''Mud, Bloody Mud'' is a 1985 Australian

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie, telefilm, telemovie or TV film/movie, is a film with a running time similar to a feature film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a Terrestr ...

based on a popular comic strip, ''

Bluey and Curley ''Bluey and Curley'' is an Australian newspaper comic strip written by the Australian artist, caricaturist, and cartoonist Alex Gurney. Few original ''Bluey and Curley'' strips are held in public collections, because Gurney often gave the origin ...

''. These comic book characters link documentary footage with puppets playing political figures.Ed. Scott Murray, ''Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995'', Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p108 The show mixed together actors as soldiers with actors in oversized caricature heads playing the likes of

Robert Menzies The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, praise, reno ...

John Curtin John Curtin (8 January 1885 – 5 July 1945) was an Australian politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Australia from 1941 until his death in 1945. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), having been most ...

General MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American general who served as a top commander during World War II and the Korean War, achieving the rank of General of the Army. He served with distinction in World War I; as chief of ...

and General Blamey. It aired on ABC in October 1986. The script was written by Cliff Green for the ABC. Green:

We had a very tight budget, very few actors, and no outside filming - so the whole thing was shot in-studio. The only real people in it - there is a narrator who is an army Medical Officer - he is the battalion M.O.; and there are two soldiers who are actually Bluey and Curly, the cartoon characters. And everybody else is puppets. So the politicians are puppets. And they are full-size - they are actually people but they are like those Sesame Street puppets... It was about the way the Australians were just sidelined by MacArthur, and left to rot in the jungles. And the dialogue was mostly Bluey and Curly jokes. And we got permission to use them from Sun News Pictorial and also from the cartoonist’s widow. And it had a tragic element because it is a story of a war, so to me it had to have a tragic ending. I would never try to do it again - it was a one-off in terms of its concept. I think nowadays, with animation and all that stuff, and computerisation, it wouldn’t be seen to be so unique. And it won an Award. They repeated it; they got a terrific response. They ran it on Anzac Day evening I think - and they got a fantastic response from RSL clubs and Old Diggers. And they ran it again on Armistice, the eleventh of the eleventh. So it was a real sort of “out of the box” piece of work - but great fun.Oral History with Cliff Green, ''Australian Writers Guild''
accessed 13 July 2013

References

External links

* Australian television films 1985 films Puppet films Films based on Australian comics 1980s English-language films {{Australia-tv-film-stub