Celebrating 40 years of NZ film: Footrot Flats: The Dog's (Tail) Tale (1986)

Footrot Flats: The Dog's (Tail) Tale (1986).

To mark the 40th anniversary of the New Zealand Film Commission, NZ On Screen brings us the stories behind some of our most notable local films.

Footrot Flats: The Dog's (Tail) Tale was New Zealand's first animated feature film, developed from Murray Ball's widely syndicated newspaper cartoon.

Released in 1986, the film and its theme song Slice of Heaven were both huge hits in New Zealand and Australia.

A cast of leading local screen talent voiced the film's characters, among them John Clarke, Billy T James, Peter Rowley, Rawiri Paratene and Fiona Samuel. Here cartoonist Tom Scott remembers working with Murray Ball and the enjoyable process of writing the film.

See Dave Dobbyn and Herbs perform Slice of Heaven in the trailer for Footrot Flats: The Dog's (Tail) Tale, here:

See more great New Zealand film moments here, in NZ On Screen's Film Commission Collection.