Boy Meets Dog
About Boy Meets Dog
Bobby, drilled at school to massage his gums, finds a beagle and sneaks it home. His father throws the dog out and sends the boy to bed without supper. Wallpaper gnomes knock the father into the forest drawn on the wall, where a court of elves convicts him of knowing nothing about his teeth and feeds him through a machine that shrinks him into a baby. He wakes to the beagle licking his face, sees an Ipana sign, and takes Bobby out for sundaes.
Cast & crew
More about Boy Meets Dog
Walter Lantz produced and directed this Technicolor commercial for Ipana toothpaste, intended for Universal theatrical release. Victor McLeod wrote it from Gene Byrnes's comic strip Reg'lar Fellers. It never played theaters. Castle Films bought it for the home-movie market and cut the Ipana sign. Later prints from Mizzell Films put that shot back without its track, which is lost.
Themes
Making
Lantz made the short as a sponsored cartoon, not as part of his regular Universal series. When the theatrical deal fell through, the advertising shot was the first thing the home-movie distributor removed.
Technique
Filmed in Technicolor. The father's nightmare is a chain of mechanical gags: boxing gloves, a press, a barber chair, and a steam chamber that leaves him in a diaper.
Music
Frank Churchill and Nathaniel Shilkret composed the score, performed by The Rhythmettes. The restored Ipana shot has no surviving sound.
Preservation
Castle Films copies dropped the Ipana shot. Later Mizzell prints restored the picture of that shot; its soundtrack is lost.
Notes
- Billy Bletcher voices the father. Danny Webb and Joe Twerp also speak.
- Frank Churchill and Nathaniel Shilkret wrote the music, played by The Rhythmettes.
- The wolf-and-cub joke is not in this cartoon; the dental lecture is. The father is told he has "no mentality" because he does not massage his gums.
- Universal did not release it to theaters. Castle Films sold it as a home movie.
- The Ipana billboard that ends the dream was removed for the Castle version.
Scenes
- Gnomes peel off the wallpaper and drag the father into the forest drawn behind them.
- The jury rules that he is childlike in his dental knowledge and sentences him to the Youth Machine.
- He wakes with the beagle licking him and an Ipana sign in view.
Influenced by
- Reg'lar Fellers (Gene Byrnes comic strip)
Also available
- Internet Archive (Boy_Meets_Dog_1938)
