Dot and the Kangaroo (1977)

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.

Okay, for me, this movie has a lot of back-story. One of my personal childhood movies was "Dot and the Whale", an incredible animated movie that I fondly remember watching on the Disney Channel and a couple times in school. I knew that movie was part of a series of movies, and so I was tempted to see the movie that started it all, which was this one."Dot and the Kangaroo" is an animated feature film from the 1970's based on an 1899 novel written by Ethel Pedley. I do find it kind of strange that this movie spawned off a line of sequels that really had nothing to do with Pedley's novel, but that's far from a criticism.Here are the good points: Overall, I should say that it's a pretty good movie. It has likable characters, and the animators seemed to do a nice job mixing in animation with live action. I'm sure that children will enjoy it.Here are the bad points: These are all just minor flaws, but the movie is full of a lot of pointless musical numbers that seem to pop up out of nowhere and serve no purpose to the film, but that's not to say they are bad songs. Also, the ending seems kind of anti-climatic. That's a bad thing because the movie doesn't really end; it just stops. It's also a good thing, because it sets the stage for a sequel and gives you the impression that this is the beginning of a saga.There were a ton of movies in the Dot series that followed this, but today, they're really hard to find. Sadly, "Dot and the Kangaroo" is, to the best of my knowledge, the only Dot movie to have a DVD release. The others were released on VHS but never DVD; I don't know why.Despite the minor flaws I mentioned, "Dot and the Kangaroo" is a real heart-warming film, and I recommend checking it out. Netflix it today.

I can remember very little about the "Dot" films from my childhood; except I think the 1987 film "Dot goes to Hollywood." I had recently ordered the DVD of this film, and watching it a few times, I really love it out the other "Dot" films - though I haven't seen some. And also I love kangaroos.Based a children's book by Australian author Ethel C. Pedley, the film's about a girl named Dot is lost in the Australian bushland after chasing a bilby (a hopping rat) into the wood and losing sight of her home. She is approached by a red kangaroo, who gives her a strange root to eat. Upon eating the root, Dot is able to understand the language of all animals, and she tells the kangaroo her plight. The kangaroo, who has lost her own joey, decides to help little Dot despite her own fear of humans. I am even thinking of reading the original Pedley book - though as I said before: Not many people today know of books like this one. Overall I love this film and I love 4 out of the 7 songs in the film.

This film was repeatedly shown on british TV early on Saturday mornings, and I NEVER missed it. Boy did I love this film in the 80's whilst growing up. Well now nearly 30 (BOO HOO!!), nostalgia starts kicking in and I started to remember what I loved about the 80's. I remembered this movie and set off using the world wide web to track a copy down. I found help from a most unusual source, the director himself! Yoram Gross helped me obtain, via e-mails from Oz, a DVD copy. HOW COOL! Was I disapointed?No............The film looks dated, then so do I. Compared to the excellent CGI these days used for animated giants like Shrek and Toy Story this comes last in the egg and spoon race. But this film oodles charm. The story is very innocent, even compared to Shrek and Toy Story, and children will love it. Now I'm definately not one of those people who bang on about films causing kids to rebel and hurt, maim and kill folks. But if you are this film will only cause your kids to "jump in the pouch of a red kangaroo, hippety hoppety, hippety hop". I had not heard the songs for maybe 20 years yet still knew nearly every word. The way the animation is mixed with real time footage is charming and adds to the film, even if Roger Rabbit did it 100 times better. The animals are truly adorable and you warm to them all, exept the Bunyip which is just frightening enough for the age it's aimed at, still don't wanna meet one at 30 though!!!So dated, yes. Fun, massively. Heart warming, definately. Memorable.........."Quack, quack, quack, quack, all we wanna do all day is quack.......quack, quack......QUACK!"