Kangaroo was manufactured by Sun Electronics and distributed by Atari. During a period dominated by Pacman, Donkey Kong, and games of similar nature, Atari was feeling left out without a platform game of their own. They looked at games that were already being developed externally and eventually decided to license Kangaroo in order to compete in that market.

While not exactly an instant classic, Kangaroo's gameplay was decent and quite original. The decision Atari made to license the game proved to be a good one, as Kangaroo ended up being quite popular and sold well.

This game is similar to other Sun Electronics games like Funky Fish, but unfortunately, the pinout is an unusual 2 edge connector configuration unique only to this game. As a result, Kangaroo is one of the very few popular arcade games of that period with a unique pinout.