Belle and Sebastien

1 9 6 7 - 1 9 6 8 (France)
13 x 25 minute episodes

Two customs officers are patrolling the mountains during a night of heavy snowfall when they find a young woman carrying a baby in her arms. The officers (and a hunter called Cesar) take the frozen and fatigued woman into a shelter but are too late to save her. 

Cesar decides to adopt the baby and take him back to the French Alpine village of Saint-Martin, close to the Italian border where he lives. As it is Saint Sebastien's Day, Cesar decides to call the orphaned boy Sebastien. Sebastien grows up with Cesar, his daughter, Angelina and son, Jean.

When Sebastien is six years old, news reaches the village one day of a dangerous white dog loose in the mountains. The police have orders to kill the animal, but Sebastian encounters the dog (who he decides to call Belle) first and the pair become friends. From there on, it was wholesome adventure all the way as boy and dog wandered through the hills, outwitted smugglers and narrowly avoided disaster after disaster.

A second series Belle, Sebastien and the Horses (13 episodes) followed a year later.