History WesternAnimation / TheMagicRoundabout

* BreakoutCharacter: Since his debut appearance in "Florence Wins a Surprise", Dougal became the most popular character and appeared frequently in merchandising.

* AngerBornOfWorry: Towards the end of "Dougal and the Blue Cat", [[spoiler:everyone, including Dougal was mourning for Brian, until the snail shows up alive and well. While out of relief that Brian is alive, Dougal expresses this briefly to him.]]

* ForWantOfANail: The events of an CGI Series episode "Mr. Rusty's Luck" wouldn't have happened if Dougal hadn't got distracted by a bone and digging it up whilst taking Mr. Rusty's prized teddy bear, Mr. Pickles, to him, as well as unknowingly burying Mr. Pickles with dirt which makes him dirty afterwards. Needless to say, Dougal brings the said bone to Florence and Mr. Rusty by mistake.

''The Magic Roundabout'' is an English dub for a French stop-motion show, ''Le Manège Enchanté''. When it was translated into English by Eric Thompson (father of actresses [[Creator/EmmaThompson Emma]] and Sophie), rather than voice act the characters, he chose to narrate the whole thing himself. He dubbed the show based purely on the animation, including many gags that [[ParentalBonus appealed to parents]]. It subsequently became a CultClassic in the United Kingdom and was adapted into two feature films. Many viewers of the French show, unaware of the redub, were baffled by the show's English popularity.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: This was said by the titular character to Dougal in "The Wishing Tree" after the latter foolishly used his third wish to make his friends go away, upon making the first two selfish wishes. [[AnAesop It also serves as the episode's Aesop.]] Fortunately, Dougal makes a bargain with The Wishing Tree to grant him a further wish to return his friends under a condition he must do to his friends.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: It's supposed to be "Dougal" and not "Doogal", no matter what the 2005 film's American re-dub might tell you.

* BodyWipe: A few of these happen in the 2005 film as well as the 2007 revival series.

** In "Mr. Grimsdale's Holiday", when Dougal is tasked to do the deliveries while Mr. Grimsdale is away on holiday, he leaves the delivery cart with Dylan and assigns him to do the deliveries just so he can get out from a bit of work. It's only when Dougal realises that his pies were in the cart after Florence mentions it when he came back whilst claiming that he done the deliveries.

** Zebedee also gets the wrong end of the stick in "No More Magic, Zebedee" when he sees the inhabitants complaining about their favorite things without realizing what they were actually complaining and grumbling about (until he finds out near the end) - Florence was trying to shoo away the insects who are trying to eat her flowers in her garden, Dougal was worried about if he has got all of his bones in his patch, Dylan was getting exhausted when struggling to pull his carrots out of his patch, Ermintrude was worried if she has got all of her cooking equipment, Brian was worried if all of his items are all there in his collection, and Mr. Rusty was trying to get his barrel organ to work. When he takes all of their favourite things away to cheer them up, they were none too pleased, leading Mr. Rusty to give Zebedee a taste of his own medicine.

* StickySituation: In "Let's Stick Together", Dougal gets his nose stuck to Mr. Rusty's brush with glue on it whilst looking for Florence's hankie that was presumably dropped (until Florence later finds out that her hankie was in her basket all along) and gets himself stuck inside Brian's shell where the two ending up rolling through the gardens before they settle in Ermintrude's house. Fortunately, Florence finds them and she and everyone manages to pull Dougal free from inside Brian's shell, as well as pulling Brian out of his shell by accident.

** Dougal has two relatives who bear a similar resemblance to him. His Australian cousin nearly resembles Dougal, but he has Auburn fur and has a maroon nose, along with wearing a cork hat. Auntie Primrose is also similar to her nephew, except she has brunette and grey fur and wears green lipstick along with spectacles and a hat.

** In the English version of the 1974 episode "Dougal's Experiment" after Dougal used his mixture on Brian and Ermintrude that engulfs them with a lot of hair, Florence calls for Zebedee who then produces a mixutre of his own which he poured onto Dougal's head to teach him a lesson before restoring Brian and Ermintrude back to normal.

* StarKilling: The threat is presented in a more ArtisticLicensePhysics light than would be realistic, but Zeebad's plan is to use the magic diamonds to freeze the sun itself. [[spoiler:He almost succeeds]].

* {{Catchphrase}}:

** Dougal (his English voice is based on [[Radio/HancocksHalfHour Tony Hancock]]).

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: As mentioned above, Dougal's voice was based on Tony Hancock. And Dylan's voice is, well...

* VocalEvolution: Originally, Eric Thompson never changed his voice for any of the characters (with the possible exception of Dougal who he intendedly based on Tony Hancock) when narrating the stories. During the early 70s, when the series was broadcast in color, he gradually began doing this for all of the other characters as well. (As he explained in an interview, he had been narrating the series for so long to a point that each of the characters eventually become identifiable enough.)

* VocalEvolution: Originally, Eric Thompson never changed his voice for any of the characters (with the possible exception of Dougal who he intendedly based off of Tony Hancock) when narrating the stories. During the early 70s, when the series was broadcast in color, he gradually began doing this for all of the other characters as well. (As he explained in an interview, he had been narrating the series for so long to a point that each of the characters eventually become identifiable enough.)

* TalkingAnimal: Ermintrude is a cow, Dougal is a dog, Dylan is a rabbit, Brian is a snail, and all the characters talk.