Hector's House (TV Series)

Hector's House Originally known as (La Maison de Toutou) is a French children's television series using glove puppets for the characters.

The show was first broadcast in France on 27 October 1966 and ran over seven series and 78 episodes. The show was later re-voiced in English and broadcast on BBC One on 9 September 1968 and repeated throughout the 1970s. Each episode lasted 5 minutes and it was regularly given the pre-six o'clock time slot that brought children's programmes to a close.

The show 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.

It was written and performed by Georges Croses with puppeteers Agnès Vannier and Georges Tournaire, using 60 cm tall puppets on the set of the show. The English version followed the French script faithfully with minor deviations.

= Plot = The story takes place in a house with a large beautiful garden in the country side, owned by a dog named Hector who lives with a cat named Zsazsa. Their neighbour, A frog called Kiki, often visits them in the episodes. In the original French programme, Zsazsa was named Zouzou and Hector was Toutou. Each episode of the show ends with Hector addressing the camera and saying "I'm a great big [whatever he was] old Hector."

= Credits = The programme was broadcast entirely without credits, featuring only a short introductory theme tune, (with birdsong accompaniment) and, in the French broadcasts, a short static frame at the end (with the same bird).

French
Actor Jacques Morel voiced Toutou, Actress Lucie Dolène voiced Zouzou and puppeteer Agnes Vannier was Kiki.

English
Hector was voiced by Paul Bacon. Kiki was voiced by Denise Bryer, who also had roles in Noddy, Terrahawks and Labyrinth. An urban myth circulated for some time that ZsaZsa was voiced by Joanna Lumley, due to her similar accent, but this has been denied by the actress.

Music
The theme music, of which two versions were aired, was composed by Francis Lai.

= Characters = Hector the dog

Zsazsa the cat

Kiki the frog

Mockingbird

= Location = The House

the Garden

= Episodes = The BBC episodes were not shown in the same order as the original French series.

Series Seven
= Released = A number of VHS and DVDs have since been released with a selection of episodes across the series in no particular order.


 * VHS 1993 - 60min - Polygram Video "Pocket Money Video"
 * DVD 2001 - 30 Episodes - Contender