Tummy Tom: A New Friend for Tummy Tom

image for Tummy Tom: A New Friend for Tummy Tom

Short takes

Not suitable under 4; parental guidance to 4 (mild scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Tummy Tom: A New Friend for Tummy Tom
  • a review of Tummy Tom: A New Friend for Tummy Tom completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 7 August 2025.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 4 Not suitable due to mild scary scenes.
Children aged 4 Parental guidance recommended due to mild scary scenes.
Children aged 5 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Tummy Tom: A New Friend for Tummy Tom
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: General
Length: 62 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Tummy Tom and Cat Mouse are the best of friends. One snowy winter day, they discover snow for the first time and can’t wait to go sledging. But their fun keeps getting interrupted by a boisterous new neighbour, a dog who just moved in next door. The dog wants to join in, but he plays too rough and barks too loud, scaring the cats away. Can the three of them learn how to play together and become friends?

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Bad weather; Friendship struggles.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Some dogs bark and bare their teeth.
  • A dog tries to break through a fence after a squirrel takes its bandanna.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Tom slips on a rug and crashes into a bed, flipping up on top of it.
  • Snow falls onto Tom and Cat Mouse.
  • Tom’s claws grip into a fence as he slides down it, which could frighten a child who has been scratched by a cat before.
  • Tom falls into a moving box.
  • Tom crashes into various backyard items while sledging.
  • Tom and Cat Mouse crash into the dog while sledging and end up sliding rapidly along ice. They almost hit some ducks and the sledge falls into a hole in the ice.
  • Tom and Cat Mouse butt heads accidentally.
  • Some animals have a snowball fight.
  • Some animals crash into a tree while sledging, making it crack and fall over.
  • The cats and dog are caught in a snowstorm.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Cats and dogs shake their behinds during musical numbers.
  • Tom pushes a sled with his behind, and there is a dark dot to indicate where his anus is.
  • Some ducks perform a synchronised swimming display and have their behinds in the air as they dive.
  • A dog urinates on a sign.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

  • None noted.

In a nutshell

Tummy Tom: A New Friend for Tummy Tom is an interactive children’s film that actively encourages singing, clapping and calling out from its audience. The film is also informative, particularly around the features of snow. The film is based on the Dutch children’s book series Dikkie Dik by Jet Boeke. Due to some scary scenes, parental guidance is recommended for children under five.

The main messages from this movie are to be open minded when meeting new individuals. Though they can seem different and even scary at first, giving them a chance can lead to unexpected fun and friendships.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Friendship
  • Working together
  • Problem solving.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • The cats enter other properties during the film, even going inside the house of the new dog without permission. Parents may wish to reinforce the dangers and laws for trespassing.