MILESAGO - Media - Television
WOOBINDA,
ANIMAL DOCTOR
1968
Production: NLT
Productions
Genre: children's drama-adventure series
Duration: 39 x 25 min eps
Medium: film, in colour
Credits
Cast:
Don Pascoe (Dr Stevens)
Tiggy Stevens (Sonia Hoffman)
Lutz Hochstraate (Peter Fischer)
Slim De Grey
Don Pascoe
Sonia Hoffman and Lutz
Hochstraate.
Pictures courtesy
of German
60s Television
Notes
This Australian-German co-production was essentially an Australian version of the popular American series, DAKTARI. The action centred on the adventures of a bush veterinarian, Dr Stevens (Don Pascoe), his daughter Tiggy (Sonia Hoffman) and young German vet Peter Fischer (Lutz Hochstraate), who live in the fictional country town of Gotten's Creek. WOOBINDA is also particularly notable as the first Australian TV series to feature an Aboriginal Australian as a regular character. (Credits for this actor are yet to be located, but it was possibly Aboriginal actor Steve Dodd).
WOOBINDA was sold to several countries and was broadcast by the German ARD network in early 1971 and in the UK by Granada in 1969. Like the hugely successful SKIPPY, the bush setting enabled the producers to make maximum use of the unique Australian landscape and fauna. With an eye to overseas sales, the series was filmed in colour and so featured in the afternoon lineup on Granada's first day of colour broadcasting in the UK on 15 November 1969.
The show proved sufficiently popular in the UK for a 'Woobinda Annual' book to be printed in 1970.
German co-star Lutz Hochstraate went on to a distinguished career in German theatre and opera, and is currently director of the Salzburger Landestheaters.
References / Links
Albert
Moran
Moran’s Guide to Australian TV Series, AFTRS, 1993
Tony Harrison
The Australian Film and Television Companion, Simon & Schuster,
1994
Granada Programmes
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/itw/Granada/programmes.html
German 60s Television
http://www.tvder60er.de/tvserien/tvser234.htm
Don Storey's TV
Eye
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/5745/Overview.htm
Gary Foley essay
- "Koori Engagement with Television"
http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_17.html