Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon was Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

's first animated

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

, released in 1972 and directed by Eric Porter.

The plot follows Young Marco, a descendant of Marco Polo

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

, and his companion Sandy the Seagull, on a journey to the mythical kingdom of Xanadu

Xanadu

-Description of Xanadu by Toghon Temur :The lament of Toghon Temur Khan , concerning the loss of Daidu and Heibun Shanduu in 1368, is recorded in many Mongolian historical chronicles...

, to help Princess Shining Moon defeat the evil magician Foo-Ling.

Animators included children's illustrator Kilmeny Niland

Kilmeny Niland

Kilmeny Niland was an Australian artist and illustrator. While best known for her children's book illustrations, she worked in a wide range of genres, including animation, wildlife art, miniatures, portraits, cards and prints...

.

Voice cast

• Bobby Rydell
  Bobby Rydell
  Bobby Rydell is an American professional singer, mainly of rock and roll music. In the early 1960s he was considered a so-called "teen idol"...
  
   as Marco Polo Junior
• Arnold Stang
  Arnold Stang
  Arnold Stang was an American comic actor who played a small and bespectacled, yet brash and knowing big-city type.-Career:...
  
   as The Delicate Dinosaur
• Corie Sims as Princess Shining Moon
• Kevin Golsby as The Red Dragon
• Larry Best as The Guru
• Gordon Hammet
• Lionel G. Wilson
• Arthur Anderson
• Merril E. Joels
• Sam Gray

The story was extended by scriptwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

 (and original co-producer) Sheldon Moldoff

Sheldon Moldoff

Sheldon "Shelly" Moldoff is an American comic book artist best known his early work on the DC Comics characters Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and as one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists" on the superhero Batman. He co-created the Batman supervillains Poison Ivy, Mr...

, in collaboration with Ron Merk and, with additional footage and subplot, was released as Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu (2002).