The Boxing Kangaroo is an 1896 Britishshortblack-and-whitesilentdocumentary film, produced and directed by Birt Acres for exhibition on Robert W. Paul's peep show Kinetoscopes, featuring a young boy boxing with a kangaroo. The film was considered lost until footage from an 1896 Fairground Programme, originally shown in a portable booth at Hull Fair by Midlands photographer George Williams, donated to the National Fairground Archive was identified as being from this film.[1]
It was one of at least four boxing-themed films Acres produced in 1896, the others being Boxing Match; or, Glove Contest, A Boxing Match in Two Rounds by Sgt. Instructor F.Barrett and Sgt. Pope and A Prize Fight by Jem Mace and Burke.[2][3] The year before, German filmmaker Max Skladanowsky had made a similar film depicting a man boxing with a kangaroo, entitled Das boxende Känguruh.[3]
