King Of The Squares

I can’t say that ‘Arthur & The Square Knights Of The Round Table’ was the first thing I looked up on the internet when the internet came into being, but was in amongst my first dozen or so searches. It wasn’t that I was a huge fan, but my incomplete memory of the show (I was sure it had 'groovy' in the title) slightly annoyed me, and I’d never met anyone else who had seen it, so I needed to find out and move on with my life. So, here are the facts –

‘Arthur & The Square Knights Of The Round Table’ was an Australian cartoon that ran for 36 five minute episodes from 1966 to 1968. The writers and performers included Rod Hull, and the story-lines, which are more or less incomprehensible, feature characters of Arthurian legend dicking about with octopuses and beanstalks and genies and all sorts of non-canonical shit. The accents throughout are awful, and the animation is basic but garish. I originally watched it when it appeared as unscheduled filler between Anglia TV programmes in the early seventies. 

Like many cartoons of the era, it now comes across as little more than a hubbub of sound and colour, facetious rather than funny, frantic rather than frenetic, chaotic rather than kinetic. It’s actually rather tiring to watch, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it - some things are better left as unscheduled filler between Anglia TV programmes in the early seventies, I suppose.