Chicken Minute (partially lost Canadian puppet TV series; 1990-1993)
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.
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, 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 the 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 a Show's Creator
Lately, 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, 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
- 1: (English title unknown) / Le Mystère du Bayou (video in French) (alternate link)
- 3: Ulysses' Revenge / La Revanche d'Ulysse (video in French)
- 4: Landlord / Le Propriétaire (video in French)
- 6: Coop de Ville / Cousin Alexandre(?) (video in English)
- 7: The Fortune Teller / La Gitane (video in French)
- 8: The Film/ Le Film (video in French)
- 9: Chicken Fu (video in French)
- 13: The Reluctant Hero / La Coquille Sauvage (video in French)
- 15: The Watch Thief / Le Voleur de Montres (video in French)
- 19: The Singing Contest / Mega Star(?) (video in English)
- 21: (English title unknown) / Le Reportage (video in French)
- 23: Mudbelly's Wedding / Le Mariage de Draduli (video in French)
- 24: Once Upon A Time in the Bayou / Il Etait Une Fois Dans le Bayou (video in French)
- 25: The Bayou Treasure / (French title unknown) (video in English)
- Number unknown: The Magician's Apprentice / L'Apprenti Magicien (video in French)
Also, the Israeli outro song is out there.
Each episode's number is taken from the opening narration. This should take priority over MSN Entertainment's own numbering.
The number of episodes is uncertain, and some episodes are not described in the MSN list.