which was just a joke, was Raiders of the Lost Dog Kennel: A dog's life. Financing The project stalled following completion of the script, as Cox initially had trouble obtaining financing. He finally secured funding from newspaper group INL and teamed up with New Zealand producer John Barnett, who convinced merchant bankers Fay, Richwhite to underwrite the film. According to Cinema Papers magazine, Barnett and Cox raised the entire NZ$5 million budget in 10 days from 600 investors, with INL having a 20% stake. Animating Animation director Robbert Smit was flown over from Sydney to Auckland to ensure the story was right from an animator's point of view. Animation took 15 months and comprised 100,000 individually hand-drawn and painted animation frames. About 200 animators worked on the film in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. "We knew nothing about film animation," Tom Scott said in 1987. "I think that has really helped in achieving our unique animation style. We didn't set out at all to be like Disney. We wanted it to be just like opening up the comic strip — then someone taps a magic wand and the scene floods with colour and the characters start to walk and talk." Much of the animators' work (done in Sydney) was critiqued or edited by Ball (in Gisborne) by facsimile. Casting A major challenge facing the producers was to get the voice casting right so that audiences who had created their own voices for the characters through the comic strip would not be disappointed. This was tackled by employing a cast of New Zealand's top comedy talent at the time. On 21 January 1986, it was announced that the film would be released in cinemas by Christmas 1986, with Murray Ball as director, while John Barnett and Pat Cox would produce it through a company called Magpie Productions Ltd., Dave Dobbyn, who was living in Sydney at the time, was invited to compose the music. On 28 March 1986, it was announced that John Clarke would play Wal Footrot. Peter Rowley was cast as Dog, Rawiri Paratene as Rangi, Fiona Samuel as Cheeky Hobson and Pongo, Peter Hayden as Irish Murphy and Cooch Windgrass, Dorothy McKegg as Aunt Dolly, Billy T. James as Pawai, Brian Sergent as Spit Murphy, Marshall Napier as Hunk Murphy and Michael Haigh as the Rugby Commentator. Kerridge-Odeon acquired distribution rights to the film. Soundtrack New Zealand musician