One of Burbank Films Australia's more notable (and infamous) adaptations, Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde is an animated retelling of the classic tale. Well known and well loved scientist Henry Jekyll has become fixated on a radical theory regarding human psychology. Not only does he believe that the human mind is split between a "good" and "evil" nature, he thinks he can remove the "evil" side completely with the use of medicine. However, the drug Dr. Jekyll concocted doesn't remove the "evil" at all, instead transforming it into an entirely new personality who dubs himself Edward Hyde. Now, Dr. Jekyll has to find a way to rid himself of this madness, before Mr. Hyde finds a way to get rid of him.
Aside from being the only full on animated adaptation of the work (not counting homages and/or pastiches), the film is also known for its surprisingly high body count (even higher than the original novella's) in spite of its intended demographic. Understand, this doesn't mean the film isn't above adding in kid friendly elements like an adorable kitten who gets abused by Mr. Hyde, or having a framing device that the story is being told by a nanny to two children.
This film cartoon contains comedically murderous examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: The novella's unnamed maid who identified Hyde as the killer of Carew, not only received a name (Annie) but was also bumped up to the story's narrator.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: There's an added scene of a mouse who gets into the pink drug used to help transform Jekyll into Hyde, turning into a Hyde-esque mouse. Not the potion itself, mind, just the one ingredient. If consuming that one ingredient was enough to transform, then the rest of the formula was simply unseeded.
- Ambiguous Time Period: Like in the original tale, the only thing we know for sure regarding when this film is set is that it's during the Victorian era. The adaptation adds an extra wrinkle by having the Framing Device take place twenty years after the story happened.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: The film adds in a cat that's owned by Dr. Jekyll. The express purpose of this change seems to be having something for Hyde to constantly abuse. It's even vaguely implied that Hyde ended up killing the poor thing.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Mr. Hyde kills at least four people (a montage shows him trampling over another man, implying he killed him as well, bumping the body count up to five). In the novella, Hyde kills exactly one man.
- Cane Fu: Hyde's modus operandi in this iteration.
- Denser and Wackier: Perhaps even more bizarrely, the film still adds in comedic elements meant to be enjoyed by younger viewers. The murders, for examples, are often laced with old fashioned cartoony antics (one of the victims is whisked way with a dust cloud following in their wake) to supposedly make the scenes more palatable. Another such element includes a mouse who eats the chemical Jekyll uses to turn into Hyde, who then proceeds to turn into a ghoulish version of itself before passing out upon seeing itself in the mirror.
- Framing Device: The plot of the film is portrayed as a true story from 20 years earlier that Annie recounts to two children.
- Lighter and Softer: Despite the higher body count, this trope still overall applies. The lines of good and evil are definitive and straight, with Jekyll being a saintly man who genuinely wants to rid the world of evil. Contrast this with the original story, where Jekyll concocted the formula for the more selfish purpose of committing sin without it affecting his good name and reputation.
- Truer to the Text: Amusingly enough, this is one of the more faithful takes on the novella. For starters, it's one out of nine adaptations to include Gabriel Utterson (the main protagonist of the book).
