Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale

1986 New Zealand film

Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale (stylised as Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tail Tale) is a 1986 New Zealand animated comedy film based on cartoonist Murray Ball's comic strip Footrot Flats about a New Zealand farmer and his border collie sheepdog. The film was written by Ball and Tom Scott, directed by Ball, and produced by John Barnett and Pat Cox, with music by Dave Dobbyn. The voice cast includes leading New Zealand actors John Clarke, Peter Rowley, Rawiri Paratene, Fiona Samuel and Billy T. James. It was New Zealand's first feature length animated film. The film was released in November 1986 in New Zealand by Kerridge Odeon, and opened in Australia on 9 April 1987. Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale grossed $2,500,000 at the New Zealand box office (making it one of the most successful local films of the 1980s). In Australia, it grossed $4,317,000 which is equivalent to $11 million in 2016.

Set in a rural environs outside the fictional town of Raupo in New Zealand, the film centres on sheep and cattle farmer Wal Footrot (John Clarke) and his border collie sheepdog named Dog (Peter Rowley). Wal is assisted on his farm, Footrot Flats, by his nature loving neighbour Cooch Windgrass (Peter Hayden), local boy Rangi Jones (Rawiri Paratene) and Wal's niece Pongo Footrot (Fiona Samuel). Wal and Cooch are menaced by their unpleasant neighbours, the Murphys, comprising patriarch Irish (Peter Hayden) and his two sons Spit (Brian Sergent) and Hunk (Marshall Napier), who attempt to steal Cooch's deer and stag. When the Murphys buzz Wal's shearing shed from their "deer slayer" helicopter, Dog is stampeded into a sheep dip and starts to drown. This prompts a flashback sequence in which Dog recalls being given as a puppy to Wal by Aunt Dolly (Dorothy McKegg), and first meeting his future girlfriend Jess. Wal's two non farming preoccupations are his girlfriend, local hairdresser Cheeky Hobson (Fiona Samuel), and impressing a selector for New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks. Dog opposes Wal's relationship with Cheeky, but has problems of his own when Jess is swept away in a flood and ends up at the Murphys' farm, where she is threatened by rats and ferocious "croco pigs". Dog saves Jess from the rats, but the two dogs are then hunted by Irish Murphy. Meanwhile, Rangi has managed to get Wal away from a rugby game and over to the Murphys' farm. Dog and Jess end up floating out toward the sea on a raft with the fearless cat Horse, who has been shot by Irish. Rangi and Wal rescue Jess, but Dog and Horse are swept out to sea. Wal, Rangi, Pongo, Cooch and Jess rush to the beach but cannot see Dog or Horse. The two are given up for dead, before surfing in on a giant wave that dumps them ashore. The film ends by showing the Dog and Jess as proud parents of a litter of puppies.

Irish born filmmaker Pat Cox, who had moved to New Zealand in 1973, was an early fan of the Footrot Flats comic strip and felt that it would make a good animated film. In 1981, he contacted Murray Ball and suggested the comic be made into a feature length movie. Ball initially rejected the idea but was later persuaded. The two subsequently met and began working on a story. The process of developing the comic strip into a film took almost six years.

Ball's cartoonist friend Tom Scott was called in to co write the script, as Ball had never written a script before, whereas Scott had previously written a teleplay. It took them one year to plot a rough storyline, as they were both busy with their regular work. Scott recounted in his 2017 memoir that Ball's fertile imagination resulted in a manuscript "bulky enough to derail a train". text=Murray was astonishingly fecund. With every new plot suggestion he would sketch out on the spot more sight gags than we could possibly use. I soon realised that my major role would be to pare back the flood of material accumulating each scripting session and keep the storyline moving forward. Scott suggested using some jokes from published strips, but Ball was adamant the film should be all new material. Ball created a new character, Vernon the Vermin, the King of the Rats, to give the movie a new villain. Scott, who suffers from a fear of drowning, came up with the suggestion for the storm and flooding, and the climactic scene of Dog and Horse being washed out to sea. After the first script outline was completed, Cox provided considerable feedback on pacing and structure. Ball and Scott then spent almost another year completing the storyline. They had received a $1,500 script development grant from the New Zealand Film Commission. The film's working title, which was just a joke, was Raiders of the Lost Dog Kennel: A dog's life.

A major challenge facing the producers was to get the voice casting right so that audiences who had created their own voices for the characters through the comic strip would not be disappointed. This was tackled by employing a cast of New Zealand's top comedy talent at the time. On 21 January 1986, it was announced that the film would be released in cinemas by Christmas 1986, with Murray Ball as director, while John Barnett and Pat Cox would produce it through a company called Magpie Productions Ltd., Dave Dobbyn, who was living in Sydney at the time, was invited to compose the music. On 28 March 1986, it was announced that John Clarke would play Wal Footrot. Peter Rowley was cast as Dog, Rawiri Paratene as Rangi, Fiona Samuel as Cheeky Hobson and Pongo, Peter Hayden as Irish Murphy and Cooch Windgrass, Dorothy McKegg as Aunt Dolly, Billy T. James as Pawai, Brian Sergent as Spit Murphy, Marshall Napier as Hunk Murphy and Michael Haigh as the Rugby Commentator. Kerridge Odeon acquired distribution rights to the film.

New Zealand musician Dave Dobbyn scored the music for the film and its soundtrack. The soundtrack's first single, "Slice of Heaven" (featuring Herbs), was released before the film and topped the charts in New Zealand for eight weeks from 5 October to 23 November 1986. It also went to number 1 in Australia for four weeks in May/June 1987. A second single, "You Oughta Be in Love", reached number 2 in New Zealand. The soundtrack also contains "Let's Get Canine" performed by Dobbyn, Betty Anne Monga and Ardijah, "I Dream of Rugby" performed by Dobbyn and Sacred Heart College Choir, "Vernon the Vermin" performed by Dobbyn and Ardijah, and "Nuclear Waste" performed by Dobbyn and Herbs.