"Ding Dog Daddy" (1942, Merrie Melodies)
This 1942 Friz Freleng one -shot film is one that doesn't get a lot of
recognition, but should! It has no voice credit, but the voice of the lead
character, a moronic, girl-crazy dog, is none other than Pinto Colvig, the voice
of Disney's Goofy. The studio may very well have been working on a new character
here, considering Tex Avery came darn close to this character with Willoughby
the hound about a year earlier. The plot is one of the more interesting
scenarios from the Merrie Melodies of this period: The dog is searching for a
girl, and when he's snubbed by a snobby bitch (literally!) he encounters a
statue of a greyhound. He names "her" "Daisy", and, since
he's a little slow on the uptake, he has no clue 
she
is a metal sculpture. He kisses Daisy, just as a thunderstorm brews and
lightning strikes her, shocking him. The electric "kiss" drives him
wild, but his elation is short-lived when a bulldog shows up, guarding Daisy's
garden and throwing our hero out! He just can't seem to get past the bulldog,
and things turn from bad to worse. Daisy is collected for scrap metal (big
wartime reference) and hauled off to a factory. Our hero tracks her down, but
he's too late...Daisy has been melted down and turned into a bomb! The dog
franticly searches the factory, but finds only a sea of identical bombs, and he
begins to cry. Suddenly, a shell labelled "Daisy" rolls off the pile
into his arms, and he takes it back to the garden where the stature once stood.
"What have they done to ya?" he cries...until he decides to kiss her.
Predictably, Daisy explodes. "WWWOW! She hasn't changed a bit!!!! A
hukahyuckahyuck!"
Ted Pierce really had a great story here. On the surface, the concept is just plain absurd, but the dog is so painfully stupid that you can't help but feel sorry for him. The scene in the factory with the dog searching through the thousands of bombs is surprisingly poignant, and you know you have a good story when a character this addled can earn the audience's sympathy. Friz Freleng's timing doesn't hurt, either!
Most prints of this cartoon I've ever seen are lousy, and I hope Warner Bros. decides to restore this one for a future Golden Collection release. Cartoon Network used to run a "dubbed version" print that was better than the public domain print I've captured here, but that copy doesn't do the film justice, either. On the bright side, though, this cartoon's original titles have managed to survive the Blue Ribbon credit removal treatment, unusual for a cartoon of its time. Maybe it was never re-released due to its wartime themes.
