Emma Peel episodes: Official English Language Study Kit

[denis rigg]

Recently I was looking at Spanish auctions and found one product related to the Avengers, about which I have not read or hear anywhere before - set for learning the English language by the series The Avengers.
This was so intriguing and same time unusual that my first thought was that this is old homemade.



The set includes 12 audiobooks (12 episodes of the series) on audio tapes and 12 brochures (teaching English).



I started looking for information about this set and found only one newspaper note, mentioning in the issues of ABC Madrid in May 1972:



DELEGATES for Madrid and distributors provinces introduced schools. Wonderful English children method (sound library). Also adults (British TV series "Avengers"). Candidates write professional history: Practiphone...



It looks that set was released in Spain in 1972. Most likely these 12 audiobooks to belong only to episodes with Emma Peel and Tara King.

I already bought this set and hope it will come to the final address next month.

As only a part of the set was presented on the scans of photos on auction, at the moment the following is known:

List of episodes

b/w episodes with Emma Peel

1. Dial a Deadly Number
2. Room without a View


color episodes with Emma Peel

1. The Fear Merchants
2. From Venus with Love
3. Return of the Cybernauts

[mariocki]

Great item to have - look forward to hearing all about it when it arrives

[denis rigg]

Just received a message that it came to the warehouse in Germany. As usual, a few days it will be on the package (with my other item - TNA VHS from Sony) and after I will pay for shipping from Germany to Russia.

[denis rigg]

The long-awaited report about Spanish set "Learning the English by series The Avengers".

Despite I received this kit the day before yesterday, I decided not to rush to posting of the news and wrote an email to the seller for clarification of some points + I did some additional research on the Internet for this subject.
I received a response from the seller of this set the same day - he told me that Practiphone released other films for training in Spain and this is all he knew (here I realized that turns Practiphone was the name of "the issuer" than the name of the method of training invented by Сinelab in Spain, as I thought originally ).

Before I talk about my additional research and those questions about this item that tormented me, let to delve into the contents of the kit.

Well, I'll start by saying that when I took out a box of contents from the package that the courier delivered to my door, it seemed more tattered than on the photographs that were posted at the auction. Fortunately this only concerned box, the contents were in excellent condition, especially the audio cassettes that were sealed.

The first thing I did was check the number of brochures and audio cassettes - everything was in order - then I began to study the titles of the episodes that were included in this kit.

Here were pleasant surprises!!! Full list, in production order of episodes:

b/w episodes with Emma Peel

1. Dial a Deadly Number
2. The Gravediggers
3. Room Without a View

color episodes with Emma Peel

1. The Fear Merchants
2. From Venus with Love
3. The See-Through Man
4. The Hidden Tiger
5. Epic
6. The Joker
7. Return of the Cybernauts (title on brochure is The Cybernauts)
8. The f50,000 Breakfast (title on brochure is The Fifty Thousand Breakfast Pound)
9. Mission... Highly Improbable

My first surprise was that all the episodes belonged to the era of Emma Peel, while the box pointed to the image of Steed with Tara King.



It made me think that maybe there were other sets with the Avengers series that came out in the box with the same design. Hmm, in this case, it was possible that they would released half or almost the whole series from the Avengers film age. Definitely it would be great ... but...
as my further research showed, it was the single Avengers set (only 12 episodes) - more on that later.

Another surprise was that I did not absolute expect that there would be the episodes Epic and The Joker, in which there are many "silent" scenes. Well it is quite possible that the choice of episodes could go not only with the interest of the Practiphone for item "teaching English", but also as a pleasure for the Spanish Avengers fans.

After began the most interesting, ladies and gentlemen... when I opened one of the brochures and began to study the introduction, there was one interesting nuance that revealed a new fact about this set. Oh my Steed!

To be continue (right now I will be doing some scans for my following post titled Part 2: New puzzles).

Stay Tuned...

[denis rigg]

Part 2: New puzzles

Scans of several first pages of the brochure "The Cybernauts" (actually, episode "Return of the Cybernauts").

1. Cover

(comment: If firstly you look at the top of this cover, you can really easily be to get into "the trap". In addition to the title, the images of Steed and Emma Peel are taken from season 4 too. More, these images are present on all the other 11 brochures).



One of nice feature of all covers is that the episodes are numbered in the correct production order.

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2. General Introduction



This introduction is identical in all brochures except two

1. The Fear Merchants
2. The Hidden Tiger

The difference in these is the larger font size that leds to reduction in information. While in general introduction presented above are 4 points in the section "Observaciones", in these two are only two.

General Introduction is as page 3 in brochure "Mission... Highly Improbable", while in the others it is the first page.

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3. Individual Introduction



This interesting nuance I mentioned is indicated on this page - 1 edition: January 1973.

details below
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Further content of all brochures divides the pages into Spanish and English parts. Some sort of dialog sheets. Then one blank sheet (at best) at the end of each brochure. This is all!





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Individual Introduction

Each brochure contains a mention of its first release, which should say that before the release of this set with 12 episodes, there was opportunity to buy them separately. However, it is unclear whether it was possible to buy them in the store, or to buy only to order. Anyone could buy or only certain persons, etc.

Full list, in the release order of episodes by Practiphone:

1. The Fear Merchants (February 1972)
2. The Hidden Tiger (March 1972)
3. The See-Through Man (June 1972)
4. Epic (August 1972)

5. The Joker (October 1972)
6. Mission... Highly Improbable (October 1972)

7. Return of the Cybernauts (January 1973)

8. Dial a Deadly Number (September 1973)
9. The Gravediggers (September 1973)
10. Room Without a View (September 1973)
11. From Venus with Love (September 1973)
12. The f50,000 Breakfast (September 1973)

Based on this, another mystery when this set of 12 episodes was released?

I found the last mention of Practiphone in the beginning of 1980 that says it should have been released somewhere in the 1970s, I think. On this time, having extremely thoroughly studied the Spanish newspapers, I found the following:



Hmm, maybe this is answer?

[denis rigg]

To be continued...

What audio recordings are?
Why did I come to the conclusion that only 12 episodes were released by Practiphone?
Will there be scans of all content posted on Steedumbrella website?

These and other points in Part 3... tomorrow.

[mariocki]

Fascinating stuff, Denis

[darren]

My pernickety senses are outraged by Tara being on the box cover and yet none of her episodes are featured inside.

I love these curios.

Great discovery, Denis. I admire your digging skills!

[denis rigg]

Fascinating stuff, Denis

Many Thanks, Mariocki!
It was such an unexpected find, like Chinese TNA comics and the episode Tunnel of Fear.
The first thing I thought at the time I saw it at the auction "I'd want to believe that this will fall into the hands of a true collector, or Avengers fan, someone (s) who will tell others about it".
I saw the last point very important, because this item was never mentioned in any directory dedicated to the Avengers, as far as I know. This led me to the idea that I should try to buy this item putting as much money on it as I could (well, it may seem not quite sane action, but it was obvious that the find was a unique discovery). As a result, I'm still surprised that I won the auction.
Who knows what will find next time?

[denis rigg]

My pernickety senses are outraged by Tara being on the box cover and yet none of her episodes are featured inside.

I love these curios.

Great discovery, Denis. I admire your digging skills!

Indeed, Darren, it still surprises the error with the image on the box with the real contents in it. When I learned this, I came to the conclusion that as a whole, Practiphone went quite well to the work on this project, since it does not contain as many mistakes as it might seem. Well, considering that it started its release in 1972 (time when even the Avengers fans did not know much about the favorite series), educational institute apparently was guided by the limited knowledge of the series, which they drew probably from the Spanish Broadcasters. So while the confusion with the seasons with Emma Peel can be understood in this regard, it's not entirely clear to such an error as Tara King's image on the box.
If we assume that Linda Thorson was popular in Spain, it does not explain why in this case there are no episodes with Tara King in set.
Looks it was just a mistake from Practiphone.

It's interesting to think that part of Spain had the opportunity to study the Avengers by audiobooks and "dialog sheets" at home already in 1972.

Other thing, wonder why the project did not go beyond Madrid. I studied all the newspapers and found that Practiphone is mentioned only in some newspapers published in the capital of Spain.

Thanks for the kind words, Darren, in fact I often can not find the things that others can find. In this sense, the team of researchers is well complementary.