Boy Meets Dog
Boy Meets Dog is an American animated commercial short made in 1938 for Ipana Toothpaste. It was produced by Walter Lantz as a Technicolor cartoon for theatrical release by Universal Pictures. However, it did not see theatrical release, but Castle Films purchased it, and released it to the home movie market.
| Boy Meets Dog | |
|---|---|
 Title card for Boy Meets Dog | |
| Directed by | Walter Lantz |
| Produced by | Walter Lantz |
| Written by | Gene Byrnes (comic strip) Victor McLeod (story) |
| Starring | Billy Bletcher |
| Music by | Frank Churchill |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures (Original) Castle Films (Home Release) |
Release date | April 22, 1938 (unreleased) |
Running time | 9 min. |
| Language | English |
Plot
A boy named Bobby, gets a lesson in school about how to properly massage his gums to take care of his teeth. After class is dismissed, Bobby is offered by one of his friends in to an ice cream shop to have a sundae and go fishing. Bobby refuses because his extremely strict, spoiled, cold-hearted, and mean father (Billy Bletcher) wouldn't let him. On the way home, Bobby finds a beagle named Joseph and takes him home. They sneak into the house where Bobby cleans him up in order to convince his father to keep him. However, Bobby's father, who wakes up just in time to hear Joeseph's barking coming from the upstairs bathroom, angrily scares Joseph away and Joseph hides in the house. He then cruelly and unfairly sends Bobby to his room without supper for disobeying him. Muttering about his son, he steps on a rollerskate and falls down the stairs. He brutally walks back upstairs to Bobby's room to punish him, but Bobby is not there and he begins looking for him. The gnomes and elves on the wallpaper in Bobby's room come alive and knock Bobby's father unconscious and take him into the forest scene in the wallpaper.
He wakes up in a stock before a judge and jury, where he learns that he is charged with being "neurotic and erratic." Joseph the beagle appears in the scene and gives a false testimony that the father "hit him, and then he kicked him." The jury finds that he "has no mentality" because he does not massage his gums, and is "childlike in his dental knowledge" despite the fact that he attended college, and so finds him guilty. The judge then reveals himself to be Bobby, and he sentences his father to the "youth machine," which turns him into a baby. Bobby's father wakes up from Joseph the beagle licking his face. His behavior changes when he sees the Ipana toothpaste sign that concludes that Bobby is smart and begins acting kinder to him. Bobby, his father, and his friends all go out for sundaes and go fishing in the river.
Trivia
- The part where the three lawyer gnomes sing about how the father is a "mental giant" would later on be used in (If not inspiring) Tech N9ne's song "He's a mental Giant" in his album All 6's and 7's.
- Also, the part where gnomes sing about how the father is "child like in his dental knowledge" would later on be used in the ending of Carpenter Brut's song "Escape from Midwich Valley" in his album EP I.
- It was originally a commercial for "Ipana Toothpaste" but the scene of the toothpaste ad after Bobby's father wakes up was removed.
External links
- Boy Meets Dog at Internet Movie Database
- The short film Boy Meets Dog is available for free download at the Internet Archive