Week 6 (July 26 – Aug 1) – Generic Cartoon Tapes
“Every day is Saturday Morning at this Jo-Ann Fabric. Every space is liminal in Sylvester’s head (hand-drawn for PS1)” – Scumbalina
Man, talk about bleak.
Born in an abandoned house alongside her mother, Duchess (June Foray, Rocky the Flying Squirrel), a bright-eyed English Springer Spaniel puppy named Scruffy (Nancy McKeon, Facts of Life, my teenage dreams) enters a world of harsh reality. After a controlled demolition burn forces them out onto the roof and a way too brief respite with kindly rescuers, tragedy strikes when Duchess cosplays Bambi’s mother and is fatally shot by hunters. Left completely on her own, Scruffy makes her way to the sprawling city, where she finds a temporary home performing alongside a down-on-his-luck, Shakespearean street busker named Joe Tibbles (Hans Conried, the voice of Disney’s Captain Hook).
Don’t get used to anything good, Scruffy.
Mr. Tibbles suffers a sudden heart attack and dies, as a panicked Scruffy chases the ambulance and tumbles into a rushing river. She is rescued by Butch (Michael Bell, the voice of G.I. Joe‘s Duke), a tough-as-nails stray, who brings her back to a makeshift canine commune living inside an old station wagon in a junkyard. Life on the streets catches up with them when a thief and his vicious dog betray the pack, landing Scruffy and Butch in the animal pound with the clock ticking down on their final days. Salvation arrives just in the nick of time via a local newspaper expose titled “Scruffy The Dog In The Tuesday Cage,” sparking a wave of adoptions that saves the entire pound.
Is Frank Welker in it? Is that Linda Gary, the voice of Teela and Evil-Lyn? Did this air in prime time so kids wouldn’t be scarred if it was on Saturday morning? Is that Alan Young, the owner of Mr. Ed, as the narrator? Was this based on a true story? Have I been laughing about the Letterboxd review by Diego Z., who said, “The dogs all get adopted, with Scruffy and the main junkyard dog going to the same home… and then we cut to a now grown up Scruffy with the puppies she had WITH THE SAME DOG SHE MET WHEN SHE WAS A PUPPY?!?! THAT DOG WAS A GROWN ASS MAN WHEN SHE MET HIM AND THE MOVIE JUST CASUALLY ENDS ON THE FACT THAT THIS GUY STRAIGHT UP GROOMED A CHILD DOG AND HAD BABIES WITH HER WHEN SHE GOT OLDER?!?! THIS IS SOME VLADIMIR NOBOKOV’S BEST SELLING NOVEL LOLITA LATER ADAPTED INTO A FILM BY STANLEY FVCKING KUBRICK TYPE SHIT!!! WTF DID I JUST WATCH?!?”
Yes to all these questions.
Director Charles Nichols worked in the Disney animation department. He would go on to direct everything from Police Academy: The Animated Series and sixty-five episodes of the Rambo cartoon to Cabbage Patch Kids: First Christmas, Partridge Family 2200 AD, the 1973 Charlotte’s Web and several Pluto shorts. This was written by Shelly Stark, who also worked with Nichols on the Plastic Man cartoon. He also wrote tons of TV, everything from episodes of The Fugitive and Quincy ME to the Disney TV movie Barry of the Great St. Bernard.
If you’re watching this with kids, maybe don’t. It’s so upsetting that I paused it and went upstairs to hug my dog many times while I watched it.
You can watch this on YouTube.
