Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was an Australian TV series created for kids by John McCallum. The show was produced between 1966 and 1968, following the adventures of an Australian boy and his intelligent pet kangaroo, Skippy. The story is set in a fictional nature reserve called Waratah National Park. The show was met with success both in Australia and abroad. American children were especially enraptured with the tales of childhood in a distant land.
According to Classic Australian TV, “It could be argued that most well-known Australian television star internationally is a kangaroo.” The TV show was released in English in America and Canada, but was later dubbed into Spanish and aired in Mexico, Cuba and Spain. Half a century later, this promo video for the Skippy series is delightfully dated. The producers used puppetry and camera tricks to give Skippy the appearance of picking up objects, opening doors and using human body language. These visual illusions concerned Swedish psychologists because they felt that the show misrepresented reality. The TV show was eventually banned in Sweden because the psychologist thought it would lead to kids believing that animals could do things that they actually couldn’t.
You can find out more about Skippy the Bush Kangaroo on Wikipedia.
