Around the World in 80 Days

Around the World in Eighty Days is an animated television series that lasted one season of 16 episodes, broadcast during the 1972–1973 season by NBC. It was the first Australian-produced cartoon to be shown on American network television. Leif Gram directed all 16 episodes, and the stories were loosely adapted by Chester "Chet" Stover from the 1873 novel by Jules Verne. Plot More comedic in tone than Verne's novel, the motives of Phileas Fogg (Alastair Duncan) differ from those of his literary forerunner. In this story, Fogg is passionately in love with Belinda Maze (Janet Waldo), whose uncle, Lord Maze (Owen Weingott), sternly disapproves of the commoner Fogg marrying his niece. Fogg proposes a wager: if he can travel around the world in eighty days, then Lord Maze will give him Belinda's hand in marriage; if Fogg fails, he will abandon her. The two men also make a side bet of £20,000. Fogg is accompanied by his valet, Jean Passepartout (Ross Higgins), and Passepartout's pet monkey, Toto. They employ all the methods of transportation available in the late 19th century—balloons, trains, elephants, and steamships—in the course of their journey. Fogg and Passepartout dispense geographical knowledge to the audience at each of their stops. Lord Maze hires a saboteur, Mr. Fix (Max Osbiston), to interfere with Fogg and Passepartout's journey. Unlike his counterpart in Verne's novel, Fix is not a Scotland Yard detective attempting to arrest Fogg on suspicion of bank robbery.