Just caught the last 15 minutes of Skippy, Australia's First Superstar on BBC4. Wow, that brought back some memories from childhood. In the days before Wii and playstations, kids of my age had to put up with crap tv. It's no wonder we played out on our bikes so much when we had imported programmes like Skippy, Belle and Sebastian, Zorro, and Pippy Longstocking to watch. Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was the simple story of a kangaroo living on a wildlife park run by a kindly park ranger and his soft looking, freckled nosed big girl's blouse son. Sonny Jim didn't have any friends and there was certainly no evidence of women about the bush, so he just chased Skippy around until he caught him and got all lovey-dovey with kisses and cuddles. Skippy, to his credit, took it well but you could tell he'd rather be mates with the more manly Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee. Skippy did however, have this extraordinary wisdom and sixth sense about imminent danger and dodgy characters about to cause havoc on the wildlife park. He would smack his lips together and lead the freckled nose one to some mining disaster or plane crash out in the bush. He could also lead the cad right into the hands of the police whilst the accused shrugs his shoulders and says 'fair dinkum mate, I would have got away with it if it wasn't for that pesky kangaroo'. Freck-face always understood exactly what Skippy was trying to tell him much to the puzzlement of the bit part actors who went on to greater things in Prisoner Cell Block H or Home and Away.
These days, Skippy enjoys a relaxing life in a retirement home just outside Brisbane. He takes cod liver oil for his arthritis, Aricept for memory problems and uses a zimmer frame to balance his hopping. His grandsons have a had a far more unfortunate plight. They currently sing soprano for the Melbourne Choristers after losing their testicles and having them swallowed in a bushtucker trial by Kim Woodburn and Katie Price in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.
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