Dot and the Kangaroo (film)

An Australian film featuring animation over live-action backgrounds from the 1970s. Based on an 1899 novel by Ethel C. Pedley. An early success for the Yoram Gross studio, with many sequels (diverging further and further from the original source material).


 * Crosscast Role: The Kangaroo is clearly played by a male in the live action footage.
 * Disney Acid Sequence: the Bunyip song.
 * Foot Focus: Dot is always barefoot in all the movies.
 * "I Am" Song: "I'm a Frog" and "Platypus Duet".
 * Intellectual Animal
 * Kangaroos Represent Australia
 * Kangaroo Pouch Ride: there is a song about it.
 * Nobody Poops: Averted; Dot whispers to the kangaroo, which she responds with "Anywhere you like, dear.". It's very obvious what she means.
 * Redheaded Hero: Dot.
 * Roger Rabbit Effect
 * Speaks Fluent Animal: Dot.

Tropes the sequels have

 * Art Shift: The sequels
 * Brother Chuck: Dot's parents and grandfather.
 * But Now I Must Go: Danny the Swagman in Around the World with Dot.
 * Fantastic Racism: The Rounds against the Squares in Dot in Space. Dot herself is arrested for not being round enough.
 * Fat and Skinny: The fish store owners in Dot and the Whale.
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters
 * Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!: Dot and the Koala has animals acting and dressing more like humans and even having houses, jobs and their own city.
 * Literary Agent Hypothesis: The Dot and the Kangaroo book in Dot and the Bunny.
 * Remember the New Guy?: Dot's brother in Around the World with Dot.
 * Retcon: The movie appears to take place in the turn of the 20th century, much like the book. But the sequels seem to take place in the 1970s.
 * Shown Their Work: Dot and Keeto correctly identifies male mosquitoes as sap suckers and female mosquitoes as the blood suckers.
 * Snap Back: In the first sequel Dot found the kangaroo's missing joey and brought him back to her. In the next sequel her joey is still gone.
 * Though it is set up as more of an Alternate Continuity, as a dream by a girl who's just started reading the book.
 * Those Two Guys: The two boys in Dot and the Whale.