The Legends Of Treasure Island

This cartoon was my absolute favourite at the time it was being broadcast back in the early 90's on the same day as 'The Animals Of farthing Wood' and speaking of animals; that's exactly what the characters of this cartoon were. Jim Hawkins wasn't a human boy, he was a dog. In fact most of the heroes were dogs whereas Squire Trelawney was a pigeon and Jane a vixen. Long John Silver was a fox and Pew was a rat...naturally.

No matter what age you are you should know the story of Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' with Captain Flint burying his gold, executing his crew etc. If you don't then you seriously need to come out from under that rock...yes you!

The cartoon follows the same path where Jim comes across a map, flees pirates, meets a captain and set sales for

Treasure Island with a crew of mutinous pirates of course. One difference from the book though is the introduction of new character Jane who works as Silver's cook but later swaps sides to help Jim and friends. She later develops a crush on Jim.

The cartoon delivers more of the island than the book or the feature films ever did, exploring haunted graveyards or the Cave of Babel which changes a characters appearance when entered or making them become distorted which happens to Jim. 

There are two seasons of the cartoon and the first ended with a volcano erupting and destroying the island. How can the series continue after that? Well they go back and save it by planting seeds or something. My memory is a little fuzzy about that so forgive me if I'm wrong, I was a kid!

Squire Trelawney was a favourite of mine. He was a bumbling fool and a bit of a coward but provided some good viewing and was also brilliantly voiced by none other than Hugh Laurie!

Hugh wasn't the only big name to lend his voice to the cartoon! Dawn French voiced Jim for the first season but he was voiced by a male for the second. Also the intro for the first season was just music with opening scenes but a song was written for the second.

First season-

Second season-

  I used to really look forward to seeing this cartoon every Tuesday and even used to play The Legends of Treasure Island with my friends. Guess I enjoy pirates and treasure! 

I only hope this series will one day be released on DVD or Blu-ray, it is awesome!