Some animals make you think twice, possibly. Maybe it’s just me. Penguins are one, but this post is for kangaroos. They just seem like a normal (ish) animal, on a landmass far away from where I am. So, my reference of them will only be from what I have seen on TV. But when you see them, or at least when I really looked at them, there’s something strangely humanlike about them.
I grew up watching Skippy the Bush kangaroo reruns, and seeing a cute, furry and friendly wild pet type thing going on. Not realising at all the size they get to, and how powerful they can be.
A funny episode of Mighty Boosh called Killeroo focuses on one, an odd but entertaining watch nonetheless.
Tank girl – this could be what started my brain originally on this train of thought, a few decades ago, with the graphic novels of Tank Girl. And a race of half human, half kangaroo soldiers that were bred by some crazy scientist. Which leads me neatly to what got me thinking about it again, and is a story I have mentioned before and no doubt will again.
The Island of Doctor Moreau (H.G Wells) – it’s a dark, difficult and quite horrifying read really. I had to make myself finish reading it. A tale of twisted experiments on an isolated island by a crazy doctor trying to make animals more human.
Kangaroos outnumber people in Australia around 2 to 1, and I used to joke when I heard that figure, that a kangaroo army could hop and kick their way through the population before anyone knew what hit them. And laughed about the idea as a comical set up, and still do. But do sometimes wonder if what we see around us, and presume is ‘natural’, could just be remnants of a previously engineered time or place. Ourselves included in that. We only know what we think we know, but I can’t help thinking there is so much more…
