Hop Down Memory Lane: Revisiting the Magic of Dot and the Kangaroo

There is one sound that has stuck with me almost all my life. It’s a short thip-thip-thip from a kangaroo as it talks to a little girl named Dot, but it turns out I didn’t even remember the sound right. In the Australian animated film, Dot and the Kangaroo, it’s more like a click-click-click, and it only appears in the first few minutes, not the entire film, as I recalled.

Dot and the Kangaroo, the first of many animated Dot movies from the 1980s, was one of the most memorable films from my childhood. Based on a series of books that also started with the same title, Dot and the Kangaroo told the story of a little girl who gets lost away from home and befriends the popular outback animal. The most striking thing about the movie is how the characters are animated over photographic backgrounds. Every shot of the movie has images taken in the brush. The disparity between the realistic backgrounds and the cartoonish characters is striking, especially when animated characters jump into the water accompanied by a real splash.

The story takes the eponymous Dot from her home across many lands in the Australian wilds. Along the way to collect grass from a local paddock, she gets distracted by a mouse, chasing it before tripping and tumbling down a hill. She strikes a tree, coming to in unfamiliar surroundings. This catches us up to the title screen of the movie, the first scene that shows the small girl curled up and crying at the base of a tree. It’s a jarring introduction to the movie, showing how dire the child’s situation is right away.

The sounds of the many animals scare her, causing her to run even deeper into the wilds until coming upon a red kangaroo. The kangaroo offers Dot some food while speaking in its quick clicks. Words start coming along with the sounds, then replace them as Dot begins to comprehend the animal. The kangaroo tells her she ate the ‘food of understanding’ which allows them to communicate.

The kangaroo says she lost her joey before, so she understands what it’s like for Dot to lose her way. She offers to take the child to the watering hole to find someone who can help her get home. Since Dot is barefoot (perpetually, as many movie descriptions call her), the kangaroo has her climb into her pouch to carry her. This starts one of the movie’s many songs, “Ride in the Pouch of a Red Kangaroo,” which plays while Dot rolls around in the marsupial’s pouch, the envy of every kid who ever watched this movie. The song plays again during Dot’s second ride in the pouch, but thankfully, that’s the last time as well.

The songs continue to come, and continue to get worse, when they get to the watering hole and two ducks sing about how thirsty they are. Then two mice sing about… I don’t know. Honestly, I quit listening; that song was the worst.

Throughout the movie, the story explicitly states how much damage humans have done to the animals. The ducks at the watering hole were scared to drink because humans trampled through the brush, and the kangaroo’s joey was killed by humans. That message continues through the animal council meeting. Because of the kangaroo’s plea, they still decide to help and send Dot to find the smartest of animals, the platypuses.

On the way to them, a storm forces the two into a cave where Dot finds Aboriginal cave drawings and learns of the Bunyip, a monster in Aboriginal folklore. This scene is one of the strongest in my memory, as the cave drawings come to life and are chased by the Bunyip. I loved seeing the crude looks of the monster, humans, and animals, and the song that goes along with it is one of the best in the movie.

After the storm, they meet the Platypuses, which requires its own song, and all they do is tell them to find another animal. I mentioned before that many songs aren’t that great, and the sheer amount of them at this point grated on my nerves. If you need an example, here’s the song “I’m a Frog”, which doesn’t affect the movie at all.

On the way to find the willie wagtail, a bird that might finally get Dot home, they find an Aboriginal tribe in the middle of a dance. The kangaroo tries to keep Dot quiet so she won’t alert their dingoes, but Dot can’t stop from screaming when it looks like they will attack another man wearing a kangaroo skin.

A chase scene occurs with the dingoes trapping the kangaroo at a cliff’s edge before she jumps across the ravine. I’m not sure how Dot wasn’t crushed when she hit the other side; instead, the kangaroo is hurt and actually bleeding. The dingoes haven’t given up yet, but a pack of birds offers help. They scare the dogs and tribe away with their loud calls, making them all think the Bunyip was after them.

Dot feeds the kangaroo flowers and gets her water from scratching the ground, which helps the kangaroo recover to full health. They find the wagtail, and with another song, of course, he helps them find Dot’s home. The child wants to introduce her parents to the kangaroo that saved her, but the animal knows she has to leave Dot to her people. The movie ends with Dot crying and the kangaroo shifting from animation to live video of a kangaroo hopping through the brush.

The film was a success and birthed a whole series of Dot films, many of which shared the same style of animated characters over photographic backgrounds. The second movie, Around the World with Dot, also included live-action characters of Santa Claus and Dot herself. I’ve never watched the other ones, but the eclectic style of Dot and the Kangaroo made sure I would never forget it.