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Around the World with Willy Fog
Around the World with Willy Fog (Spanish: La vuelta al mundo de Willy Fog) is a Spanish animated television adaptation of the 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. It was produced by Spanish studio BRB Internacional and Televisión Española, with animation by Japanese studio Nippon Animation, and was first broadcast on TVE1 weekly in 1984.[1][2] Jules Verne's original characters and depicted as animals in the series.[3] The core trio are all felines being pursued by three canine foes. Willy Fog (Phileas Fogg in the original book) is depicted as a lion, while Rigodon (Passepartout) is a cat, and Romy (Aouda) is a panther.[4] An English dub of the series was directed by Tom Wyner, which featured artists such as Cam Clarke (as Rigodon), Gregory Snegoff (Inspector Dix), Steve Kramer (Constable Bully), Rebecca Forstadt (Romy), and Mike Reynolds (additional voices). It was broadcast on Children's BBC in the United Kingdom (1984) and on RTÉ in Ireland.[5] The series was also dubbed into Japanese and aired on Japan's TV Asahi in 1987, where it was titled Anime Around the World in 80 Days (アニメ80日間世界一周, Anime Hachijūnichikan Sekai Isshū). A sequel series, Willy Fog 2 (1993), adapts Verne's novels Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. A theatrical musical show was produced in Spain in 2008 in celebration of its 25th anniversary.[6] PlotWilly Fog awakens and rings for his servant, only to remember that he had fired him the previous day for his inability to follow Fog's precise schedule. He interviews and hires a replacement – the former circus performer Rigodon – before leaving for the Reform Club. At the club, the members discuss the recent theft of £55,000 from the Bank of England, until the bank's governor, Mr. Sullivan, arrives. An article in the Morning Chronicle details how it is now possible to travel around the world in eighty days. The article states that one departs London by train for Dover, where one crosses to Calais, and on to Paris. From there, it is a train journey to Brindisi, and the Suez Canal, all within a week. Having rounded the Arabian peninsula, one would arrive in Bombay on day 20 and then a three-day railway journey to Calcutta. Hong Kong is reached on day 33, Yokohama on day 39, and then a mammoth three-week crossing of the Pacific to arrive in San Francisco on day 61, a week-long train crossing to New York City and then finally a nine-day crossing of the Atlantic back to London making it possible to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days. The other members of the club laugh at Lord Guinness's suggestion that he would have taken on the challenge himself if he were younger. Fog rises to defend the Lord's honour by taking up the task himself. Sullivan bets Fog £5,000 that it is impossible, and additional wagers by three other club members increase this amount to £20,000. He then stuns the club by announcing that he will leave that evening and promises to return to the club by 8:45 pm on 21 December 1872. Rigodon is not impressed to hear the news of their impending trip, having spent his life travelling with the circus, but he dutifully accompanies his master as they set out. They however don't know that they are pursued by three individuals determined to halt their progress. Inspector Dix and Constable Bully of Scotland Yard are convinced that Fog is the thief who robbed the Bank of England, and the wicked Transfer, a saboteur, was hired by Mr. Sullivan to impede Fog's journey. CharactersMain characters
Supporting characters
Voice cast
MusicSpanishSix songs were crafted for the series, composed by Italian background score writers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis and performed by the group Mocedades. The members of the group provided the singing voices to the animated characters. The eponymous theme song, "La vuelta al mundo de Willy Fog", is sung by Fog, Rigodon, Tico, and Romy; while Rigodon and Tico also sing the ending theme, "Sílbame" ("Whistle to Me"). Extended versions of both songs are regularly sung by the characters in-show in short musical numbers during the course of the series, including the "Dix y Transfer" duet and two additional songs performed by the protagonists entitled "América, América" and "Hay que viajar" ("It Is Necessary to Travel"). The sixth song, "Romy", was performed by the titular character, although it is only featured in the series in an instrumental form. It would, however, later be used as the closing theme of the sequel series, Willy Fog 2. The Spanish soundtrack was released in 1984 in LP album, CD and cassette formats.[8] The soundtrack in Spanish is available to download online.[9] EnglishThe songs in the English dub of the series were sung by Ted Mather, re-using the De Angelis's music but with new English lyrics that are similar to the original Spanish. "Hay que viajar" was retitled "Daisy" and became a song about a woman by that name. "Sílbame" was retitled "Rigodon". All six songs were re-recorded in their entirety, including "Romy", which did not appear in the series. The English soundtrack is also available to download online.[10] Other languagesThe Japanese dub of the series uses two different theme tunes composed specifically for it, both sung by Keiko Han. The opening theme is entitled "Sky Way", while the closing tune is named "Our Two Watches". Songs in the Finnish dub were sung by the actors of YLE Import re-using the De Angelis's music but with new Finnish lyrics. In the Finnish dub some scenes are cut, which includes musical numbers in some episodes. In Czech some scenes from some episodes are cut (including the songs), but those "deleted scenes" are used in the opening and ending. CrewSpanish production
Japanese production
English dub
Willy Fog 2Due to the success of Around the World with Willy Fog, BRB Internacional and Televisión Española, with animation by Wang Film Productions in Taiwan and Shanghai Morning Sun Animation in China, produced a sequel series titled Willy Fog 2. The series runs to 26 episodes, and consists of two separate serialized stories that are based on Verne's novels Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.[11] In other mediaHome media In 1986, Sony Video Software released the series on VHS in the United States.[12] From 3 October 1988 to 10 September 1990, select episodes were released in the United Kingdom on PAL VHS tapes by Video Collection International (then: Lollipop Video), rated U for "Universal" and deemed suitable for all ages. In 1995, BRB Internacional released three direct-to-video Willy Fog films – Around the World in 80 Days,[13] Journey to the Center of the Earth[14] and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea[15] – each one created by heavily editing both series from roughly 650 minutes each down to a truncated 75 minutes apiece. All three films were dubbed by Village Productions, who had previously dubbed the second series for the United Kingdom, and later reached the United States on DVD. Notably, the Village Productions dub for the first film was able to secure use of Intersound's English-language version of the theme tune. In 2004, Revelation Films released all twenty-six episodes of Around the World with Willy Fog on DVD in the UK, across five Region-0-encoded discs. Extras included character profiles, a Jules Verne biography, and bonus episodes of Arthur! and the Square Knights of the Round Table and Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. In 2005, all five discs were collected in a complete series box set. Around 2016, the English dub of all episodes of the series was uploaded to the official channel of BRB Internacional on YouTube.[16] Around the World with Willy Fog: The Musical La vuelta al mundo de Willy Fog: El Musical was released in 2008 in celebration of the show's 25th anniversary in its home country of Spain. With the original cartoon soundtrack by the De Angelises, the theatrical performance featured live actors Jaume Ortonobas (Fog), Laura Toledo (Romy) and José Troncoso (Rigodon) in make-up and masks to replicate the anthropomorphic characters of the cartoon. Tico is represented as a puppet manipulated by Celia Vioque. Scripted by original series creator Claudio Biern Boyd and directed by Ricard Reguant, the musical ran twice a day in the Teatro Häagen-Dazs Calderón in Madrid from October 2008; although originally intended only to run until the end of the year, the show's success saw its run extended first until early February 2009, after which it proved so successful that it went on tour around the country until the end of the year.[5][6] Feature filmBy November 2020, a film based on the series was in development by Apolo Films and was slated for release in 2023.[17] The film will be 3D computer-animated. As of 2025, the film remains a project.[18] References
External links
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