Australian
Screen

Clip description

The Kaboodle opening titles run into the first story: ‘Molly Makes Music’. While Molly (voiced by Cara Schwarz) is out for the day, removalists arrive at her house. She returns to find furniture missing and her mother (voiced by Julia Gardiner) reminds her that she and Molly’s father are going to be living in separate houses and that her piano is now at her father’s house. As Molly packs a bag she decides that she is going to ‘practise and practise’ her music so that her parents 'will have to get together’.

Curator’s notes

Kaboodle provides a rich showcase for Australian animators, including Anne Jolliffe, who animated the opening titles, and Penny Robenstone, who wrote, directed and animated ‘Molly Makes Music’. Despite the painterly and impressionistic style of animation here, the subject matter is very real and the story is told from the point of view of Molly, a child caught up in a situation beyond her control. Robenstone uses pastels on paper, drawing new elements onto a single piece of paper while smudging and erasing others to create the unique look featured in ‘Molly Makes Music’.

Anne Jolliffe began making animated films in the 1950s and in 1980 established her own studios called Jollification, in Sydney. Her work includes the 1975 Academy Award-winning animated short film Great (a biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel by animator Bob Godfrey), The Maitland and Morpeth String Quartet (1989) and for television, animations for Play School (1966–current) as well as the title sequence for ACTF series Lift Off (1992–94).