PDA

View Full Version : Do you remember Skippy the Bush Kangaroo?



Nancetta
03-04-2012, 08:40 PM
Do you remember Skippy the Bush Kangaroo?

After recent gobsmacking news you can’t blame me for reminiscing about the things I got up to when I was just knee-high to a grasshopper.

One of my favourite pass times as a kid, besides giving grief to my younger sister, was getting stuck into a bread roll filled with nothing more than Smith’s Potato Chips and a very good splash of tomato sauce in front of our black and white television watching “Skippy the Bush Kangaroo”.

Amazing enough, several days ago a documentary on the making of this Australian TV series "Skippy the Bush Kangaroo" popped up on the television. The series ran from 1966 to 1968 with the support of James Packer’s grandfather, the late Sir Frank Packer, who was one of Australia’s first media moguls.

This YouTube video may jog your memory – Google Reader’s etc click here

What I didn’t know until the doco showed up was that the series was taken up worldwide, with the only exception being Sweden. Apparently the powers to be didn't want their ankle biters watching it because Skippy may have given them “a misleading impression of an animal’s abilities”.

You see, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo could talk, just like Flipper. Not that I could understand them of course, as it all sounded like gobbledygook to me, but at least I could play a mean gum leaf just like Garry Pankhurst who played the young boy, Sonny Hammond in the series.

Mister Ed, the talking horse, however was an entirely different matter as he spoke the Queen’s English with an American accent!

Now that you have read one of my “from the womb to the tomb” stories, what more can I ask of you? Well here goes, ”Do you remember Skippy the Bush Kangaroo?”

To be continued…

Do you remember Skippy the Bush Kangaroo? (http://stvincentsdarlinghurstmalenurses.blogspot.com/2009/10/do-you-remember-skippy-bush-kangaroo.html)

I just saw this documentary on telly the other day as well. It was so interesting to see what went on behind-the-scenes in the making of 'Skippy the Bush Kangaroo'. (Not that I remember much of this show...being as young as I am...:RpS_biggrin:)

I have to give it to the Aussies...they are almost up-to-par with a great sense of humor like Canadians...:RpS_wink:

On a serious note, if you haven't seen the documentary, try to catch it.

Whip
03-04-2012, 09:11 PM
Ah. Watched this when I was a wee lad.

Nancetta
03-04-2012, 09:27 PM
Ah. Watched this when I was a wee lad.

Wasn't it the best? Although, I vaguely recall watching it when I was a wee lass...LOL. The documentary was eye-opening because it showcased what actually went on behind the production. Not only that, it showed that the Aussies were 'on top' of things long before any of us (me) over here ever knew.

littleroundman
03-04-2012, 09:31 PM
Skippy cast struck down

October 3, 2011, 6:18 pm David Eccleston Today Tonight

In what's being called 'the Skippy curse', the key characters of the classic TV series are being struck down by cancer, one after the other.

Ed Devereaux has lost his battle, while both Tony Bonner and Ken James have had the disease, and are confident of beating it.

Now Liza Goddard, who played Clancy, has spoken out about her long fight with breast cancer.

Skippy’s sound alone is enough to take you back to your childhood, and the daily adventures with a high IQ kangaroo, with a new rogue and a new mystery to solve.

For the show’s stars, 45 years on, there’s is another, real-life mystery: is there a Skippy cancer curse?

Tony Bonner played Gerry King, the chopper pilot, and later beat prostate cancer.
As Mark Hammond, Ken James became a household name. He's now in his fourth stage of cancer of the lymph gland.

And sadly the patriarch of the Hammond clan, Ed Devereaux, lost his battle with throat cancer in 2003.

For many Liza Goodard will always be the fresh-faced piggy-tailed Clancy Merrick.

Like her co-stars, Goodard was diagnosed with cancer in 1997. The cancer then returned, forcing her to have a double mastectomy.

“I had breast cancer a few years ago. Eleven years ago now, and that time the garden was extremely important because it was a place of haven, and a place to heal,” Goodard said.

Life is a lot more subdued and more reflective for Goodard nowadays. She's a proud survivor, enjoying her days at an English retreat in the county of Norfolk.

She shares this slice of idyllic English life with her husband, TV producer, David Cobham, in a world away from her teenage years spent in Waratah Park.

“Five or six generations after the show was around everyone still knows who Skippy is,” she said.

TV Commentator and Writer, Peter Timbs is just one of the many who grew up watching Goodard and her co-stars. “Times are changing and unfortunately things like cancer and this stuff happens to this generation - it’s very sad, but there’s going to be more and more of these stories, and we do want to know about it.”

Fellow survivor and cast member Bonner is another star thankful for a second run. “Whether it's the tragedy of melanomas or breast, testicular or prostate cancer, we all dance with that little devil,” he said.


http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/10390243/skippy-cast-struck-drownForceRecrawl/ (http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/10390243/skippy-cast-struck-drownForceRecrawl/)

Nancetta
03-04-2012, 09:55 PM
Skippy cast struck down

October 3, 2011, 6:18 pm David Eccleston Today Tonight

In what's being called 'the Skippy curse', the key characters of the classic TV series are being struck down by cancer, one after the other.

Ed Devereaux has lost his battle, while both Tony Bonner and Ken James have had the disease, and are confident of beating it.

Now Liza Goddard, who played Clancy, has spoken out about her long fight with breast cancer.

Skippy’s sound alone is enough to take you back to your childhood, and the daily adventures with a high IQ kangaroo, with a new rogue and a new mystery to solve.

For the show’s stars, 45 years on, there’s is another, real-life mystery: is there a Skippy cancer curse?

Tony Bonner played Gerry King, the chopper pilot, and later beat prostate cancer.
As Mark Hammond, Ken James became a household name. He's now in his fourth stage of cancer of the lymph gland.

And sadly the patriarch of the Hammond clan, Ed Devereaux, lost his battle with throat cancer in 2003.

For many Liza Goodard will always be the fresh-faced piggy-tailed Clancy Merrick.

Like her co-stars, Goodard was diagnosed with cancer in 1997. The cancer then returned, forcing her to have a double mastectomy.

“I had breast cancer a few years ago. Eleven years ago now, and that time the garden was extremely important because it was a place of haven, and a place to heal,” Goodard said.

Life is a lot more subdued and more reflective for Goodard nowadays. She's a proud survivor, enjoying her days at an English retreat in the county of Norfolk.

She shares this slice of idyllic English life with her husband, TV producer, David Cobham, in a world away from her teenage years spent in Waratah Park.

“Five or six generations after the show was around everyone still knows who Skippy is,” she said.

TV Commentator and Writer, Peter Timbs is just one of the many who grew up watching Goodard and her co-stars. “Times are changing and unfortunately things like cancer and this stuff happens to this generation - it’s very sad, but there’s going to be more and more of these stories, and we do want to know about it.”

Fellow survivor and cast member Bonner is another star thankful for a second run. “Whether it's the tragedy of melanomas or breast, testicular or prostate cancer, we all dance with that little devil,” he said.


http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/10390243/skippy-cast-struck-drownForceRecrawl/ (http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/10390243/skippy-cast-struck-drownForceRecrawl/)

Oh no, that is so terribly sad! If only everyone could see this documentary and realize what everyone involved in the 'making of Skippy' gave to us...to the world. The makers of this production were top-notch pioneers in the industry as were the actors/actresses...including 'Skippy'.

Whip
03-04-2012, 11:58 PM
Wasn't it the best? Although, I vaguely recall watching it when I was a wee lass...LOL. The documentary was eye-opening because it showcased what actually went on behind the production. Not only that, it showed that the Aussies were 'on top' of things long before any of us (me) over here ever knew.

I sometimes still sing the song and people either ask me what the hell I'm singing or the ones that get it start laughing.

EagleOne
03-27-2012, 04:04 AM
Well, I must be too young because I never heard of the show. Maybe the moral is don't hang around with Kangaroo's because they cause cancer?

Seriously, I hate to hear that so many did come down with Cancer, and it is a rather high statistic that many would from this cast. The odds have to be off the charts.

As for the title of the show and the media mogul who promoted it, I won't touch either with a 10' pole. :RpS_lol: