[ Dog Tales ]
click to watch this animated short
This animated short film from 1958 is part of the well-known "Looney Tunes" series of cartoon films produced by Warner Bros. Studios from 1930 to 1969. This series introduced young viewers to a number of cartoon characters who would become iconic for several generations of children: Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, the Roadrunner and his nemesis Wile E. Coyote, et al.
This particular Looney Tunes film, Dog Tales, provides a comic overview of different dog breeds.
The first of the "artificially produced breeds" to be introduced by name in the film is the Newfoundland. We are shown a Newfoundland puppy sitting in a pet store window before the camera pans to reveal another dog, clearly quite old, said to be the puppy's grandfather and identified by the narrator as an "Oldfoundland." (Yes, that's the level of the humor throughout.)
There is, or at least may be, another (slight) connection between this short film and Newfoundlands. One of the breeds introduced is the Great Dane, who seats himself at a piano bearing a placard with the name "Victor Barky" and starts to play before taking a comic pratfall off the piano bench — a clear visual reference to the Danish comedian and pianist Victor Borge (one of whose nicknames was "The Great Dane"), who is said to have owned a Newfoundland at one point in his life, though I've not yet been able to verify this.
Directed by Robert McKimson. Running time: 6 minutes, 3 seconds.
Click here to watch Dog Tales.