Australian
Screen

Clip description

The theme song for this episode, ‘What do you get when you bring home a pet?’, accompanies a documentary film clip showing people and their pets. This sequence then cuts to Dumpster’s segment where he interviews young Australian children about their pets.

Curator’s notes

The episode song, sung off-screen, accompanies a documentary segment showing children and people with their pets. This song, and the cute visual segment are screened twice during the episode. This is similar to the successful format now used in many preschool shows such as Bambaloo (2002), produced by Yoram Gross, which also features a repeated theme song supporting the narrative thread.

The Dumpster segment is an interesting part of the show’s structure. As the dogs’ ‘pet’ cat, Dumpster is an observer, not a participant during the drama segments but his grumpy, self–centred, side commentary can be very amusing. Dumpster’s interview segments with children have become a very popular part of the show and is a drop-in element, now designed to be re-shot using interviews with local children for different international markets. Interviewing young children can be very tricky but it is done well here. The children seem relaxed and are allowed to be themselves, which brings some unexpected but very entertaining responses. Adam Kronenberg, an Australian actor and puppeteer, plays Dumpster, and he works well with the children, giving them time to respond. These charming and often funny interludes are an outstanding part of the show. Kronenberg was also a puppeteer in the Flying Bark production of Bambaloo.