Blinky Bill

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Blinky Bill illustration

Blinky Bill is an anthropomorphic koala who is a children's fiction character in three stories of New Zealand-born Australian author Dorothy Wall.

These stories are Blinky Bill, Blinky Bill and Nutsy and Blinky Bill Grows Up.

The main character, Blinky Bill, is known for his mischievousness and his love for his mother. His friends include his adopted sister Nutsy, his kangaroo friend Splodge and his mentor Mr Wombat or Wombo, as Blinky prefers to call him. In general throughout the stories he does things that are realistic for koalas as well as things that child readers would like to do.

On another level, the Blinky Bill stories also present messages of conservation. Wall tells the stories directly to the children and Blinky often interacts with the readers in an introduction. Her dedications are often to 'All the Kind Children', with her own son Peter and other common Australian names of the 1930s appearing. They are also illustrated by Dorothy Wall herself.

Blinky Bill
Blinky Bill poster
Directed by	Yoram Gross
Produced by	Yoram Gross
Written by	Yoram Gross Leonard Lee John Palmer
Starring	Robyn Moore Keith Scott
Music by	Marco Beltrami
Cinematography	Frank Hammond (cinematographer) Paul Ozerski
Editing by	G.Y. Jerzy Lee Smith
Distributed by	Beyond Distribution
Release date(s)	17 September 1992
Running time	80 min.
Country	Australia
Language	English
IMDb profile

Though the books have never been out of print, the Blinky Bill story has also been adapted for television and cinema under the title The Adventures of Blinky Bill. The first television series from the 1980s featured actors interacting with puppet animals. Blinky Bill was also made into an animated movie by Yoram Gross studios in 1992 and in 1993 there was a children's series on the ABC Kids channel. More recently there have been computer games based on the Blinky Bill franchise, and these have been moderately successful.