''Dot and the Kangaroo'' is a 1977

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

which combines animation and live-action. It is based on the 1899 children's literature book ''

Dot and the Kangaroo ''Dot and the Kangaroo'' is an 1899 Australian children's book written by Ethel C. Pedley about a little girl named Dot who gets lost in the Australian bush and is eventually befriended by a kangaroo and several other marsupials. The book was ...

'' by

Ethel Pedley Ethel Charlotte Pedley (19 June 1859 – 6 August 1898) was an English-Australian author and musician. Early life Ethel Charlotte Pedley was born on 19 June 1859 at Acton, near London. She was the daughter of Frederick Pedley and his wife ...

Plot

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, 1884: when a perpetually

barefoot Being barefoot is the state of not wearing any footwear. There are health benefits and some risks associated with going barefoot. Shoes, while they offer protection, can limit the flexibility, strength, and mobility of the foot and can lead ...

red-headed five-year-old girl named Dot finds herself lost in the Australian bush, a female

red kangaroo The red kangaroo (''Osphranter rufus'') is the largest of all kangaroos, the largest terrestrial mammal native to Australia, and the Largest mammals#Marsupials (Marsupialia), largest extant marsupial. It is found across mainland Australia, exce ...

who has lost her

joey Joey may refer to: People *Joey (name) Animals * Joey (marsupial), an infant marsupial * Joey, a blue-fronted Amazon parrot who was one of the Blue Peter pets Film and television * ''Joey'' (1977 film), an American film directed by Horace ...

promises to help the girl find her way home. In the process, the kangaroo introduces Dot to a number of other local animals, teaching her a greater appreciation for

nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

Cast

Barbara Frawley Barbara Anne Frawley (14 April 1935 – 1 March 2004) was an Australian actress, voice actress and children's television host. She was best known as the voice of young Dot in the 1977 film adaptation of ''Dot and the Kangaroo'', as well as ...

as Dot, a young, perpetually barefoot, red-headed Australian girl who loves animals * Joan Bruce as the Kangaroo and Dot's Mother *

Spike Milligan Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British India, where he spent his ...

as Mr. Platypus *

June Salter June Marie Salter AM (22 June 193215 September 2001) was an Australian actress and author prominent in theatre and television. She is best known for her character roles, in particular as schoolteacher Elizabeth McKenzie in the soap opera ''Th ...

as Mrs. Platypus *

Ross Higgins Ross Higgins (14 June 1930 – 7 October 2016) was an Australian vaudevillian, character actor, television host, comedian, singer and voice actor. He was best known for his role as Ted Bullpitt in the 1980s television situation comedy seri ...

as Willie Wagtail *

Ron Haddrick Ronald Norman Haddrick (9 April 1929 – 11 February 2020) was an Australian actor, narrator and South Australian cricketer. In 2012, he received the Actors Equity Lifetime Achievement Award for his long and distinguished career in media, span ...

as Dot's Father * Lola Brooks *

Peter Gwynne Peter Gwynne (22 September 1929 – 17 November 2011) was a New Zealand-born Australian television actor who was also known for voice-over work. Career Born in New Zealand, Gwynne was a well-recognised character actor, appearing in many of th ...

* Richard Meikle as Jack the Farmhand, possibly Dot's grandfather

Production

Yoram and Sandra Gross wanted to make an Australian animated feature for the world market. They read a series of books before deciding on ''Dot and the Kangaroo''. Two-thirds of the budget was provided by the

Australian Film Commission The Australian Film Commission (AFC) was an Australian government agency was founded in 1975 with a mandate to promote the creation and distribution of films in Australia as well as to preserve the country's film history. It also had a product ...

.Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 320 The film's backdrop was filmed on location in and around

Jenolan Caves The Jenolan Caves (Tharawal language, Tharawal: ''Binoomea'', ''Bindo'', ''Binda'') are limestone cave, limestone caves located within the Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve in the Central Tablelands region, west of the Blue Mountains (New Sout ...

and the Warragamba Dam Catchment Area of the Blue Mountains in

, Australia. Although the film uses many of the same elements as other animated children's musicals involving animals, such as many of the Disney animated films from the U.S., the film is essentially Australian in its use of icons and accents. It also references

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

culture in some scenes which depict animation of cave paintings and aboriginal dancing.

Soundtrack

The film featured an original soundtrack including several lyrical melodies composed by Bob Young with lyrics John Palmer, and Marion Von Alderstein, while Bob Young provided additional lyrics, and they were recorded by Maurie Wilmore. A soundtrack album was released in 1982 combined with the soundtrack of '' Around the World with Dot''. The music from ''Dot and the Kangaroo'' appears on the B-side.

Reception

The film was a success, being screened around the world and returning its cost within three years.Antoinette Starkiewicz, "Yoram Gross", ''Cinema Papers'', August 1984 p338 It allowed

Yoram Gross Yoram Jerzy Gross (18 October 192621 September 2015) was a Polish-born, Australian film and television producer, animation director, and writer of children's and family entertainment. He founded the animation studio Flying Bark Productions. ...

to enlarge his production company and market his family films in the U.S. Additionally, the film's use of animation set against photographic backgrounds established the style for many of his later films.

Release

In the 1980s, the first eight films were released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

in the U.S., the first one by

Magnetic Video Magnetic Video Corporation was a home video/home audio duplication service that operated between 1968 and 1982. History Magnetic Video Corporation was established by the co-founder Andre Blay, an American film producer in 1968 with Leon Nic ...

, the next two by

CBS/Fox Video 20th Century Home Entertainment (previously known as Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. and also known as 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment) was a home video distribution arm that distributes films produced by 20th Century Stud ...

and the next five by

Family Home Entertainment Family Home Entertainment (FHE) was an American home video company founded in 1980 by Noel C. Bloom. It was a division of International Video Entertainment, which had its headquarters in Newbury Park, California. History The company was found ...

. A DVD version of the film was released on 30 October 2001 by Hen's Tooth Video. In Australia there is a complete series DVD set of all the Dot films. They were also released on DVD on Digiview Entertainment. One of them is the first film which was released in 2005 by Digiview Productions and re-released in 2006 by Digiview Entertainment. It was then released by TUTM Home Entertainment on 1 November 2009, as the Digiview copies went out-of-print since Digiview's closure. The copyright for the film in the U.S. is unclear despite being released after the enactment of the

Copyright Act of 1976 The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, ...

. The various films were shown on the

Disney Channel Disney Channel is an American pay television television channel, channel that serves as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company ...

in the late 1980s through the 1990s in the US, and on the Canadian Family Channel.

Sequels

Animation company Yoram Gross Studios followed up the first film with another eight films between 1981 and 1994. The theme behind all of the films in the Dot series is the negative impact of humanity on animal life in nature. The sequels are as follows: # '' Around the World with Dot'' (1981) # ''

Dot and the Bunny ''Dot and the Bunny'' is a 1983 Australian animated film.
at Yoram Gross Films It serves as a direct sequel to the 1977 film '' ...

'' (1983) # '' Dot and the Koala'' (1985) # ''

Dot and Keeto ''Dot and Keeto'' is a 1986 Australian animated film.
at Yoram Gross Films

Plot

When Dot accidentally eats ...

'' (1986) # ''

Dot and the Whale ''Dot and the Whale'' is a 1986 in film, 1986 Australian animated film by Yoram Gross. It is based on the character Dot from the animated film ''Dot and the Kangaroo (film), Dot and the Kangaroo'', which in turn was based on the Dot and the Kangar ...

'' (1986) # ''

Dot and the Smugglers ''Dot and the Kangaroo'' is a 1977 Cinema of Australia, Australian Live-action animated film, live-action/animated Musical film, musical Drama (film and television), drama film which combines animation and live-action. It is based on the 1899 chi ...

'' (1987) # ''

Dot Goes to Hollywood A dot is usually a small, round spot. Dot, DoT or DOT may also refer to: Orthography * Full stop or "period", a sentence terminator * Dot (diacritic), a mark above or below a character (e.g. ȧ, ạ, İ, Ċ, ċ, etc.), usually to indicate sou ...

'' (1987) # '' Dot in Space'' (1994) (Australian release only) Six films in the series (not including ''Dot and the Koala'', ''Dot and the Whale'', or ''Dot Goes to Hollywood'') were released in a two-disc pack as ''Dot and her Amazing Adventures'' by Reel DVD, under the banner Reel Kids.

Footnotes

External links

* *
''Dot and the Kangaroo''
at Oz Movies {{Yoram Gross 1970s adventure films 1970s children's adventure films 1970s children's animated films 1977 children's films 1970s English-language films 1970s female buddy films 1970s musical comedy films 1970s musical drama films 1977 animated films 1977 comedy-drama films 1977 films 1977 independent films Films set in 1884 Animated films about children Animated buddy films Animated films about kangaroos and wallabies Animated films about koalas Animated films about wombats Animated films based on Australian novels Animated films based on children's books Australian animated feature films Australian children's adventure films Australian children's films Australian independent films Australian musical comedy-drama films Children's comedy-drama films Films directed by Yoram Gross Films set in New South Wales Films shot in Australia Films with live action and animation Flying Bark Productions films Animated films set in Australia English-language musical comedy-drama films English-language independent films English-language adventure films English-language buddy films 1977 musical films