An English-dubbed version of 'The Magic Crown' was broadcast on the ITV channel in the UK sometime in the early 90s. It is a Spanish animated series that combines a premise similar to Blake's Seven (a band of people fighting to overcome a female dictator in space) with the addition of magical powers. While I would usually find mixing high-tech SF ideas with stock fantasy fodder a recipe for disaster, I have to say in this instance I did not find it particularly obtrusive. Most characters seem to have these magic powers (or at least enough of them on each side to make it even) and they serve more as a simplified replacement for laser guns and similar weapons and probably make the story that bit more accessible to younger children. I have searched the Internet for the dubbed version, but can only find the original Spanish. I would love to be able to see the English version again.
As with many children's animations of this era, the heroes are dull and unsympathetic. In The Magic Crown, this is only compounded by extremely bland character design. I suspect this is strongly responsible for the series languishing in obscurity while programmes with more memorable, imaginatively designed characters such as Dangermouse and The Dreamstone continue to be remembered and have small cult followings. Rahman, the central goody, is a Gandalfesque wizard in a blue robe. Prince Zalk is a space adventurer in a Lycra suit. The token female goody is Shaila, a red-haired woman in an ugly pink dress. All of these characters are drawn in a basic, approximately anatomically correct way that makes them look more like diagrams in a Health and Safety manual. The only character with a modicum of originality is a boy called Hanstor, whose face is much more characterised. The heroes are also accompanied everywhere by two small alien animal pets that sit on their shoulders, one green and lizard-like and the other brown and monkey-like. These don't really add anything or have personalities of their own.
Fortunately, this is compensated by fun and reasonably well-designed villains. Queen Idun is similar to Blake's Seven's Servalan, a powerful and ruthless woman who wears revealing clothes, in this case a tunic with holes in (one of them dangerously close to her pubic area) over a pair of green stockings. But who the story is really about, in my impression, is Grand Vizier Zohak and his fall from grace. Zohak is a goblin-like character with blue skin who wears a monocle and a knife tucked inside the belt of his robe. As a stark contrast to the goodies, he is far more stylised and developed in his design. At the start of the series, he seems to be Idun's right-hand man and is responsible for changing her appearance from a withered old crone to the younger look she sports for the rest of the cartoon. Things rapidly start to go wrong for him, mainly due to the actions of the heroes combined with his scheming nature. He uses a combination of magic and chemistry to make himself look like Zalk and tries to seduce Idun. When this goes wrong, he gets marooned on a wild planet. There seem to be some rather sophisticated politics and subplots going on in the scenes with the baddies, with conspiracies and planned coups and stuff going on among various army characters and Idun's subordinates, although I don't fully understand it as I've been unable to find the English dub.
This series is worth watching if you can find it. It's an unusual film in that it came from a country not known particularly well for its television exports or science fiction output. Some of the characters are poorly designed and the animation probably equal to other animations of the time. The backgrounds are fairly uninspired but do improve to a degree as the series progresses. The baddies go a long way towards spicing it up.
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