Tear Jerker / Dot and the Kangaroo

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This series really has some tragic and melancholic moments.

Original Film

Poor Dot...

• The opening with Dot already lost alone and crying.
• The mother kangaroo explaining to the other animals how she lost her joey after they initially refuse to help Dot. It's enough to cause them to have a Jerkass Realization.
• Dot crying over the temporarily weakened kangaroo after their escape from the dingoes.
• The increasing desperation (and illness) of Dot's father and grandfather as they try looking for her.
  • By the time she returns, her whole family are mourning for her, believing they'll never see her again.
• The ending, in which Kangaroo leaves Dot after returning her home.
  • Just seeing Dot reunite with her parents is enough to make the kangaroo cry and this is before she has even left.

Around the World with Dot

• The A Circus is a Prison song. Lucky for Joey that this circus didn't have any guard dogs unlike the one Dot goes to five movies later. His situation still doesn't improve much over the course of the film until Dot finds him.
• Dot's Alone in a Crowd song in London.
• The British Lion statue is crying when Dot encounters him, his tears splashing on her head alerts her to his sentience.

Dot and the Bunny

• The onset of the storm, complete with mournful Background Music and not helped by most of the animals Dot has encountered by this point in the movie trying to swim to shore through the resulting flashflood.
  • It gets worse as at this point, Dot finally loses her patience with Funny-Bunny as he tries yet again to pretend to be a joey, they end up arguing as Dot tries to help Funny-Bunny out of danger, only for Funny-Bunny to fall into a raging river. Given how distressed he is at this point, Funny-Bunny may well have been losing the will to live, given his (at this point, unrevealed) backstory, and Dot wouldn't have realised this, being just a child herself.
• Dot pleading to the wallabies for shelter after the stresses of a seemingly fruitless search for the missing joey, Funny-Bunny's antics, losing him and fearing him to have drowned, being cold, wet, tired and possibly even hungry and finding herself a long way from home in a thunderstorm with darkness falling. She finally cracks after the wallabies' initial refusal and only then do they have a change of heart.
• Dot and Funny-Bunny coming across Battle Beach, a coastal area torn apart by war, with ruined trucks, tanks and boats scattered about and even a ruined barracks. When Funny-Bunny asks why humans would want to hurt and kill each other, Dot can't give a clear answer, outside of the aftermath of children, including baby animals, being left alone after their parents are killed. Her father once told her that she wouldn't understand the senseless violence war brings, and he probably couldn't understand it himself at her age.
  • This in turn leads to Funny-Bunny revealing why he keeps pretending to be a joey. His family was shot by a hunter, and he was the only one to survive and has been alone ever since. When he arrived in the vicinity just in time to overhear Dot talking to the koalas about looking for the Mother Kangaroo's joey, Funny-Bunny wanted to have a mother again, hence his numerous failed attempts to trick Dot into thinking he was a joey, in hopes she would bring him to the mother.
• Funny-Bunny walking dejectedly away until Dot talks the kangaroo into adopting him.

Dot and the Koala

• The bush animals mourning the loss of their homes at the hands of the barn animal townsfolk.
• The fact that Bruce and all the other Bush animals would have been deprived of their homes if Dot's plan to destroy the dam had failed.
• Dot's speech to a reformed Mayor Percy after the dam is destroyed.

Dot and the Whale

• The whole movie once Tonga is introduced, especially her backstory.
• The rubbish dumped in the ocean, it's enough for Dot to admit to being ashamed of being a human.
• The graveyard of ships when you think of all who were on board.
• Dot and the other kids almost losing hope every time they receive a refusal to help
  • Moby Dick's refusal is particularly the hardest after all Dot and Nelson go through to find him.
• Mother Sea and Why won't they leave us alone?, the latter is a bit more upbeat than the former but made every bit as sad by Moby Dick immediately dismissing Dot and Nelson.
  • To make matters worse, by this time, Tonga no longer wishes to die but time is running out.

Dot and the Smugglers

• Mr. Sprag's guard dogs threatening the captured and frightened bush animals.
  • The presence of guard dogs really emphasises the prison-like nature of the circus and puts the bush animals in a worse situation than Joey.
• The Bunyip admitting to being scared (as well as tired) of people coming to Wilyabrup for the purpose of hunting it, which is why it hides itself away underwater.

Dot Goes To Hollywood

• Gumley, Dot's koala friend, suffers from an eye disease throughout the movie, which motivates Dot to perform on stage to raise money to help him. Had the operation not been successful, he would have died.
  • Grumble-Bones makes matters worse by rubbing Gumley's plight in his face for no reason other than he enjoys being mean.
• Gumley's song about missing Dot and whether she'll be able to raise the funds for his operation after he is put in a zoo.
• Dot's increasing concern for Gumley, especially when she tries to break into the zoo and rescue him.
  • She even breaks down crying on stage when telling a live audience that Gumley is struggling for his life in the hospital while undergoing eye surgery. This scene suddenly turns into a Tear Dryer when it is revealed Gumley has survived the procedure and is cured of his eye sickness.

Dot in Space

• Dot and her animal friends (with the exception of Grumble-Bones) showing concern for Whyka, especially as the dog would have died (as was the fate of her real-life counterpart Laika after being sent into orbit in 1957), if Dot hadn't decided to rescue her.
  • It's also implied that if the Americans had sent Buster the monkey to space, he would have met the same fate as Whyka.
• The plight of those who aren't round, especially Poley, as a result of Papa Drop's tyranny.
  • Depending how long Papa Drop has been in power prior to Dot and Whyka unintentionally crash-landing on Pie-Arr-Squared, it's possible some, if not most, of the Squaries have died either from starvation or beatings or overwork. This might explain the absence of Poley's father.
• As if becoming stranded on Pie-Arr-Squared and being captured, persecuted, interrogated and imprisoned by the Roundies isn't bad enough for Dot, she also has to initially deal with suspicion and distrust from the Squaries, one of whom accuses her of being a Roundy spy.
• There is clearly a Roundy child in the stands looking distressed at what he has just witnessed when Dot is taken away for interrogation. What makes this worse is that the Roundy sitting next to him (presumably his mother) looks distinctly satisfied that yet another "Squarey" is being dealt with.
• Although it was ultimately averted, it did actually look as though Gorgo was going to eat Dot (and possibly Whyka too) for a moment. Poor Dot can only lie there, tied up and gagged and clearly resigned to her fate as Gorgo approaches, knowing she and Whyka would be easy pickings for him.
  • At worst, Dot sounds as if she's actually crying or about to as her trying to scream through her gag gives way to feeble wailing.
  • What makes this even worse is that the Roundy Sergeant, who along with his troops leave both Dot and Whyka at the mercy of Gorgo to save their own lives, watches with sadistic glee as he thinks Gorgo will eat her, believing this would scupper Papa Drop's plan to conquer the universe.
• To make this even sadder, with everything Dot goes through throughout the entire film, one would think that Yoram Gross, or someone else involved in making this film was tempted to kill Dot off as this was the last film in the franchise.

Miscellaneous

• The author of the book that is the basis for the original film, Ethel C. Pedley, passed away due to cancer in 1898. The book was published posthumously the following year.
• Yoram Gross, who directed the entire series, passed away on September 21st 2015.