May 1963 they aired The Secret of the Unicorn (an adaptation of the album of the same name and Red Rackham's Treasure) as two 20-minute episodes. The timings (once you take into account opening sequences and closing credits) are approximately correct when compared to the original (10 5-minute episodes), so I don't believe there is any mystery there. The BBC later showed the 22-part epic Objective Moon (adapted from Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon) as four 25-minute episodes, and gave a similar treatment to The Black Island. Although the BBC repeated those serials many times (especially The Secret of the Unicorn), there were two Belvision serials it seems they may never have aired at all: The Star of Mystery (adapted from The Shooting Star), and The Calculus Case (loosely based on The Calculus Affair). Plus, of course, in the nineties they tried their hand at making their own adaptations for radio, notable for starring Leo McKern as Captain Haddock.

But still. What, precisely, is up with those listings for the two black-and-white serials in 1957 and 1962? There's probably a relatively simple explanation - I doubt the BBC produced their own hitherto unknown adaptation - but it'd still be nice to know what that explanation may be.

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Just to finish up on, there were five Tintin films produced across the 40s, 60s and 70s - 1947's The Crab with the Golden Claws, which was done with stop-motion and puppets rather than animation, and was only ever screened twice before the producer declared bankruptcy, fled the country and all his equipment was seized; the live-action 1961 affair Tintin and the Golden Fleece and its 1964 sequel Tintin and the Blue Oranges, both of which were original stories rather than being based on any album by Hergé; 1969's Temple of the Sun, an animated film produced by Belvision and adapted from The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoner of the Sun; and 1972's Tintin and the Lake of Sharks, also based on an original story by Hergé's friend Greg.

I do not know if any of these (apart from the first, which plainly wasn't) ever received a theatrical UK screening, or (apart from one) broadcast on UK television; The Golden Fleece has an English dub which is readily available on DVD (as does its sequel), so I suspect it probably was, and it has in fact been shown on BBC Two a few times since 2013. A translation of The Lake of Sharks also exists but nobody seems to know who the voice artists were!

TLoS was also adapted as an album using stills from the film, which is how it's best known in the UK, and the very existence of an English translation of said album may add weight to the idea that it was theatrically released over here at some point; it seems like the sort of thing that might have shown up on Channel 4 in the eighties or nineties. (It appears that the English dub of the film was released on VHS, but is quite obscure on DVD.)

Fact fans may also like to know that TGF was also adapted album-style, using live-action shots, and the English translation of that album is a highly sought-after collectors' item. The Blue Oranges was also released as a book which is hard to come by these days, but using photos and prose rather than in the style of Hergé's albums.

Might be worth checking the attic for a copy of this, lads.