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From The Times
December 4, 2006

Famous Five to get a Disney makeover

David Sanderson
Disney has promised that there will be no “lashings of ginger beer” and fun times will not be referred to as “gay” in new plans to bring Enid Blyton’s Famous Five to the animated screen.

The company has struck a deal to develop a 26-episode animated series that will be produced in Britain with the aim of transmission on the Disney Channel in 2008.

Disney, which will work with Chorion, a British company that owns the rights to several literary properties, said that the 1940s stories would be given a contemporary twist. It added that although some of the old-fashioned phrases would not be included, it would remain true to the spirit of Blyton’s characters.

Rich Ross, the president of Disney Channel Worldwide, said that the move to produce the Famous Five was part of a new strategy to increase the company’s growth in local markets. His colleague Gary Marsh added: “We realise that if we’re going to be a global network then we need to solicit material from around the world.”

Blyton, who died in 1968, was probably the most successful British children’s writer of the 20th century although many of the attitudes displayed in the books are now considered in some quarters to be sexist and outdated.

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According to a poll carried out by the National Literacy Trust and Starbucks last year, adults would choose the Famous Five series as their all-time favourite read.

There was criticism this year over attempts to make “slight alterations” to re-publications of some of Enid Blyton’s famous series including the Famous Five and the Secret Seven.

Blyton’s biographer, Barbara Stoney, said that the publishers had bowed to political correctness.

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