Remember the adventures of little Albert, 5th musketeer with D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis. But have you seen the end of this cartoon in the credits that a generation still knows by heart?
“With a blunderbuss loaded with spaghetti with bolognese sauce” here is the best and smallest of all musketeers: Albert the 5th musketeer! Broadcast from 1994 on Canal+ then in 1995 in Les Minikeums on France 3, this cartoon adds, as its name suggests, a fifth musketeer to the literary adventures imagined by Alexandre Dumas.
Without any historical or educational vocation, the 26 episodes take up the characters and situations of the novels by sprinkling them with gags (the always violent arrivals of Milady, the experiments of Albert to the detriment of his comrades) by proposing full-bodied intrigues for the very young . But how do the adventures of Albert de Parmagnan end?
From the age of 8
Entitled The Duke’s double, the 26th episode opens as Cardinal Richelieu summons Milady to find out about his new ideas for discrediting the king. This one proposes to change the uniform of the musketeers and to make them ridiculous, which will weaken the royal guards and will reinforce the police power of the guards of Richelieu. In order for this change of uniform to be adopted, however, it is necessary to be able to override the opinion of the queen, an ally of the musketeers. For that, it should be discredited.
France Animation, BBC, Cinar The new costume of the musketeers
Milady and Richelieu therefore hire an Italian who looks just like the Duke of Buckingham (reputed to be the Queen’s lover). They thus intend to make him cross the queen in the presence of witnesses and to accuse the musketeers of having played the intermediaries. Not speaking a word of French, the Italian accepts without really understanding and learns his lines by heart.
The plan of the two intriguers works like clockwork. The apparent deception is reported to the king, and the musketeers are blamed for facilitating the meeting between Buckingham and the queen. The latter, seeing the Cardinal’s blow coming, fled the Louvre Palace to ask for help from the Musketeers.
France Animation, BBC, Cinar
The Three Musketeers and D’Artagnan
Except that in the meantime, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, D’Artagnan and Captain de Tréville have been arrested by the Cardinal’s guards on behalf of the King. Only Albert, camouflaged in a smoke of his invention, finds the queen. Together, they decide to go to London to find the real Duke of Buckingham in order to confront him with the fake and prove to the king that it is a deception.
Milady tries to bring home the Italian who understands nothing and stays there, then tries to stop Albert and the queen by boarding their ship, in vain. They arrive at the Louvres where the Queen and Buckingham are arrested and brought before the King to explain themselves. Albert finds the fake Buckingham and manages to unravel the whole affair.
France Animation, BBC, Cinar
Albert “cunning, joking, he will be the winner!”
The king forces the cardinal’s guards to wear the ridiculous uniform which was intended for the musketeers and Milady, who has just swum back, faints after the failure of her plan.
No grand finale for the series, just one more episode, from which Albert obviously emerges victorious: “Hooray for Albert”!