Short Subject: Wonder Dog (1950)

Pluto tries to impress Dinah and actually does a great job.

The short starts off with Pluto daydreaming about Dinah and unlike ‘The Sleepwalker’ this acts as actually foreshadowing for the rest of his behaviour in the short as he imagines himself in several circus scenarios when he discovers that Dinah is infatuated with the Wonder Dog on the circus poster. 

He does barrel rolling, walking a tightrope, trying to balance a ball on his nose with predictable slapstick results that Butch finds hilarious.  Pluto then proceeds to make fun of butch to save face, Butch gets angry and in the resulting fight Pluto impresses Dinah because she think the barrel stunts and tightrope jumps are all an act.

The animation for all that looks really good, although the music is a bit distracting because it’s reused; some from Dumbo and some from something else that I can’t recall at the moment.  Still the scenes are really fun and I like the transitions between Pluto’s daydreams and the reality of doing the trick.   

For me this short is quite entertaining with a fun idea and has funny animation to match, with only the music being the low point.