2 Stupid Dogs (1993)
First episode title: Door Jam / Goldflipper / Where's the Bone?
How familiar with the show am I?: I hadn't heard of it before.
The 2 Stupid Dogs are two dogs, referred to only as the Big Dog and the Little Dog, whose stupidity leads them into all sorts of adventures. Also, one segment in the episode is instead dedicated to Super Secret Secret Squirrel, a revival of the Secret Squirrel cartoon from the 60s.
This show is in an A-B-A cartoon structure. If you're not familiar with the idea, it just means that each episode consists of three shorts, the first and last of which (the "A"s) are both instalments of the same show, with the middle one (the "B") being something completely separate. So, in this instance, 2 Stupid Dogs is the A and Super Secret Secret Squirrel is the B. Before the first "A" there's a preview of the upcoming episode - I don't know if this is specifically the copy I'm watching, but the preview of 2 Stupid Dogs seems to be from a completely different episode, whereas the preview of Super Secret Secret Squirrel is accurate.
But enough about the format. The first 2 Stupid Dogs short of the episode is "Door Jam", which starts with Big Dog serenely chewing on a tin can in an alleyway. Off-screen, there's a skidding sound, a crash, and a scream, whereupon Little Dog slides into view. I wonder what he was doing?
He crashes into Big Dog, causing the can to fly out of Big Dog's mouth and down the street. Big Dog, in his distinctive deep voice (he's played by the guy who played Robert on Everybody Loves Raymond), simply states "My can." in a deadpan way, but Little Dog immediately starts panicking.
The can is rolling along on its own little adventure, not letting little things like physics stand in its way, the Dogs watching it go all the while. At one point it almost gets crushed by a road roller, but narrowly avoids it. Then it falls into a sewer grate, and the Dogs clearly think all hope is lost, but a worker comes up from a manhole cover with the can balancing on his helmet.
As if the pair hadn't been through enough emotions already, a car then pulls up and brakes just in time to not seriously injure the worker, but causes the can to go flying away again, rolling towards a supermarket called "Y-Mart", and stopping just outside the front door.
Before anything else happens, I would just like to highlight this one poster in the window of the shop:
There is apparently a sale on "roast glunt". Only 90 cents!
The Dogs rush to the supermarket and Little Dog triumphantly picks up the can in his mouth.
Little Dog: Hgghgnn!
Big Dog: Huh?
Little Dog: Ahe aga ahnn!
Big Dog: I can't understand you with that can in your mouth.
So Little Dog spits it out, clarifies he was trying to tell Big Dog that he'd got the can, then takes a couple of seconds to realise what he's just done. There are a lot of these lovely little "delayed reaction" moments that really sell how stupid these dogs are. As someone walks into the shop (activating the automatic doors), the can rolls through the doors, and Little Dog can't quite make it to them before they slam shut again:
Little Dog starts pacing around trying to think of any way he could possibly get inside, while Big Dog has a good time on each of the various children's rides placed outside the shop (little rocking horse type thing and so on). Then a woman carrying a small boy comes along and uhhhh...
She places her son on Big Dog and inserts a coin into Big Dog's ear, obviously under the impression that he's one of the rides. Both dogs look uncomfortable.
The woman enters the shop, Little Dog staring right at the doors as they open and close for her. Then another person goes in... and another... and yes, I definitely felt like yelling at Little Dog through the screen at this point for not realising that he could slip in whenever a human goes through the door, but he's not a Stupid Dog for nothing.
Eventually, we see inside his brain, where two dusty, cobwebbed cogwheels finally grind against each other and turn one little bit, and Little Dog announces that he has the solution. Big Dog sits up in excitement, and the child on his back simply rolls away with no change in expression. And it turns out Little Dog's big revelation is that everyone who's getting inside is wearing shoes - so they need to get some!
First they pinch one shoe from the little boy, but that doesn't do it.
Little Dog: We obviously need more shoes.
So they go everywhere they can. Little Dog grabs a single boot, bigger than himself, from a fire station. A baseball player slides into home plate only to find himself barefoot. And when Cinderella leaves her slipper behind at the ball, Big Dog is there to claim it.
Is it just me, or is that a very different art style?
The next place they visit is unambiguously a strip club, with the stripper seen only in silhouette. As she takes off her bra, Little Dog is yelling for her to take off a shoe next, and when she does, he falls off his seat. What must be going through that woman's mind as she appeases the talking dog with the apparent foot fetish, we can only guess.
Next, they somehow have the necessary equipment to remove the shoe from a giant mascot statue of "Mr Muffler Man" - removing the shoe exposes a fully modelled statue foot, for some reason. And finally, they come back to the shop and remove the other shoe from the little boy, who's still lying there on the floor, as an afterthought.
Now Little Dog has piled all the shoes in front of the door and is stamping on the pile, but the door still won't open. A turned-off lightbulb appears over his head, and after a few seconds, it finally comes on. Of course, shoes don't work unless you wear them! I love his logic.
So we see him approach the door in a variety of different shoes, some just on his back paws and some on all four, and finally just in the one big boot from the fire station, none of which work. Then, unbeknownst to Little Dog, Big Dog happens to sit down behind him in range of the door, and...
It opens! Big Dog is big enough! But of course, neither dog knows why it opened. Little Dog excitedly jumps towards the can at the same moment that Big Dog gets up again, and so Little Dog gets his neck stuck in the door. Ouch.
Anyway, Big Dog approaches, so the door opens again, and now Little Dog is finally able to get inside! He starts skipping around happily, singing a little song about how he's inside. In fact, he's so happy, he doesn't seem to remember that they came in because of the can (that's right next to him), and instead goes dashing off into the shop.
Big Dog: Why are we inside?
Little Dog, distracted by what Big Dog said, stops looking where he's going, and crashes into a pile of bowling balls, sending them flying. This sets off a domino effect - the balls fly into a display of bras, which catapult the balls into a canoe, which goes flying down an up escalator, which hits some clothes shop dummies. The head of one dummy goes flying into a fire alarm, setting it off:
In amongst all this, Little Dog has reunited with Big Dog at the entrance at some point, unseen to us. A bunch of firefighters run in - and in a neat touch, one of them is only wearing one boot! One of them declares it to be a false alarm, and they all run back out again, unintentionally kicking the can back through the door in the process... and then the door closes.
Little Dog screams, and screams, and screams, as we zoom out to the neighbourhood and then the entire world. And that's the end of that short, so clearly they never get out again! (Except that we'll see them again in the third short.)
So now we're up to this episode's Secret Squirrel short, "Goldflipper". We see a small volcanic island, and the camera enters the mountain to show us a silhouetted figure, laughing evilly. Once we get a clear view, we see that the villain is a sea lion, Goldflipper:
He monologues to himself about the fact that he's invented a machine (with a ridiculously long but clearly dental-themed name) that will be able to seize "the world's richest untapped source of gold". He orders a minion to turn on the machine, which looks like a giant gold tooth with a magnet attached, the latter extending up out of the top of the volcano once it's turned on.
And then we see the chaos caused by every gold tooth in town being pulled towards the magnet, seemingly one by one. Two old women - seemingly a mole and a vulture - are sitting on a park bench, the bird showing pictures of her family to the mole, when the mole's teeth are suddenly sucked out. (The bird's son's name is Genndy, referencing Genndy Tartakovsky, who storyboarded this short and would go on to create shows such as Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack.) An elephant with some kind of gold endings on his tusks gets the whole tusks ripped out. And a baby bunny in a pram is pulled along by the effect of the magnet until its single gold tooth flies out:
The baby happens to be right outside a building labelled "TOP SECRET HEADQUARTERS" - inside, the Chief, an English-accented bull, is taking phone calls from seemingly every kind of world leader and official, addressing people such as "President", "Ambassador", "Prime Minister", and "Mumsie". Then he uses an intercom to ask "Miss Penny" (unseen) to send in Secret Squirrel. He and his sidekick enter via spinning bookcases, in true spy fashion:
Secret: Agent triple zero, Secret Squirrel, reporting for duty, chief!
Morocco: And me, Morocco Mole!
To clarify those labels, yes, both characters' names are treated as if they are in first name + surname form, with Secret Squirrel being addressed consistently as "Secret".
The Chief lets Secret know that people's gold teeth are being stolen, and Secret is curious how that could be achieved - just as he says this, he gets a demonstration, as Morocco is the machine's next target, with his front tooth being ripped out. Not very pleasant for Morocco, but it at least gives Secret an idea for a plan.
We next see Secret and Morocco on the roof of the headquarters, with their car, where Morocco speaks his first full sentence since losing his tooth, and we hear he now has a very noticeable lisp as a result. Secret raises an eyebrow at the way he now sounds, and briefly imitates the lisp, but nothing else comes of it for now. Secret reveals his plan - he has a spray bottle of "orthodontic gold replicator", which he can spray on the car to give it the "properties of a gold tooth". We don't get any elaboration on what these properties are, but we never really learned how the magnet works anyway, so it all cancels out.
They get into the car and, sure enough, the magnet pulls them away from headquarters and to the volcano, stuck on the magnet sticking out of the top. As they abseil down, Secret tells Morocco they'll need to put on an unseen disguise, which Morocco is very reluctant to do - in amongst all this, Secret starts imitating Morocco's lisp more, and Morocco starts to cotton on to the fact that Secret is making fun of him.
Inside the volcano, Goldflipper is naked and jumping around in his big pile of gold teeth, looking more sea lion like than usual. The door bell rings, and he hurriedly gets dressed and goes to the door to answer it. When he opens the door, it reveals... Secret and Morocco, in what look like Girl Scout uniforms, asking if he wants to buy "Squirrel Scout cookies"!
They make adorable little girls.
He slams the door closed again, but when they next ring the bell, Secret makes sure to point out the cookies are "golden nugget crispies with creamy golden filling". The mentions of gold grab Goldflipper's attention, and he lets them in, but then has to go off to get some money for the cookies. Morocco asks if they should be looking for the controls for the tooth-stealing machine, and Secret really can't resist mocking the lisp this time, pretending not to understand what Morocco is saying and giving a cheeky little grin. Then Secret notices the "secret control room" - it's the room with the big sign on it that says "CONTROL ROOM".
Goldflipper comes back with the money, only to find the door to the control room open, and the two "Scouts" inside, smashing the place up with a chainsaw and a pneumatic drill! When he asks what they're up to, they claim to be earning their "destroy the evil laboratory patches", but he grabs them and takes off their disguises - with some true cartoon logic, this single action results in Goldflipper holding two tunics already on coat hangers, and Secret and Morocco miraculously ending up in their usual outfits.
Goldflipper recognises who Secret Squirrel is - clearly he's one of those paradoxically well-known secret agents - and orders his guards, a bunch of big cat men, to tie the heroes up with rope (to each other). But Secret is still able to fight back even in this state, with his own martial arts skills, and by... using Morocco as a human shield, actually. Poor Morocco.
He's not able to take out enough guards, though, and the remaining ones all point some scary-looking guns at them at close range, so they're forced to stop fighting. Goldflipper threatens them with death... and Morocco, having had enough of all the mistreatment he's suffered, starts ranting about his problems, sarcastically calling the whole situation "swell". In fact, he uses enough words with "S"s that his lisp overwhelms the whole speech, and Goldflipper can't help but burst out laughing, falling about the place, and in the process accidentally pulling a big switch labelled "DANGER DO NOT PULL".
A sign lights up: "VOLCANO ERUPT". I suppose, if you're going to make your base in a volcano, you would make sure you have the technology to choose whether it erupts at will - after all, you can't have it going off while you're in there - but perhaps the lever shouldn't be in such a dangerous place.
Goldflipper and his minions all flee, and Secret uses a device inside his hat that destroys the rope. Um, Secret? Why didn't you use that earlier? But anyway, now he's free to press some controls inside his coat, causing the car, still attached to the magnet, to spray itself with a spray that undoes the gold-tooth effect, demagnetising it and allowing it to drop down into the volcano, where Secret and Morocco can hop into it - just in time for the volcano to erupt, the lava bringing with it a whole bunch of gold teeth, as well as the car and the heroes, safe and sound.
Morocco starts searching the pile in the hopes of finally finding his gold tooth. Then, we return to headquarters, where the Chief is asking the two of them what they actually did with all the gold teeth. They turn to the camera to reveal... their whole mouths are full of them!
The final short of the episode, returning us to the world of the 2 Stupid Dogs, is "Where's the Bone?" As it starts, Big Dog, in the Dogs' usual alleyway, is using a broken pane of glass as a mirror, blowing up the little puff of hair to reveal to us that he actually does have eyes.
Meanwhile, Little Dog is rummaging for a bin, complaining that he can't find something. He emerges with a bone on his head. When Big Dog asks him what's going on, he says that he can't find his favourite bone. Ah.
Little Dog even looks in the mirror and says that his bone kind of looks like that one (but bigger). Then he tells Big Dog that they're going to have to look everywhere for it, and Big Dog simply agrees, "Okay." Whether or not he's able to tell that the bone on Little Dog's head is the very one he's looking for seems hard to say. They're Stupid Dogs, after all. But I'll come back to that at the end.
At this point, I can't not mention the fact that the bone is consistently hovering above his head instead of resting on it. It affects nothing, and is more just the art style than an actual mistake, but it's too noticeable not to mention.
The next thing we know, the two of them are riding a two-humped camel through a baking hot desert. Little Dog digs down into the sand and finds an entrance to some kind of ancient temple. It's full of gold, but Little Dog only cares about his bone. (Gold can buy many bones!) They find the skeleton of someone who died reaching into a treasure chest, but none of the bones there are his one.
Then Little Dog kicks a lamp in frustration, and a genie emerges, promising him three wishes.
Little Dog: Wishes? Wish you'd tell me where my bone is!
Genie [picking him up]: The bone is on your head!
Little Dog: Right, like I wouldn't know if I had a bone on my head!
Little Dog then wishes the genie would put him down, and that he and Big Dog could get out of that place, and so, they do. What a waste!
It's presumably some time later, on the side of an icy mountain, and Little Dog is struggling to pull Big Dog up to a ledge using a rope. Big Dog lands on Little Dog, and the bone flies off Little Dog's head. So Big Dog wordlessly picks it up with his mouth and puts it back onto Little Dog... again, is this trolling? Little Dog continues to complain that he can't see his bone anywhere.
Then Little Dog gets in an argument with his own echo, thinking it's another person.
Little Dog: Who's that?
Echo: Who's that?
Little Dog: Have you got my bone?
Echo: Have you got my bone?
Little Dog: No, it's my bone!
Echo: No, it's my bone!
This continues until Big Dog simply says "What?", and his deep, rumbly echo is enough to cause an avalanche (after which, Little Dog is still yelling about his bone).
Next we see them emerge from a whale as it approaches the beach, not having found it there. The whale is immediately dragged away again by a couple of guys - I can't tell whether they're meant to be rescuing it or capturing it? Then the Dogs are in a jungle surrounded by some horribly stereotypical natives with masks and bones on their heads, who have a statue that looks just like Little Dog with a bone on his head and they all bow down to him. Yeah... Anyway, none of those bones are Little Dog's bone, so we move on.
And now they're on the Moon. As Little Dog looks around, Big Dog is floating and swimming above him. The bone floats away from Little Dog's head, and Big Dog once again takes it and puts it back where it belongs, with Little Dog remaining oblivious.
Then we see Big Dog back in the alley, and after some random sound effects including a scream, gun shots, and a car horn... Little Dog climbs out of Big Dog's mouth.
Sounds like he's got a whole world inside him! Anyway, Little Dog tearfully looks at a picture of his bone and declares that they've looked everywhere.
Little Dog: We just can't find it!
Big Dog: Find what?
Little Dog: What? My bone, my bone! Haven't you been looking for my bone? Sheesh! Now we're going to have to completely retrace our steps.
So, they set off once more around the entire planet. We see them jetskiing with a pyramid of women in swimsuits... in Venice, traumatising a poor gondolier as Big Dog's weight causes his end of the boat to sink into the water... at Mt Rushmore, searching up Washington's nose... on Easter Island, with the two of their heads poking up out of the ground next to the big Moai heads... underwater, where Little Dog gets frightened by an even littler fish... and at the South Pole, where Big Dog has to use his breath to melt the ice that forms around Little Dog.
We see them walk through a montage of all sorts of terrains and weathers, and finally they arrive back at their alleyway, where Little Dog is dragging himself along, feebly murmuring "Bone... bone..." And then... it falls off his head, and lands right in front of his eyes!
He finally, happily, picks up the bone, dancing around with it and playing with it. It's honestly adorable.
And then Little Dog says he needs to make sure this never happens again, by putting it somewhere he'll never forget. And Big Dog suggests... putting it on his head. This is the part where I decided that Big Dog has definitely been trolling Little Dog this whole time. Right? He put the bone back on Little Dog's head at least twice, and now there's a free space there for this "other" bone? Can Big Dog really not join the dots?
One final thought is the fact that both 2 Stupid Dogs shorts in this episode were about retrieving a favoured item of one of the Dogs. Perhaps they should have shuffled the shorts around the episodes a bit better... Unless they're all like that!