When my parents and I moved into a new house when I was five, we found a new video store. During the few months that this video store was opened (I think that it moved to a new location), I mostly rented what I was familiar with: compilations of Looney Tunes cartoons. But I also rented something else: a video called "Adventures of Tintin: Objective Moon". I found it very enjoyable. I later watched other Tintin videos. But I eventually started reading the books - I now own a copy of every book in the series - and I found that the videos altered a number of things...by which I mean that they often changed entire plots.
It's only recently that I've found out that the videos were from a TV series in the early '60s. I guess that by that point, the books' fans were so familiar with Capt. Haddock and Prof. Calculus that the show's creators decided to include them in episodes based on books in which they didn't originally appear, along with other changes that clearly updated all action to the early '60s. The show apparently irritated Tintin purists due to its deviation from the books' plot lines (Capt. Haddock doesn't drink, and Prof. Calculus doesn't have a hearing problem). I, on the other hand, find "Les aventures de Tintin d'apres Hergé" ("Hergé's Adventures of Tintin" in English) to be a pretty funny series. Currently, the only episode that I haven't seen is the adaptation of "The Calculus Affair", which is apparently the most altered episode.
Anyway, it's pretty fun. I hope that it gets released on DVD someday - why do disaster movies get released and then get special edition releases while this show still hasn't gotten released? - and I'm eager to see what Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson do with the upcoming movie "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn".
