Dot and the Kangaroo Plot
An Australian settler girl gets lost in the outback, but she is befriended by a kangaroo who gives her a ride in her pouch as they search for the girl's home. Aiding the pair are musically gifted koalas, platypuses, and kookaburras in this 72-minute film based on Ethel Pedley's 1899 children's book, with animated humans and animals superimposed upon a live background. Children will be touched by the relationship between the child and her marsupial protector, who has lost her own joey. But they may also be frightened by the mythical bunyip (a threatening animal-bird hybrid) or the heroines' violent confrontation with snarling dingoes. Finally, children who are used to happy endings will be mystified that the kangaroo never finds her own baby, and Dot, although returned home, sobs when separated from her beloved kangaroo. The film movingly dissolves from a weeping Dot to footage of real kangaroos bounding through the Australian bush. Ages 3 to 8. --Kimberly Heinrichs
Dot and the Kangaroo Cast
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as Dot -
as The Kangaroo / Mother
User Review
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Let it be known that this is the only animated family musical to spend most of its adventure like your average Disney film at the time and both begin and end on a depressing note. It's the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors (Director's Cut) of such a genre.
It's also been through the strangest case of sequelitis an animated film's ever had - it took a final bow in outer space - though every sequel's had more variety and occasional darkness than any American animated sagas. Suck on that, Littlefoot. |
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