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Saturday, April 16, 2016

Short Subject: The Sleepwaker (1942)



Well this was interesting.



First off I am so glad they went with a new design for Dinah in later shorts, because she looks ugly here.  The colour scheme clashes, the droopy face looks awkward, and the longer body style doesn’t move as well in my opinion.  It makes her seem more like a visual gag with the front and back end moving separately than a real character.

The plot of this short I find a bit stilted because Pluto’s sleeping walking comes out of nowhere.  If it had been foreshadowed by him eating too much meat on the bone or something like that I would have liked it more, but no he just sleep walks the bone over to Dinah’s dish so we can have a conflict.  The conflict is also a bit iffy only because I don’t see why Dinah needs Pluto’s bone so badly.  In the beginning she is shown licking her lips at the sight of it and trying to take it from Pluto, and so when he takes it to her in his sleep he thinks she is stealing it.  However, we she has a doghouse and a dish of her own, thus presumably an owner her cares for her, so I don’t get why she wants the bone so much.  If she was clearly a street dog and her and her puppies were living in a barrel or box I could see it, but they’re not.

Okay so is there anything good here?  Yes, the ending.  After Pluto wrecks Dinah’s dog house in a rage he then sees the puppies he feels like a heel, especially when it starts to rain and they are left to shiver with no shelter.  So he gives them his doghouse and bone collection.  Dinah thanks him for his kindness and he goes back to his nap under a newspaper tent and everyone is happy and I loved that.      

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