Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

People are complicated. Love is not.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

This blog will pay for itself.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are here: Home / Medium Cool / Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Pets in Film, TV and Fiction

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Pets in Film, TV and Fiction

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In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools unsuffered.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the world of shit falling on our heads daily in the political sphere.

Tonight’s Topic:  Pets in Film, TV, Fiction

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Pets in Film, TV and Fiction 2 Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Pets in Film, TV and Fiction 3

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Pets in Film, TV and Fiction 4

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Moviestore/Shutterstock (1632356a)
Turner And Hooch, Tom Hanks
Film and Television

In this week’s Medium Cool, let’s combine two of B-J’s favorite things.

In a film or a novel, pets have to be constructed. I know that sounds obvious, but I’m not sure we think about this too often. Because the world has to be created, pets also have to be made up, named, given a personality. It’s a lot of work, and unless there’s a reason, they’re mostly kept out of it. Which makes us notice those that do show up.

What are your favorite (or the most interesting) pets in film, TV, fiction? Are there pets in music? Anywhere else?

*****

We’ll have one more week of Medium Cool next Wednesday on 10/7, and then we are moving back to Sundays!  The first Sunday Medium Cool with be on 10/18.

 

Reader Interactions

157Comments

  4. 4.

    Morzer

    “In a film or a novel, pets have to be constructed.”

    And in a blog? Is the Saga of the Shaving of Steve all… a lie?!!!

    Say it ain’t so, John!

  8. 8.

    J_A

    Is Brian Griffin a pet? or is the pet Peter (Family Guy guy)?

    I think Brian is the awesomest dog in fiction, but I do not believe he counts as a pet. He’s too suave for that

  10. 10.

    TEL

    Scooby Doo! They tried to ruin Scooby with Scrappy and some of the newer stuff, but I still love the original.

  13. 13.

    BGinCHI

    @J_A:

    Peter is sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal, and he tells Brian, “Brian, there’s a message in my Alpha-Bits. It says, ‘Ooooo!’” Without looking up from his newspaper, Brian says, “Peter, those are Cheerios.”

  17. 17.

    aliasofwestgate

    Bear from Person of Interest for TV.  The Grand Central Station Gate Team from Diane Duane’s Feline Wizards novels (a short spinoff of her Young Wizards universe).  Those are my absolute favorites.

  24. 24.

    Mary G

    I loved Harry Potter’s Hedwig. She was his only solace through the long summers with the hellish relatives and came back when he let her out.  I burst into tears and had to stop reading for a while when I started Deathly Hallows and she was killed right off. I understand that Rowling couldn’t have them stay anonymous while on the run with a snow-white owl, but I still hold a grudge about it.

    Also these from

    @Omnes Omnibus: & @tinare

    Also: Ooh Rah!

    FIRE UPDATE: forward progress of the fire has stopped.— Camp Pendleton (@MCIWPendletonCA) September 30, 2020

    This was the first one close to me. The Marines have been setting brush on fire with ammo my entire life, and are good at putting it out, but this was actually four areas and Cal Fire had to send help. I don’t quite know where they got it.

  28. 28.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Since you mentioned music, let me talk about a song from the early 70s – bear with me, this actually *does* make sense by the end of it.

    In 1972, I was 6-7 years old, and a song came out, by The Sweet, named Little Willy. I may have heard it once on the radio, but I heard my siblings sing the chorus (or part of it) in a mocking manner.
    “Little Willy Willy won’t go home
    “But you can’t push Willy round Willy won’t go
    “Try telling everybody but, OH NO;
    “Little Willy Willy won’t go home.”

    I was sure it was a song of mockery, some two bit loser who doesn’t realize he’s not welcome. One day, much, much later in life (think 30 years at a minimum!) I had to look it up, just… well, just to learn the frickin’ chorus, which sometimes would get stuck in my head as an earworm, and if there’s a worse earworm than one where you don’t know the words, I’m damned if I can think of it.

    When I finally found it, it was like night and day.
    “North side, east side
    “Little Willy, Willy wears the crown, he’s the king around town
    “Dancing, glancing
    “Willy drives them silly with his star shoe shimmy shuffle down
    “Way past one, and feeling allright
    “‘Cause with little Willy round they can last all night!”
    Willy is *not* some loser who can’t take a hint – he’s the guy who makes the party keep hopping – way past one, everyone’s still going strong! He’s the lord of the dance! Why… why… this song is practically the precursor to Footloose, am I right? Okay, okay, granted, Ren is a *far* better protagonist’s name than Little Willy, but still!

    And I could get a good laugh because I just imagine my 6 year old self reacting to a line “Mama done chase Willy down through the hall, but laugh, Willy laugh, he don’t care at all!”

    My god – he’s running from MAMA? And LAUGHING?  Quite mindbending for a 6 year old! But in later years, I’d have realized he was a cool cat, corrupting the youth, and scandalizing the parents, with his “awful” music and sexy dancing.

    It’s actually a really good song and The Sweet is a kickin’ band (or at least they were nearly 50 years ago).

    Hm. I may have overpromised in saying there’d be sense, but there *is* relevance.

    You see, in real life, “Little Willy” was not a *bipedal* cool cat – the inspiration for the song was an actual *feline*. Which was only *that* funny, to me, because I had, in fact, latched on to “ah, Willy’s the local cool cat, corrupting the youth, etc..” So I suppose this might not be quite as delightful to the rest of you, but it still makes for a fun end to the story, in my mind.

  29. 29.

    raven

    @BGinCHI: Cross Creek with Mary Steenburgen as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Rip Torn as Marsh Turner,  Peter Coyote as Norton Baskin and Alfre Woodard as Beatrice “Geechee”. Includes the Yearling story and I loved the film.

  36. 36.

    Tazj

    The golden retriever in You’ve Got Mail and the chihuahua in Legally Blonde are two of my favorite pets in film.

  40. 40.

    MomSense

    Dean Spanley.  I haven’t read the book, but the film is so good.  The cast is first rate.  It is one of Peter O’Toole’s last roles and he is stellar.
    The cinematography for the scenes of the dogs in their adventure (I won’t  say more) is so joyous.  Of course there will also be tears.  Watch it!

  43. 43.

    geg6

    It’s not fiction, but my favorite book as a very young reader (I was already reading chapter books in first grade) was the true story of the first American cocker to win the National field trials plus all the obedience trials.  It’s a wonderful story about a wonderful dog and his family.  I probably read it a hundred times as a kid.

    https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/202070.Champion_Dog

    If you know a young reader who loves animals, I highly recommend it.

  47. 47.

    MomSense

    I remember that my kids loved the movie White Fang when they were younger.  I liked it the first couple times.

  50. 50.

    BGinCHI

    @raven: Yeah, we were talking about that a few weeks back. Great book and I remember liking the film. Haven’t seen it in years.

    The Yearling film I meant was the one with Gary Cooper.

  51. 51.

    piratedan

    Ein the Corgi from Cowboy BeBop is the most awesomemest pet character of all time…. although there’s also Pywacket from Bell, Book and Candle, and probably the most sinister cat in all of moviedom, Blofield’s cat (the true leader of SMERSH) throughout the James Bond films….

  56. 56.

    MomSense

    O/T but the Common Ground Fair is online this year.  There is a border collie demonstration.  In normal years it is so much fun because they always have humans try to do what the dogs do.  It never goes well.

    The border collies are in the Saturday Live Stream video about 3:00:40 in.

    https://fair.mofga.org

  59. 59.

    narya

    Mister and Mouse from the Dresden files! One of the short stories in-world has several of the characters visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo, with a section from the POV of each character–and one character is Mouse. It was very sweet.

  67. 67.

    patrick II

    @BGinCHI:

    I do remember seeing The Yearling, and between that and Old Yeller and Bambi I think making kids cry was an important sub-genre of 40’s and 50’s movies.

  72. 72.

    Caphilldcne

    @LongHairedWeirdo: ummm I’m pretty sure the whole point of the song was Little Willy being a bit of a double entendre?  Like Afternoon Delight?  Are you sure they didn’t invent the cat to throw off the outraged moms and Boston society puritans? (There was this girl named Crystal we knew and she was very particular and habitual so we named our band the Crystal Method).

  75. 75.

    Caphilldcne

    @narya: we used to read that old book 365 Bedtime stories and I demanded we name our dog Sport because of it. Sport was actually a pretty good name for a dog.

  77. 77.

    opiejeanne

    @geg6: “Prince Tom, Champion Dog”.

    My parents paid for a book of the month membership for me one year, I was probably 7, and that was one of the books. The only other one I remember the name of was “Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance.”

  78. 78.

    Benw

    Chewbacca is not a pet, but he’s a. very good boy!

    Trisha’s mice from Hitchhicker’s Guide are up there in the pet rankings

  81. 81.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Templeton from Charlotte’s Web

    Ferdinand the duck from Babe

    AFLAC duck

  82. 82.

    toine

    Wanda the goldfish…

    John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin, Kevin Kline and Wanda who should totally have won a supporting actor/actress (?) Oscar.

  83. 83.

    prostratedragon

    My first thought was that scene-stealer Asta. Only seen Family Guy a few times, but Brian (and Stewie) always impressed.

    How about Pard from High Sierra? Pard wasn’t exactly a pet, but he hung onto Roy Earle like destiny, so much that Earle finally had to embrace him. The part of Pard was credited to Zero the Dog.

  84. 84.

    MagdaInBlack

    Eddie, From “Frazier”

    Also, the Disney thing” That Darned Cat” ….a Siamese ( and a Great Dane)

  86. 86.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: I had never seen the movies or read any of the books, but I have just finished book one.  Can’t complain about spoilers when i am nearly 10 years behind, and I’m glad to be forewarned.

  87. 87.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Caphilldcne: Well, I could have been a bit more clear.

    Willy, in the song, is portrayed as a person. Cats can be charming, but not usually through their “star shoe shimmy shuffle down” :-). However, the name of the song (and thus, the title character)  came from a kitty who hung around the band’s space, or so the story goes.

    The song’s on YouTube, and it’s pretty straightforward; there’s nothing to hide, and nothing really outrageous… not even for the 70s, I don’t think.

    (That said: I had a friend who insisted that the Bobby Fuller Four said “I miss my baby and a good (sex act)”. To my ears, I suspect the vocalist may have hard cut the N off of “good fun” – “I miss my baby and-a, good fuh” and let listener’s ears/brains fill in the rest, knowing without a good, solid K sound, the censors were helpless, since it was clearly saying “good fun” to rhyme with “law won”.)

  89. 89.

    WaterGirl

    @BGinCHI:   @narya:

    Tonight’s prize is the *hearty handshake and a pat on the back!

    Congratulations!

    *this is from WLS radio station which always gave that as the prize if someone called in at the right time or with the right answer to [whatever].

  92. 92.

    Peale

    Toto, of course. There is no movie without Toto. He causes the inciting event. And while he doesn’t sing, he does bound about down the Yellow Brick Road.

    Columbo’s basset hound. Rumply like its owner.

    I’m not sure we’re counting pets from novels or shows where the pet is the main character – say Lassie or Benji or any number of Rin Tin Tin type movies. If we are, then I’ll go with Mr. Ed.

    ETA: And Arnold Ziffel.

  93. 93.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Carlos K. Krinklebine from Cat in the Hat

    Hocus Pocus from Frosty the Snowman

  94. 94.

    raven

    The dog in Doc Martin is wonderful. Clunes is huge dog person but, in the show, he acts like he hates them.

  96. 96.

    CaseyL

    The books aren’t as good as I remember them, but once upon a time Lillian Braun’s series “The Cat Who _____” enthralled me.  A mystery series where the detective lives with two Siamese kitties, who help him solve the cases.

    (What’s really funny about this is, years and years ago I somehow got the series mixed up in my mind with a spy novel, the Qulller Memorandum, and thought the book was about cats who helped a spy solve espionage cases.  If there is such a book, please let me know!)

    Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury mysteries also often have pet dogs as secondary characters.  The best is “The Old Silent.” The dogs in it aren’t pets, exactly: they’re shepherds, and the best friends of a lonely little girl. They help thwart a murder by herding sheep.  What’s striking is how Grimes writes an interior dialog for the dogs, and it sounds just right!

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    @BGinCHI: I am really appreciating this light-hearted Medium Cool about pets tonight.

    Just what I needed after the shit show last night!

    Is anybody else excited about the upcoming switch back to Sunday nights?

  100. 100.

    narya

    @WaterGirl: thank you! Though I would prefer they both be virtual, unless there’s a lot of PPE involved. The only station I’ve really listened to in Chicago is XRT, but they’re not what they used to be. (Yes, I know that’s also a cliche about the station, but it’s true in this case; corporate ownership has really eaten away at them. I still listen to flashback, and I’ve been enjoying the all-vinyl days when they occur.)

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @Peale:

    Toto, of course. There is no movie without Toto. He causes the inciting event. And while he doesn’t sing, he does bound about down the Yellow Brick Road.

    How about the Winged Monkeys?

    Fairly frightening in their own creepy way.

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: Damn, I love Asta, too. I have always remembered that I knew who Asta was as a ittle kid, before I ever got a chance to see the movies, because of a dog book I had that had a chapter on Hollywood dogs. I learned from that book that Asta’s real name was “Skippy”, which taught me early on that there was a *reason* actors took stage names that were cooler than their real ones!

  110. 110.

    Elizabelle

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Trump:  “Don’t ever use the word smart with me.”

    Please please let’s have an ad with that clip.

    Could also use his repeated. claim that he’s done things that no president in history has.  No question there.

  113. 113.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Elizabelle:

    I wanna say I saw one on Twitter but I can’t for the life of me remember who it was.

    That line is getting a lot of play and will be meme fodder for a while.

  119. 119.

    opiejeanne

    @geg6: I remember a book  but not the name, from my childhood about a lady who writes books for a living and has a couple of kids and a dog; they pack up and spend the summer on an island somewhere on the east coast (I assumed).

    The dog has a running (imaginary) commentary about the state of things, but the best part was when he caught a bee and it stung him, and he couldn’t talk clearly for a few days after that. I was initially sorry for the dog, but the pain of it didn’t seem to bother him that much so the unintelligible mumbling he does seemed pretty funny because of how annoyed he was that he couldn’t make his mouth work.

  120. 120.

    Miss Bianca

    @HumboldtBlue: I love Toto!

    I’ve decided that my current fave rave, tho’, is Clyde, the tortoise from Elementary. I don’t know how “well-realized” he is, but he’s always amusing.

  121. 121.

    SiubhanDuinne

    There’s a wonderful madrigal by John Bartlet(t) from c. 1600 called “Of All the Birds That I Do Know.” On the surface, it’s a charming tribute to a tame sparrow named Phillip (a female). But it’s also just loaded with double entendres and sexual allusions, and if you have the mind of an average 12-year-old boy, you’ll find most of them.

    1. Of all the birds that I do know,
    Philip my sparrow hath no peer.
    For sit she high, or sit she low,
    Be she far off, or be she near,
    There is no bird so fair, so fine,
    Nor yet so fresh as this of mine.
    For when she once hath felt the fit,
    Philip will cry still:
    yet, yet, yet, yet, yet, yet, yet,
    yet, yet, yet, yet, yet, yet, yet.

    2. Come in a morning merrily
    When Philip hath been lately fed;
    Or in an evening soberly,
    When Philip list to go to bed.
    It is a heaven to hear my Phipp,
    How she can chirp with merry lip.
    For when she once…

    3. She never wanders far abroad,
    But is at home when I do call;
    If I command she lays on low
    With lips, with teeth, with tongue and all.
    She chants, she chirps, she makes such cheer,
    That I believe she hath no peer.
    For when she once…

    4. And yet besides all this good sport
    My Philip can both sing and dance,
    With new found toys of sundry sort
    My Philip can both prick and prance.
    And if you say but: fend cut, Phipp!
    Lord, how the peat will turn and skip!
    For when she once…

    5. And to tell truth he were to blame,
    Having so fine a bird as she
    To make him all this goodly game
    Without suspect or jealousy;
    He were a churl and knew no good,
    Would see her faint for lack of food.
    For when she once…

    It’s a charming song. Here are The King’s Singers (first three verses only):

    https://youtu.be/9o-BcBF2ICk

  122. 122.

    Kattails

    Two childrens’ books, both gorgeously illustrated by Nicola Bayley: The Mousehole Cat, author Antonia Barber, about the cat Mowzer and her human fisherman Tom, set in the real village in Cornwall. The Great Storm Cat has kept the fishermen from working and the villagers are starving. Old Tom goes out to save them and Mowzer goes with him because she would not want to live without him.  This is just a wonderful book!!

    The other is The Patchwork Cat by William Mayne; in this one the cat sets out to find and rescue her favorite blanket that’s been thrown out.

  123. 123.

    Miss Bianca

    @geg6: I just read The Pink Motel the other day, because someone on BJ had talked about it – maybe it was you! Cute little book. Loved how blase the lady with the prize-winning poodles was about letting the kids take them on a gator hunt!

  126. 126.

    MaryRC

    @Miss Bianca: And what a career Asta had!  The Thin Man and its sequels, The Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby with Grant and Hepburn and one of the Topper movies with Roland Young and Constance Bennett  ….  Not a dud among them.  TCM should do an Asta Retrospective some night.

  134. 134.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Craig: a tv series from the 80s, if I recall correctly.  Music by Schnittke?  Anyway, there is also an operatic version, though my mind is blanking on the composer at the moment.

  138. 138.

    Tim Now Sir Simon Poshlord

    Not a pet, but one faithful friend and working dog: Pansy, Burke’s Neapolitan Mastiff in the novels of Andrew Vachss.

  139. 139.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    We recently watched a funny little movie called “First Cow”. The cow in the title is listed in the credits as “Evie” and has her own IMDB page. It’s a little thin yet, but she’s young.

  140. 140.

    BGinCHI

    It’s interesting that horses aren’t considered pets. They’re in that in-between area of working animal and friend/pet, but I don’t think the latter gets much emphasis.

    Lots of famous horses, but none really considered pets, right?

  143. 143.

    prostratedragon

    @KSinMA:  I used to love Cleo when I was little! I’m not entirely sure that I knew that dogs don’t actually talk, or in such stories are what we call “pets.” Ditto Lady and the Tramp. I thought they just had parallel lives to those of the people around them.

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    Fucking winged monkeys have probably robbed more young children of more sleep than any movie critter, ever. Eighty-one years of it.

    I know. Ain’t it cool? Kids gotta have a tradition of scary monsters, things that go bump in the night.

  146. 146.

    Brachiator

    @BGinCHI:

    Lots of famous horses, but none really considered pets, right?

    Pegasus. Black Beauty. National Velvet. Silver, Scout, Buttercup, My Friend Flicka.

  147. 147.

    raven

    To the Native American Indians, who lived the life of a Stone Age man, the horse and its use by men, was a wonder to behold. It was at first referred to by the Native American Indians as the “Big Dog” or “God Dog”. The horse and rider team were seen as a godlike being.

  150. 150.

    Caphilldcne

    @billcinsd: yes! Pratchett wrote fabulous animals not exactly pets. Gaspode the talking dog. I love his swamp dragons at the sunshine sanctuary for sick dragons.  Also do not refer to the orangutang as a monkey (“pets ride free?”).

  152. 152.

    Amir Khalid

    Very late to this thread, but as an old X-Phile I remember that for part of season 3 Scully had a dog, a Pomeranian she named Queequeg after the harpoonist in Moby Dick. She got the dog at the end of Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, and it was killed by the monster of the week in Quagmire.

  155. 155.

    dm

    What about Tin Tin’s Snowy?

    Pets in music:

    • Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys?
    • Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict by Pink Floyd?

    Pets in literature…. does Horace, Tiffany Aching’s cheese, count?  (He even qualifies as having been constructed.)

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