Chicken Minute (partially lost Canadian puppet TV series; 1990-1993)

From The Lost Media Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Chicken minute.jpg

A very rare LaserDisc, showing Minute, Mama Chicken and Anatole.

Status: Partially Lost

Chicken Minute (Cocotte Minute in the alternative French) was a puppet TV series made in Canada that originally ran from 1990 to 1993, created by Henri Desclez. It was set in the Canadian bayou, with anthropomorphic animal characters.

The number of episodes is uncertain, but it seems at least 36 of them exist.

Plot

The puppet characters are anthropomorphic animals (almost always shown waist up, of course). The main one is a simple-minded alligator Anatole, who likes fishing and hanging with his friends: the others are a fox called Minute who plays guitar and who is in a relationship with a hen, Mama Chicken (Cocotte in French), who cooks delicious popcorn (Minute became vegetarian for her). The narrator is Ulysses, a chick still living in his egg and who is extremely smart despite his age.
The main villain is Mudbelly, a swamp monster who lives among the mud and likes to play nasty tricks on the other characters but can be in friendly terms with them too at times.
Almost every episode contains one or more musical numbers performed by one or more characters.

Loss of Episodes

Only a few episodes are known to have been released in the English dub on VHS and at least one LaserDisc. Of these, only three have been uploaded on YouTube ("Coop de Ville," "The Singing Contest," and "The Bayou Treasure").

Henri Desclez also created two other puppet show series, Little Star and Iris The Happy Professor (aka Professor Iris) that have most of their episodes lost as well. They had only a few VHS releases, and other episodes survive mostly through individual recordings/reuploads.

Contributions by Show's Creator

Creator Jean Gagnon

In the early 2010s, one of the original staff that worked on the show, Jean Gagnon (art director, background and puppet designer), uploaded several episodes on YouTube in the French dub (however, some of these have their audio off-sync, so be warned). Many more episodes are still missing, though.

According to Gagnon in the comments of these reuploads, there were legal disputes between the authors of the show, part of the reason why this series has never gotten a full proper release. He also adds:
"Henri Desclez sold his productions to other producers, and returned to live in France. Someone produced the last season for Chicken Minute, and nothing more came out of it. During those times, people didn't bother to release shows on VHS. There have been a few VHS for Professor Iris and Little Star, and that's about it. It was due to the puppeteers becoming too greedy; they destroyed these series by asking a 'double salary' because they claimed they were doing two jobs: comedian and puppet operator. The wages got too high, and this put an end to a beautiful adventure that, until then, looked promising. We were starting to reach a serious level of expertise."

Gagnon also contributed to Little Star and Professor Iris, other puppet TV series. He has added some episodes or fragments of these shows on his channel as well.

List of Found Episodes

Each episode's number is taken from the opening narration. This should take priority over MSN Entertainment or Planète Jeunesse's own numberings. The number of episodes is uncertain, and some episodes are not described in the MSN list.

# English Title French Title Status (English) Status (French) Notes
1 The Mystery of Bayou(?) Le Mystère du Bayou Lost Found Direct English translation of the French title.
3 Ulysses' Revenge La Revanche d'Ulysse Found Found
4 Landlord Le Propriétaire Lost Found
6 Cousin Alexandre(?) Coop de Ville Found Lost English title unconfirmed.
7 The Fortune Teller La Gitane Lost Found
8 The Film Le Film Lost Found
9 Unknown Chicken Fu Lost Found
13 The Reluctant Hero La Coquille Sauvage Lost Found
15 The Watch Thief Le Voleur de Montres Lost Found
19 The Singing Contest Mega Star(?) Found Lost
21 The Report(?) Le Reportage Lost Found Direct English translation of the French title.
23 Mudbelly's Wedding Le Mariage de Draduli Lost Found
24 Once Upon A Time in the Bayou Il Etait Une Fois Dans le Bayou Lost Found
25 The Bayou Treasure Le trésor du Bayou(?) Found Lost Direct French translation of the English title.
? The Magician's Apprentice L'Apprenti Magicien Lost Found

Gallery

The outro song, in Hebrew.

VHS Boxart for Chicken Minute the Singing Contest.

External Links