Boxing Kangaroo

Bah! No boxing beast can hold a candle to World Famous Pugilist Tommy Ray Handley!

"A man boxing a kangaroo is a peculiar spectacle, but a kangaroo boxing a robot? Now I'm afraid you've lost me."

— Theodore Roosevelt's Head, Futurama

Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and Truth in Television. Y'see, during the 1800s (and even into the early 1900s), "boxing matches" that pitted a man against a kangaroo were part of traveling shows in Australia, the Western United States, and sometimes elsewhere. Men were challenged to defeat... or sometimes just last a single round against... a tame kangaroo. Usually, the men got their asses handed to them. Every once in a while, someone will revive the idea. Never mind the fact that a fully grown kangaroo can disembowel and kill their opponent with a single kick. Up for a fight, Skippy?

In media, kangaroos are often portrayed as either literally wearing boxing gloves, or else as capable of boxing moves. The origins of this image lay in the fact that, when defending itself, a kangaroo uses its upper legs (the ones usually thought of as "arms") first, to hold an opponent in place, while it rakes its opponent with its lower legs, thus giving the animal, for a short while, anyway, the appearance of "boxing". Not only that, but the 'arms' of an alpha male kangaroo are both humanlike and alarmingly muscular, meaning that they're one of the few animals that looks like they could take apart a human being in a boxing match.

Often Played for Laughs, despite the brutal ass-kicking the humans usually receive. Or because of it, if it's someone whose role is to be laughed at for their suffering, like the Butt-Monkey.

A variant is to depict Kangaroos as Kickboxers, which is much closer to their real-life behavior.

Subtrope of Animal Occupation Stereotypes. Compare Kangaroos Represent Australia.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Carlyle Auto Sales commercials feature a boxing kangaroo, appearing with blue eyes, red boxing gloves, a blue shirt in bubble letters reading I CAN!. In these commercials Carlyle Can-Garoo appears to be boxing red words in the future bold font, these words say BAD CREDIT, NO CREDIT, BANKRUPTCY, and CAR REPOSSESION. These are marked to show that the business is the car dealer which gets you a car no matter what.

Anime & Manga

• While it never appears in the TV series, one of the G Gundam mangas features the Jumping Gundam, a Gundam that not only looks like a boxing kangaroo, it is piloted by a boxing kangaroo using a motion-capture interface.
• A travelling circus in Michiko & Hatchin has a boxing kangaroo. They give Michiko a bruised eye which causes a man to think someone at the circus did it.
• Naruto:
  • A short scene in the third movie shows two kangaroos boxing each other.
  • In Shippūden filler, Rock Lee gets his butt kicked by a mom-and-joey double-teaming!
• One episode of the 2012 anime of Ninja Hattori involves Hattori boxing a kangaroo in order to retrieve a medal.
• A boxing kangaroo Zombie appears in the "Thriller Bark" arc of One Piece.
• In Revolutionary Girl Utena there was a kangaroo (the gloved variety) in one early episode. It attacks Nanami, but is knocked down by Touga who is wearing boxing gear for God knows what reason (there was also no explanation as to why there was a boxing kangaroo on campus in the first place).
• One of the monsters in the SuperS season of Sailor Moon was a boxing kangaroo.
• There's a boxing match between a Red Kangaroo and a Wallaroo in Seton Academy: Join the Pack!.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: In Season 7 episode 22, Ambassador Miao explains one of his ancestors to his daughter Keke and says his nine pockets were a big deal when he was alive and gave him a special rank. Keke comments on a student of hers that has only one pocket - he's a kangaroo wearing Red Boxing Gloves according to the thought bubble that appears near her head.
• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys Bad credit, noof Seasons episode 23, one of the hurt animals the goats help is a kangaroo, who was punching a punching bag before he was hurt, complete with him wearing box

Card Games

• Digimon has Kangarumon, which is exactly this trope: an Armor-level Mammal Digimon that evolved through the power of the "Digimental of Kindness". It has outstanding punching, kicking and jumping power, and after it dives into the opponent's chest with its nimble movements to deliver an uppercut, it jumps up high into the sky and unleashes an intense kick. And it wears red boxing gloves.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Des Kangaroo is this, along with a Palette Swap called Kangaroo Champ. Des Kangaroo is also used as one of the fusion materials for Master of Oz, a giant green boxing koala/kangaroo hybrid.

Comic Books

• In the French comic The Diamond Boomerang, The Butt-Monkey finds himself fighting one of these in an underground Australian boxing rings, and wins.
• In Legends, Beast Boy turns into one when dealing with Captain Boomerang.
• A Brazilian Disney comic starring Joe Carioca (of Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros fame) has his friend Pedrão being punched by such a kangaroo and becoming so angry he starts training to get payback.
• In the '80s, there was a comic book series called Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos that were Expies of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , but in a marsupial sense.
• Jumpin' Juniper, the Down Under Wonder, was an anthropomorphic kangaroo in DC Comics' Leading Comics, who was a professional boxer and also used his fighting skills to defend others.
• Invoked by the Spider-Man villain the Kangaroo—two of them, in fact. The first was just an enhanced guy, but the second wears a full suit of kangaroo armor.
• In the Suske en Wiske comic De Blinkende Boemerang (The Shining Boomerang), Lambik fights a boxing kangaroo in Sydney to win a cash prize. He wins by cheating, so the kangaroo's handlers drop him off in the middle of the jungle.

Film — Animated

• There's a quick shot in All Dogs Go to Heaven depicting two kangaroos fighting in a boxing match. It's just another sporting event the anti-hero Charlie wagers on.
• Animalympics has Joey Gongolong, a kangaroo version of Muhammad Ali, competing for a gold medal in boxing.
• Ice Age: Continental Drift: Raz the Procoptodon is Gutt's Crew weaponry expert, and she really enjoys her job.
• The Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry movie had Punchy the Boxing Kangaroo, who beats up Tom when he saws Australia in half.
• Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.! features Jackie Legs, the titular kangaroo, dream about competing in a box match.

Film — Live Action

• In Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, a boxing kangaroo is one of the animals brought in for Alex's Australian themed birthday party. Alex's dad Ben attempts to tackle it, and gets beaten up for his trouble, after it escapes from the yard.
• The German silent movie Das Boxende Kanguruh, directed by Max Skladanowsky in 1895, features a boxing kangaroo.
• The Australian family film Joey (1997) revolves around an underground gambling operation involving poached kangaroos.
• The title kangaroo from Kangaroo Jack boxes one of the protagonists during a confrontation.
• 1978's Matilda (no relation to the Roald Dahl story) is a movie based around this concept.
• 1996's Storybook has an anthropomorphic boxing kangaroo character named Pouch, who also wears a stereotypical outback hunting outfit. Like Matilda above, he's portrayed by an actor/stuntman in a kangaroo suit (the same actor from Matilda, no less), but unlike Matilda, Pouch is an anthropomorphic kangaroo.
• Warriors of Virtue has five kung-fu kangaroos aiding the hero on his journey in the land of Tao.

Comic Strips

• Older Than Radio: A cartoon titled Jack, the fighting Kangaroo with Professor Lendermann appeared in a Sydney newspaper in 1891.

Live-Action TV

• An episode of Andy Richter Controls the Universe had him going up against a boxing kangaroo. He thought it was unfair that it really used its feet.
• Beetleborgs had a Monster of the Week like this named Roothless. Ironically, this one was actually competent, but couldn't be controlled, requiring the only real Enemy Mine situation in the series.
• Played for Laughs in The Beverly Hillbillies when Granny Clampett gets into a fist-fight with a kangaroo that had escaped from the zoo and wandered onto their property: she mistakes it for a "giant jackrabbit" and wants to catch it for stew.
• Woody Allen fights a real boxing kangaroo in a comedy skit for the TV show Europe's Big Top Circus Stars Live from the Hippodrome – a.k.a. The Hippodrome Show.
• An episode of Hannah Montana Forever has Jackson in a demeaning job where he is forced into one of these matches.
• Kamen Rider has occasionally granted kangaroo-themed power-ups in DVD Bonus Episodes, all of which include the boxing aspect:
  • Kamen Rider OOO has the Kangaroo Medal, a Joke Item which can be used as an Arm Medal that grants OOO Red Boxing Gloves or as a Leg Medal that grants OOO red sneakers with enhanced hopping ability (and a penchant for performing Michael Jackson dance moves).
  • Kamen Rider Zero-One has the Hopping Kangaroo Progrise Key. While more focus is placed on using the kangaroo pouch as a Hyperspace Arsenal, the form does have extra armor padding on the fists and a punch-based fighting style.
  • Kamen Rider Revice has the Kangaroo Vistamp, and oversized Power Fists are once again part of the package.
• The Killeroo from an episode of The Mighty Boosh, which Howard is blackmailed into fighting.
• Power Rangers:
  • Power Rangers Ninja Storm had an episode with a monster named "Boxing Boparoo", a kangaroo who boxed.
  • In Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, the Pachycephalasaur zord often behaved just like a boxing kangaroo (it's bipedal with a large tail and even its 'hands' were permanently molded as bronze fists). When it attached to the Megazord, it used the zord's thick skull as a battering ram "punching" weapon.
  • Power Rangers Dino Fury had another boxing Pachycephalasaur, and this one was even more like a kangaroo by carrying a joey in a pouch. This one gave the Megazords twin Power Fists, and the Rangers could call on its powers to gain armor with such fists for themselves.
• Skippy the Bush Kangaroo shows Skippy wearing boxing gloves at the end of an episode, but as a joke. She never actually boxes.

Music

• The Rutles reference this in "Piggy in the Middle," using the same Word Salad Lyrics as the song it's parodying, The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus":
  Bible-punching heavyweight
  Evangelistic boxing kangaroo

Video Games

• Animal Crossing's first (and currently only) two male kangaroo villagers are this; Rooney is dressed up like a boxer and has a house full of training equipment and with boxing ring, while Walt is more discret example of this, featuring Handwraps of Awesome.
• ClayFighter 2: Kangoo is a boxer (and in fact the World Clay Boxing Association champion) who hates hurting people and only does it because her fans would get mad. Her Palette Swap Thunder is her Evil Counterpart. Unlike her rival, she loves hurting people.
• Dusty Raging Fist have kangaroo enemies wearing Red Boxing Gloves who attacks you solely with punches.
• Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan features a FOE called a Bounding Beast. It's a massive (its joey is taller than the average human!) black-and-white kangaroo monster that, naturally, fights using devastating punches and uppercuts. Later in the game, Palette Swaps of it appear as regular enemies.
• Gadget Twins: One of the bosses during the final world is a mechanical kangaroo with boxing gloves piloted by the game's antagonist, Thump.
• Kao the Kangaroo: The eponymous Kao. (Geddit? "KO"? Geddit?) Captured by Evil Poachers, he woke up wearing boxing gloves and with a strange guy was shouting something about being a boxer. At first Kao resisted but when he realized that becoming an outstanding boxer might be the only chance to escape he decided to train hard.
• In Kangaroo, Mama can punch out both apples and monkeys with her boxing gloves.
• Klonoa: Chipple is an anthropomorphic boxing kangaroo. He wasn't at first, though; he was introduced as a humanlike boxer, and inexplicably became a kangaroo between games.
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games: Ricky, one of the three Powerup Mounts, is a boxing kangaroo. In both games, you had to retrieve his gloves for him before you could ride him.
• Lenny Loosejocks Goes Walkabout: One of the minigames pits Lenny against a boxing kangaroo. While it takes several hits from Lenny to knock out the 'roo, if she manages to kick you, it's an instant knockout for Lenny.
• Mario Kart Tour: Yoshi's Kangaroo costume comes with a pair of boxing gloves.
• Mega Man X7: The kangaroo-based Maverick named Vanishing Gungaroo and his Ride Armor are based on this trope.
• Mole Mania: Kangaroon, the first boss, wears boxing gloves, but instead of directly hitting you with them, he pulls out gloves from his pouch and tosses them at you.
• Monster Racers has one named Jabberoo, a kangaroo wearing boxing gloves. Of course, given the game's Wacky Racing theme, it never gets to use them.
• Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes: The Kangaroo Rider is an undead kangaroo wearing boxing gloves with an Imp in her pouch. She packs a punch, but automatically retreats back into the zombie hero's hand if she's non-lethally damaged.
• Pokémon:
  • Kangaskhan can learn a variety of punching attacks, including Comet Punch.
  • Breloom seems partially based on a kangaroo; it's part-Fighting-type, has a very high Attack stat, and learns a variety of punching moves. It even has red "hands" that look like boxing gloves.
• Sierra Championship Boxing (an old PC game from the 1980's) let you create your own boxer, choosing from 4 races: white, black, cartoon, and kangaroo.
• Space Station Silicon Valley: One of the Demonic Spiders are the boxing kangaroos. Called Pogo Kangaroos they reside in the desert regions of Silicon Valley, and look like a kangaroos with a pogosticks for feet.
• Streets of Rage 3: Roo (Victy in Japan), a mid-level boss and unlockable character, is a trained kangaroo wearing red boxing gloves, blue training shorts, and a leash with a broken chain. During the fight, his trainer Bruce will mostly stay out of range and occasionally attack the player character (or Roo) with a whip, while Roo attacks the player with jump kicks or a spinning kick attack. Defeating Bruce without defeating Roo will cause the abused animal to run off immediately. After that, he becomes a playable character that can be selected after a continue.
• Team Fortress 2: The nucleus of the metal element Australium, named after the country in which it was discovered, resembles two kangaroos boxing. Ingots of Australium are also stamped with the image of a man boxing a kangaroo, which is the method by which Australia chooses its king.
• Tekken: Roger and Roger Jr. (actually Mrs. Roger) are a variant: they borrow quite a bit (at least in Tekken 2 and Tekken Tag Tournament) from Professional Wrestling. The series also notably features Alex, a boxing Velociraptor, who originated as a Moveset Clone of Roger.
• Teleroboxer: Kevin, being from Australia, naturally fights using a kangaroo robot named Ikanger. While it has the same robot hands as every other enemy in the game, it also carries a joey with boxing gloves that will ocasionally attack you.
• Tokyo Jungle features one during a story section.
• Twilight Heroes: If you're playing as a Naturalist, the first superpower attack you'll learn is the Kangaroo Punch. It's not very strong, but it's accurate.

Webcomics

• A&H Club: One of the main characters is a kangaroo who teaches martial arts.
• Boxer Hockey: The Sydney screamers' goalie is one of these.
• Spacetrawler: The second time Nogg tries shanghaing a crew from Earth to fix the galaxy's problems he decides to grab a kangaroo from the type of sideshow acts mentioned above. He turns out to be a bloodthirsty psychopath after the translator chip is implanted.

Western Animation

• The Fleischer Brothers cartoon The Boxing Kangaroo (1920) featured, naturally enough, a boxing kangaroo.
• Classic Disney Shorts:
  • The Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Kangaroo (1935) has him training the title character, a nonhumanized kangaroo named Hoppy, to be a boxer. It gets hilarious once the kangaroo really gets into the role and starts punching Mickey's face several times per second, while Mickey's still as happy-go-lucky as ever.
    • In the cartoon, Hoppy beats the bejesus out of Mickey alone. But in the comics of the same period, she fights Pegleg Pete's Killer Gorilla Growlio, and wastes no opportunity along the way to pound luckless assistant trainer Horace Horsecollar into the ground.
  • A Donald Duck short also had him taking care of a baby boxing kangaroo named Joey. Despite all the hard time Donald has keeping it in line, the pet really loves him, to the point of attacking him while he was dressed in a bear rug because it thought Donald was eaten by said bear.
  • And a Goofy short, Baggage Buster, had him working at a train station as a baggage handler keeping track of a magician's luggage. While he was messing with the magician's cape, it disgorges a boxing kangaroo which beats the snot out of him before hopping off.
  • In Magician Mickey, Mickey's magic hoop briefly turns Donald into a kangaroo with boxing gloves on.
• The Fairly OddParents! has Punchy the boxing kangaroo, who only says "SHRIMP ON THE BARBIE!".
• Barney and Betty Rubble in The Flintstones had Hoppy, a dinosaur boxing kangaroo.
• Futurama: Theodore Roosevelt comments on a boxing match between Super King/Bender and a supervillain's trained kangaroo in "Less Than Hero".
• Jackie Chan Adventures: The first episode to feature the Monkey Talisman has Jackie, a skilled martial artist even in the cartoon, turned into a kangaroo; naturally, he proceeds to knock out the Dark Hand enforcers one by one.
  • Of course, the fact that he was turned into a female kangaroo with a pouch brings up other questions.
• Kangoo is a French cartoon series about about a team of basketball-playing and crime-fighting kangaroos. The Big Guy Kevin is also a "freestyle" martial artist.
• Hippety Hopper from Looney Tunes: Sylvester often mistook him for a giant mouse and ended up on the wrong end of a Curb-Stomp Battle for it.
  • Though ''Bell Hoppy'' represented quite the victory over the "monster" for the lisping "puddy tat".
  • Pop 'im, Pop had Hoppy's "mother," Gracie the Fighting Kangaroo.
• An episode of Mr. Magoo had the titular character accidentally walk in on a fight which featured a kangaroo who would start boxing if he heard a bell go "ding ding". Magoo mistook it for his nephew Waldo's girlfriend (it was wearing a dress) and takes it home.
• Joey the kangaroo on The Penguins of Madagascar would beat up anyone who invaded his habitat.
• An old Pixie, Dixie and Mr. Jinks short pitted Jinks against a boxing kangaroo, K.O. Kangy. Like Sylvester, Jinks thought K.O. was a giant mouse.
• The Walter Lantz short Punchy Pooch had one of these.
• The Van Beuren Studios Little King short "A Royal Good Time" briefly features a boxing kangaroo, and it helps the King escape from the villain of the short.
• In The Simpsons, the logo of the billing service "Hopping Mad Collection Agency" has boxing gloves.
• An episode of the old Rankin-Bass animated series Tales of the Wizard of Oz had one named Boomer Rang (complete with boxing gloves and a heavy Australian accent when he speaks), whom the scarecrow (named Socrates in this series) is a big fan of, but when he accidentally knocks out the champion marsupial, he is forced to fight Boomer Rang in the ring. Needless to say, things don't go well.
• Total Drama has Leshawna fight a boxing kangaroo in the World Tour season. Leshawna is a powerful girl, but the kangaroo knocks her out with a single punch. Harold jumps into the ring to fight for his girlfriend's honor, only to share her fate.

Real Life

• During World War II, boxing kangaroos were stencilled on Australian fighter aeroplanes of the No. 21 Squadron RAAF based in Singapore and Malaya. It would later be adapted as the symbol of the Australian Air Force.
• A flag featuring a gold-colored boxing kangaroo on a green field, wearing Red Boxing Gloves, was flown by the Australia II during the successful 1983 Australian challenge for the America's Cup. This flag has since been adopted as the (un)Official Australian Sporting flag.
• A boxing kangaroo was the official mascot of the Australian 2004 Summer Olympic Team.
• The mascot for the Brockton Rox minor league baseball team in Brockton MA, K-O the Kangaroo, has been known to don boxing gloves from time to time◊.
• The kangaroo-shaped ceramic coin-and-watch holder^note as seen in Pulp Fiction, but also a real thing wears little boxing gloves.

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