Skippy the Bush Kangaroo - any chance for a US release? (1 Viewer)

[Mark To]

I know they have 2 sets out in Oz but I've held off on buying them, mainly because they are kind of overpriced, even with the exchange rate. 7 episodes for like $24. Even with the exchange, that's still kind of pricey when you include the postage. I wonder if the show might come out here. It did have a pretty good syndication in the late 60s when I remember watching it.

 

[andrew markworthy]

'What's that you say, Skip? Satan will skate to work before this is released?'

 

[Tory]

Can you describe this for me? was it an educational math show, or something else?

 

[andrew markworthy]

You've never seen Skippy the Bush Kangaroo? Oh boy, you've missed a treat.

A brief description (and I swear none of this is made up). A boy aged circa 10 yrs old lives in the Outback (i.e. the really desolate part) of Australia with his father, who I think was the equivalent of park ranger. The boy gets his school lessons over the radio, etc, and is generally pretty lonely save for Skippy, a kangaroo whom he befriends. Skippy can communicate with the boy via a sort of clicking sound (I assume that this is the noise kangaroos naturally make). Boy and kangaroo get into various adventures and a recurrent theme is Skippy being sent back to get help. Nobody has any difficulty in understanding his clicking noises and the catchphrase of the show was 'what's that you say, Skip?' This was followed by a translation of whatever Skippy had just clicked (e.g. 'What's that you say, Skip? The boys are trapped in the mine and they've only got 20 minutes of oxygen left?').

I saw the series when it was first shown in the late 60s/early 70s and being about 10 at the time, I liked it. I've seen the occasional snippet of the programme since and I'm afraid it these days produces the same reaction as Scooby Doo - i.e. 'how the **** did I ever sit through this?'.

One other thing - it was a live action programme, and being pre-Crocodile Dundee and the movies of Baz Luhrman [sp?] it had no sense of irony.

 

[Mark To]

Skippy is the Australian equivalent of Lassie or Flipper.

 

[JeffWld]

Or even "Salty", a post-Flipper syndicated show with the same theme.

 

[streeter]

Skippy was great - it used to be on every morning before I went to school. I can still sing along to the theme song.

 

[Kim Olav Svines]

There is 3 DVDs out in the US (totaling 39 episodes, 13 episodes on each DVD). They can be found for $4-$5 per volume. They're released by Platinum, so don't expect much from this cheap, public domain company.