Dave Dobbyn scored the music for the film and its soundtrack. The soundtrack's first single, "Slice of Heaven" (featuring Herbs), was released before the film and topped the charts in New Zealand for eight weeks from 5 October to 23 November 1986. It also went to number 1 in Australia for four weeks in May/June 1987. A second single, "You Oughta Be in Love", reached number 2 in New Zealand. The soundtrack also contains "Let's Get Canine" performed by Dobbyn, Betty-Anne Monga and Ardijah, "I Dream of Rugby" performed by Dobbyn and Sacred Heart College Choir, "Vernon the Vermin" performed by Dobbyn and Ardijah, and "Nuclear Waste" performed by Dobbyn and Herbs. Reception Opening at 28 cinemas in New Zealand in November 1986, Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale drew the largest opening week box office of any movie release in the country at the time with a gross of NZ$600,000. The film grossed NZ$2,500,000 at the New Zealand box office, surpassing Goodbye Pork Pie to become the top grossing local film until The Piano in 1993. In Australia, it grossed A$4,317,000 at the box office, making it the most successful animated film in Australia, a position it held until Disney's The Lion King in 1994. The film received generally positive reviews, with The New Zealand Herald giving it a four and a half stars out of five and The Australian giving it four out of five. A review by The Age newspaper praised the film for being faithful to the spirit of the comic strip, saying its "bucolic rough-house charm ... should bring it considerable success". The review was more critical of the plot, noting: Cinema Papers magazine criticized the producers' decision to follow the Disney convention of incorporating musical numbers into animated features. Reviewers R.J. Thompson and Sue Turnbull wrote: "The songs add little to the essential narrating, but at the same time twist the film into something else -- a series of alternations which don't speak to each other, an interrupted replica of a Hollywood musical, neither lyrical nor ironic." They also criticized the voices of Dog ("too tentative and young") and Cheeky ("too refined"). They said John Clarke does wonderfully well as Wal but should have been cast as Dog, the most articulate and cynical of the characters. They declared the film is cuter than the comic strip and largely fails because it has turned the strip