The Dogway Melody

Every now and again, you stumble across something that takes you so completely by surprise that you find yourself in an area of the proverbial video store you never thought you'd find yourself. That happened to me with today's excursion:

(1930)

I've since discovered that this was an entry in the Dogville Comedies, a somewhat controversial series (due to the less-than-ASPCA methods to make the animals appear to talk) of short films from the Jazz Age that spoofed popular films of the time with all-dog casts, sometimes known as "the barkies." "The Dogway Melody" takes as its inspiration:

(1929)

But I didn't know that at the time. Let me briefly set the scene - the author returns to his apartment after a long night involving an amount of alcohol that currently strikes him, many years later, as thoroughly inadvisable. Wanting only background noise devoid of commercials, he puts on Turner Classic Movies and readies for bed. But sleep is forcefully swept aside by the strange spectacle onscreen. He watches, fascinated, bemused, and somewhat horrified, but he missed the opening title, this being one of those short films TCM routinely plays to fill the gap between the end of one feature and the start of another, and he can find no information about it on the cable guide. Sleep even further away, he goes to the TCM website and tracks down the title "The Dogway Melody." Noting it is included on the special features on The Broadway Melody DVD, he breaks new ground for his DVD collection by ordering a musical from Amazon.

I can't say this was my first foray into musicals, of course. We all have seen The Wizard of Oz and The Sound of Music a thousand times, and I grew up watching Camelot and Xanadu and Grease, etc. And of course, there's the South Park and Team America movies. (Brilliant, both.) But as far as deliberately tracking down a musical from the generation before my parents were born to add to the collection, it was a first. (But not the last, I'm happy to say.)

And I owe it all to booze!

Seriously, though, the presence of this disc in my closet might be considered a PSA concerning the pitfalls of getting loaded, if I didn't enjoy it (and The Broadway Melody) as much as I do. Let's call it a happy accident.

THE PLOT: Mr. Cur, a hotshot Broadway producer, is putting on a new show, and he walks in as his directors are auditioning a guy-and-girl duo, belting out "You Were Made for Me." The lady catches his eye, and he hires her. The show comes out and is a smash. At the party celebrating its success, Mr. Cur lets her know it's time to pay the piper. When she resists, he gets violent. But her former partner - whom of course loves her, secretly - busts in and rescues her. Jump-cut: they're living happily-ever-after with a litter of puppies.

I'm going to try and present this as simply a series of screencaps. I don't know if the above will be conveyed by their arrangement, but hopefully so. Either way, let the weirdness wash over you. I'd like to think that somewhere out there, some alien teenagers are getting together, high on alien pizza and sodas and whatever else, and giggling uncontrollably at this. 

One more time!

Depending on the lens through which you choose to view it, it's either dustbin-of-history fluff, or it just might say everything there is to say about everything, or it might be evidence to how truly weird human beings are. 

Oh, I didn't write down any of the dialogue. I should have, and if it were easier to come by, I'd go back and jot some things down. As it isn't, I'll try and paraphrase in the captions.

Ladies and gentlemen, "The Dogway Melody." (woofs, howls, and awkward puppy claps.)

"We open soon and we still suck..."

"PUT SOME HUSTLE INTO IT!"

"That girl... that enchanting vision!"

"Hey!"

THE VAUDEVILLE DOG'S DREAMS COME TO WRECK ON THE SORDID SHORES OF LIFE...

...

"Yeah, see!"

...

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

The harem scene.

"Dazzling! A tour de force!"

Oh no...

A one and a two and a...

Mam-my...

MEANWHILE...

Singing in the rain.

I couldn't bring myself to screencap the attempted rape scene. I got a look at myself doing this from above and got too weirded out. You can watch the pertinent two minutes here.

And they lived happily ever after.

The TV Tomb of Mystery is an ongoing catalog of one man's attempt to stave off  acquisition of any more impulse-buy DVDs until he can take better inventory of the ones already in his possession.