Dot and the Kangaroo (1977)

You won't be disappointed!

People are voting emotionally.

hyped garbage

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Ethel Pedley wrote the Dot series as a criticism of the humans' impact on Australia's wildlife. And so, Yoram Gross adapted them to film. "Dot and the Kangaroo" has the girl lost in the woods and befriending a marsupial who lost her baby to humans. In the process, Dot comes to develop a better connection to nature.I recommend the movie. It's got some interesting songs, and I like the mix of animation and live action. But mostly it reminds us that we can't separate ourselves from nature as much as we think. After all, you can't fight nature and win. I have a vague memory of seeing some of the Dot movies when I was little, but the characters were dubbed with American accents.PS: One scene has the kangaroo mention a creature called the bunyip. We don't see the bunyip here, but a later movie in the series focused on smugglers who are after him, and we get to meet him.

I am focusing my attention on the story of 'Dot and the Kangaroo'. Now I am reviewing a film that can only be seen by a British audience on YouTube unless in this case, you happen to own a multi-region DVD Player. Therefore, I am composing this review to the best of what I have managed to gather from watching the film on YouTube. Anyway here goes, the film is based on the posthumous 1899 novel of the same name by Ethel C. Pedley (1859-1898).The film begins with 5-year-old Dot (Barbara Frawley) lost and alone in the woods of New South Wales after asking her parents' permission to go off exploring only to fall down an embankment. Wondering through the woods and encountering wild animals, the child is thankfully found by a mother kangaroo (Joan Bruce who also plays Dot's mother) who has lost her joey and therefore is inclined to help Dot. Thus Dot embarks on an amazing musical adventure through the wilds of the Australian Outback in the safety of the kangaroo's pouch.Now, the kangaroo can keep Dot safe but she cannot help her alone and the other animals of the forest cannot help them either, mostly due to their anger towards humans. 'What have the humans ever done for us?' Some of the animals ask aloud despite most of them being friendly towards Dot. Indeed, by this time, Dot's parents have realised their daughter's absence and her father (Ron Haddrick) and grandfather are looking for her.The other animals put their anger to one side upon hearing of the kangaroo's reasons for helping Dot and recommend seeking help from the platypus couple (June Salter and the great Spike Milligan). This our heroines do, discovering the Jenolan caves that are along the way and learning of the mythological Bunyip of Indigenous Australian legend from the Aboriginal Art that graces the walls of these caves.The platypus couple are no more trusting towards mankind as the rest of the animal kingdom but their advice leads our heroines to the more friendly Willie-Wagtail (Ross Higgins) and hopefully lead Dot home. It also leads to a brief encounter with some aborigines and their dingoes near the Blue Mountains, which only serves to further strengthen the bond between Dot and the red kangaroo. Of course, there is only so long that such a bond can hold without potentially upsetting the balance of Nature.In a ground-breaking (for its time) film that will pull at the heart-strings of its audience to an extreme degree, directors Yoram and Sandra Gross go to great lengths to portray the negative impact of Mankind on Nature from around 1884 onwards, as is emphasised in the book as well as portraying animated characters within a live-action setting. Indeed, the film certainly goes some way to achieving this goal as it was successful enough to spawn eight sequels, each of which featuring young Dot learning more about what her kind have done and are still doing to the Animal kingdom and some in cases, to themselves.Therefore, young Dot will continue to strive to get that message across to the rest of her kind whatever it takes even if it means going on more adventures or dare I say it, exposing some of the more negative aspects of Dot's character that you will not really see as such in the earlier sequels. Good luck trying to find the time to watch the remainder of Dot's adventures because eight sequels is a lot to get through and if you ask me, the style, quality and appeal of the animation (not to mention the plots) will gradually start to vary and not always for the better. Of course this is just my personal opinion, and as the old saying goes, 'Each to their Own'.

Apparently I am swimming against the tide of the glowing comments on this film. I have not seen it since I was 4 or 5 years old but there is one thing I remember distinctly...The Bunyip was TERRIFYING!!! Nightmare inducing terrifying. With the creepy music and the little girl and kangaroo running/hopping away for their lives...As a kid I also remember the animated Hobbit... no worries. Watership down? Didn't blink an eye. Dot and the Kangaroo? It still haunts my dreams. And I have several friends the same age who also think it was massively creepy. Maybe we can get a group rate on therapy.In short: one freaky film for its time.

This Australian part animation, part live is now nearly 30 years old, and maybe this is the time for a remake. I am never a fan of remakes ordinarily, but though a classic in it's own right, Dot and the Kangaroo is a hazed memory for many adults, and is almost never shown on television for the latest generation of children.The story of a young girl lost in the Australian bush is befriended by a kangaroo who has lost her very own joey (which is never found). The film follows their adventures in returning Dot to her family using some now very dated looking crossover filming between live action and animation, which at the time was very impressive.This is not a traditional feature length cartoon for two simple reasons. Almost every cartoon has a happy, everybody lives happily ever after feel to it...this one doesn't. And there is a creature called a Bunyip in this movie which is going to GET YOU... As a young child, you may just worry about this for a while, especially if you live in Australia... Usually the token scary monster of a cartoon is so over the top it's laughable. This is a little more than that, and must not be dumbed down for any remake. That would be unacceptable!This is a must for anyone who remembers the film and wants a nostalgic trip, but for newcomers, maybe you should wait for a remake (if ever) -or just avoid the film as I have no doubt you will never understand what all the fuss is about. You will hear Dot singing about the best way to travel being in the pouch of a red kangaroo, and switch off immediately. This aside, the film may still appeal to young children.