Butterfly Island is a small holiday resort - one of the tropical islands of the Great Barrier Reef which fringe the coast of North Queensland. It is owned by Charlie Wilson, who loves the Australian Reef and is determined to preserve its unspoilt beauty. Yet Butterfly is no longer a success - each season the bookings drop and there's no money for improvements. Sally, the eldest of his children, wants to change Butterfly to attract teenagers like herself, but Charlie utterly forbids her schemes.
Soon, however, family conflicts are pushed aside as the Wilsons face a different crisis: their launch, with twelve-year-old Jackie aboard, disappears. When the thief is discovered and brought back to the island, further disasters strike. Yet the thief is Vo Diem, a Vietnamese refugee who is only a teenager himself. In fact, he is innocent of all the other problems which confront the Wilsons. Someone is prepared to go to any lengths to drive them away from Butterfly Island. Ultimately it needs the courage and resource of Vo Diem to save Jackie's life - and the island. (Source: back cover)
Butterfly Island
( dir. Bill Hughes
et. al. )agent
Australia
:
Independent Productions
ABC Television
Seven Network
,
1988-1993
Z1819556
1988-1993
series - publisher
film/TV
children's
adventure
Butterfly Island follows the travails of Charlie Wilson and his children, who are determined to retain the tropical beauties and charm of Butterfly Island, but face such difficulties as the competition from nearby resorts, unscrupulous land developers, and shipwrecked boys with mysterious pasts and unwittingly criminal tendencies.
Moran points out in his Guide to Australian TV Series that the program made use of the same locations as its predecessor, Fauna Productions' Barrier Reef, and 'promoted the kind of tourist image of Australia, so much a feature of Fauna's work'. Indeed, he argues,
Butterfly Island was conceived principally in terms of the formula of 'likeness and difference' so much a feature of Fauna Productions in the 1960s and 1970s, with likeness in the form of father, mother, kids, adventures, odd characters, comedy and adventure; and difference in the form of the Great Barrier Reef, the Whitsundays, Australian beaches, outdoor life, sun and sand.
As such, the program relied heavily on location shooting, and was comparatively expensive by Australian standards.
The program employed a local cast, but Moran points to such American actors as Ann B. Davis, Cameron Mitchell, and Susan Strasberg in cameo roles.
