https://www.nfsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-02/Colour%20TV%20Mega%20Menu%203%20TVs_1000x745%20px.jpg
Family Antics (1945)
Title:
Family Antics (1945)
NFSA ID
64969
Year
1945
A father, his son, and three fox terriers do acrobatics and balancing acts for the camera.
Wanting to relax with an afternoon beer, a man is hounded by his energetic son Trevor to play in the backyard. Trevor’s three fox terriers – Larry, Trigger and Terry – also join in the fun. The five of them embark on an entertaining series of acrobatics, balancing acts and tricks.
The clip is accompanied by a male voice-over.
This is a very strange but entertaining short documentary showcasing acrobatic and balancing acts amongst what appears to be a family of performers. Family Antics presents rather like a novelty item in a newsreel, with a male narrator providing humorous and spontaneous commentary as Trevor and his father perform their human and dog act in the backyard.
It is not clear where this film screened or even if it did screen publicly, but if it did, it would most likely have been prior to a feature program. It is possible that the performers featured in Family Antics were part of a family circus troupe or sideshow act. The tricks they do with their performing animals are indeed entertaining and the action is filmed from a variety of angles which adds to the immediacy of the performance.
The film was produced by J Campbell Dobbie, a South Australian man who, along with his wife, formed Peerless Films. Dobbie also made documentaries in New Guinea and in the north of Australia. This film, however, stands quite apart from this other work.
Curator
Poppy De Souza
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.