The Curious Puppy

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The Film Fan	Porky's Last Stand

Airdate:
30 December 1939 Blue Ribbon reissue: 24 April 1948

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:	Production Number:
5394	MM-8-9

Copyright Renewed:

30 November 1967^[1]

Starring:

The Two Curious Puppies

Crew

Video A
Video B
Video C

The Curious Puppy is a 1939 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones.

Plot[]

A little white puppy comes by a closed up amusement park. Curiously the puppy crawls underneath the gates to get a better look and he finds a cat object on the top of the Black Cat Cafe and begins to bark at it before going to check it out. He accidentally pulls on the master switch, causing the entire park to light up!

The puppy crawls out from the garbage can he hid in, unaware of another dog, this one a watchdog. He groggily awakens..

The puppy meanwhile watches a swinging ride go back and forth while the guard dog turns a corner and begins to growl and park at the little pup, who goes into the house of mirrors. The guard dog follows him in until seeing his own reflection in the mirror, which he curiously studies. He then passes by the little puppy, then goes back to the mirror, where the little puppy is on the other side and they begin to move back and forth until the guard dog realizes it isn't his reflection, but the puppy he saw and they resume the chase.

The two dogs run outside and into a photography area. The guard dog curiously looks around, not seeing the puppy hide on a woman's model until he goes behind it. But when he tackles it the little puppy lands in the automatic popcorn machine. He sniffs the popcorn, then begins to eat some of it until seeing he is now face to face with the big dog. In which he dives into the popcorn and the bigger dog turns on the machine and gets the little puppy stuck into a popcorn bag. Butter is poured on his head before the bag is deposited out. The guard dog carries the bag, now intent to make the puppy leave but the puppy falls out of the bag through a huge rip.

The little puppy begins to park at a bunch of cat dolls while the guard dog tries to yank the bag/sack from his face. He then continues to chase the little puppy into a cave-like structure until they get to the very very top. The little puppy curiously stares down the slope until tackled by the guard dog. They land in the middle of a pool and the guard dog swims onto the edge with the little puppy on his back.

The puppy then takes off and runs onto a toy puppy display, that all resemble him!

The dog barks then pounces on them but destroys many of them. The little puppy barks, apparently not actually on the display and the guard dog rips the apparently stuffed dog to pieces. He then sees that the puppy is actually on the other side of the gate and bursts into tears.

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Notes[]

Beginning from this cartoon, Chuck Jones redesigned the Two Curious Puppies: in the first two cartoons, "Dog Gone Modern" and "Prest-O Change-O", the big boxer dog has red fur while the white puppy dog has all-white fur with all-black ears and a black birth mark on its tail end. Starting from this cartoon, both dogs became rounder and cuter, with distinguishing physical differences: the big boxer dog now has golden fur with a white chest, white paws and grey muzzle, while the white puppy dog now has a cream muzzle and black birth marks on both its back and tail end.
The 1938-41 ending rendition of Merrily We Roll Along is replaced with the 1941-55 rendition on both European and American Turner "dubbed" version prints. As the restored print on HBO Max uses the soundtrack from the Turner print, this error persists in the restored version.
This is the final Warner Bros. cartoon to be released in the 1930s.
Vitaphone release number: 9157