Skippy The Bush Kangaroo : 'Dumb As A Sheep'

A great piece from David Dale in the Sun Herald about Skippy exposes the shocking fakery behind the kangaroo who I'd been led to believe was embarrassingly smarter than that kid he kept rescuing, Sonny.

...various animal wranglers reveal that kangaroos are impossible to train, because they are "dumber than sheep". Their acting range is limited to sitting still, looking around and hopping away, so the producers filmed 14 different animals in the hope of capturing enough variety of movement to fit with script needs. Before any scene, the chosen roo was kept in a hessian bag, so that she (yes, Skippy was female) would emerge dazed and compliant for a couple of minutes before making her escape.

It's a technique for controlling the talent that has sadly gone out of fashion in Australian TV production. Kind of.

300 million people around the world ended up seeing Skippy, but Sweden wouldn't show it. Why?

...it might give children "a misleading impression of an animal's abilities". What? Just because Skippy can make phone calls, open a safe, handle the controls of a helicopter, play the piano and the drums, and communicate at a level of sophistication rarely achieved by a 12 year old human being?

I remain convinced that I once saw Skippy spinning a tyre iron as he changed a wheel on the ranger's four wheel drive and cooking an omelette. But then, I can also recall Skippy surfing, but the cast rarely left the national park. Allergy medication in the early 1970s was very, very strong.

I didn't know this :

(Skippy was)....Australia's first venture into international program-making....Skippy paved the way for more versatile actresses such as Nicole Kidman, Toni Collette, Cate Blanchett and Rachel Griffiths.

A dazed kangaroo paved the way for Australian actresses internationally?

Add Skippy to our list of National Treasures.

Kangaroo Home Invasion

By Darryl Mason

Kangaroo attacks happen all the time in Australia. But we don't like to talk about them. Sure, you'll hear a lot about shark attacks, even shark sightings, "down under" at "Australia's Most Famous Beach" on BBC World News and CNN, but that's only because reporters will take any opportunity they can get to do a live cross from a sandy coastline location.

Occasionally, some brave American journalist will bust the news blackout and let the world know what is going, all but unreported, in Australia :



Eeee, any stitches to the groin are bad news for a bloke, but thirty?

And no, I don't think the tension-laden music and dramatic voiceover were over the top in the slightest.

The truth is, the human population of Australia has been under attack by kangaroos, and occasionally koalas, for decades. An entire generation of Australians were lulled into a false sense of security about kangaroos and wallabies by Skippy : The Bush Kangaroo. The show taught us that some kangaroos could learn to type, use a compass and dial rotary phones, but it never warned us of the true threat kangaroos pose to our way of life, and even the way we sleep.

Once, kangaroos would only kick ten kinds of crap out of you if you happened to wander into Kangaroo Country. But now, they are coming after us. Do they somehow know they are going to become a very popular red meat alternative in cow-reduced future?

They are hopping into our suburbs, they are invading our luxuriantly-lawned nursing homes, they are leaping straight into our homes :

A Canberra man was forced to wrestle a kangaroo out his house after it jumped through a window and landed on his bed in the middle of the night.

Nature's War On Humans continues....

They're Not Just Cute, Friendly Wallabies Anymore - They're Killers!"

Fossil Record Confirms Word & Art Aboriginal Legend Of Ancient Dog-Like Kangaroo


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"Sorry? Did You Say You Were Attacked By A Kangaroo?"

As soon as they put up the new signs warning "Beware Unprovoked Attacks By Kangaroos", they will be stolen.

A jogger is in a stable condition in a Melbourne hospital after he was attacked by a kangaroo on the city's north-western fringe.

The man was treated at the scene for a large gash on his head and smaller scratches on his arms, hands and chest and was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a stable condition.

I was convinced, for years, as a kid that I'd seen a late night movie about millions of kangaroos massing near Orange and then raging through the Blue Mountains and attacking the suburbs of Sydney. They were like a plague, unstoppable, extremely violent.

People were running from their homes and gunning down waves of marauding kangaroos, but they kept on coming. There was one fantastic scene where the kangaroos cross the Harbour Bridge, leaping from car roof to car roof. They crashed through windscreens and anyone who dared to leap from their car and run for it was pummelled to death.

I experienced years of bewildered looks from friends, and movie industry professionals, in my hunt to find this movie. It doesn't exist. The only explanation is that it was a movie dream I had while napping through an episode of Skippy, after too much straight green cordial syrup on ice-cream.

Fossil Record Confirms Ancient Dreamtime Legend Of 'Galloping' Kangaroo



For thousands of generations, Aborigines have passed down the story of how kangaroos that once ran on four legs were 'cursed' to hop along instead.

Now scientific research confirms that the ancient Dreamtime legend of Bohra was, in fact, true :

The dreamtime story of Bohra the kangaroo says the animal once ran like a dog before it was punished for joining a corroboree and forced to hop for eternity.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales say they now believe a dog-like skeleton, found in north-west Queensland, is from an extinct kangaroo species that once galloped rather than hopped.

Indigenous expert Michael Connolly says he has no doubt Aboriginal people were around to see the species.

"The Aboriginal people were always here, as far back in time as people can [say]," he said.

Mr Connolly says his ancestors used the dreamtime story over thousands of generations to record the animal in history.

"The Aboriginals had no books, so it was always by ear and by mouth and by art. These stories were told and passed down from generation to generation, so that was our storyline, that was our Bible that was everything," he said.

You Can Read A Story Of Bohra The Kangaroo Here

More Stories From The Dreaming Can Be Watched And Heard Here