Le Manège Enchanté (known in English as The Magic Roundabout) was a children's television programme created in France in 1963 by Serge Danot. Some 500 5-minute-long episodes were made and were originally broadcast between 1964 and 1971 on ORTF.

However, it was in the United Kingdom that the series became best known. The English version was narrated by Eric Thompson, the father of Emma Thompson, and broadcast from 18 October 1965 to January 1977. This version of the show attained cult status and was watched as much by adults for its dry humour as by the children for whom it was intended.

The characters were given different names in the different languages. The main character was Dougal or Pollux, (a Maltese dog, albeit of a non-standard colour). Other characters are Zebedee or Zébulon, a jack-in-the-box, Brian or Ambroise (a snail), Ermintrude or Azalée (a cow), Dylan or Flappy (a rabbit, in the French version, Spanish). There are two notable human characters - Florence or Margotte, a young girl, and Mr Rusty or le Père Pivoine, the operator of the roundabout.

The show had a distinctive visual style. The set was a brightly coloured and stylized park containing the eponymous roundabout (a fairground carousel). The programmes were created by stop frame animation, which meant that Dougal was made without legs as it was felt that with them he would be too difficult to animate; Zebedee was created from a giant pea which was available in the animation studio and was re-painted. The look of these characters was the responsibility of British animator Ivor Wood, who was working at Danot's studio at the time (and who subsequently animated The Herbs, Paddington Bear and Postman Pat). In the French version Pollux had a comical English accent as a result of Wood's role as co-creator.
The British (BBC) version was especially distinct from the French version in that the narration was entirely new, created by Eric Thompson from just the visuals and not based on the script by Serge Danot that accompanied the original animations.

The first BBC broadcasts were stripped across the week (shown at 5.40pm, just before the early evening news each day), which was the first time an entertainment programme had been transmitted in this way in the UK. Since BBC1 did not start broadcasting in colour until November 1969, the series was seen only in black and white in the UK until then.

52 additional episodes, not previously broadcast, were shown in the UK during 1992 by Channel 4. Since by that time Thompson was no longer alive, the job of narrating them in a pastiche of Thompson's style went to Nigel Planer.

The British Dougal was grumpy and loosely based on Tony Hancock. Ermintrude was rather matronly and fond of singing. Dylan was a hippy-like, guitar-playing rabbit, rather dopey. Florence was portrayed sensibly. Brian was unsophisticated but well-meaning. Zebedee was an almost human creature in a soldier's uniform with a spring instead of feet; he frequently went "Boing!" and regularly closed the show with the phrase "Time for bed." In the original French pilot he was seen emerging from a jack-in-the-box, which explains the spring.)

Other characters include Mr MacHenry, Mr Rusty and the train.

Part of the show's attraction was that it appealed to adults, who enjoyed the world-weary Hancock-style comments made by Dougal, as well as to children. The audience measured eight million at its peak.

There is speculation about possible interpretations of the show. One theory is that the characters represented French politicians of the time (Dougal being De Gaulle for instance, although he was named Pollux in the French version). Another is that each character was addicted to a different type of psychotropic drug as Dylan was named after Bob Dylan. Neither theory is likely to be true, and the second was denied by Eric Thompson's widow, Phyllida Law.

In 1998, Thompson's stories were published as a series of four paperbacks, The Adventures Of Dougal, The Adventures Of Brian, The Adventures Of Dylan and The Adventures Of Ermintrude with forewords by Emma Thompson (Eric's daughter). The paperbacks were a major success for Bloomsbury Publishing plc.

For years, the series had reruns on Cartoon Network, and was later moved to its sister channel, Boomerang.

Both the French and the British versions had distinctive theme tunes. The French tune was played on a Hammond organ with child-adult vocals. The English version, by Alain Legrand, removed the vocals and increased the tempo of the tune while making it sound as if it was played on a fairground organ.