Plot: Catdog is gearing up to celebrate Halloween when the town is ravaged by Peruvian vampire ticks. Dog gets bitten by the undead creatures and Cat has until the 12th strike of midnight to save his best friend.
Breakdown: IT’S HALLO….OCTOBER! WHICH MEANS, TO ME, IT’S HALLOWEEN EVERYDAY! Until the actual day, which usually blows because I’m relegated to handing out candy in a freezing cold mud room……BUT HALLOCTOBER! WHOOO!!
Animating Halloween is all about celebrating some of great animated Halloween specials, movies and TV episodes throughout the years, and what better way to start this off than with the Catdog special Catdogula.
For those who don’t remember/know, Catdog is a show about two brothers, a cat and a dog, who were born joined at the hip…..literally. And yes, that raises all sorts of questions like how their digestive system works and how they go to the bathroom, but that’s not important. Being a tried and true Nickelodeon girl, I loved Catdog when I was growing up, and I think it stands up incredibly well to this day. I found myself laughing through several parts of this special while rewatching it, and I even caught some jokes/references that I missed as a kid, like the fact that Dog is prattling off famous vampire actors in his sleep.
The story of this episode is solid enough, even if people turning into vampires and rushing to turn them back isn’t exactly the most original plotline. They present it in a way that is funny and entertaining. Plus, Nosferacho, the lead vampire tick, is pretty funny in his own right. I will admit that the abandoned garlic factory is just a huge deus ex machina, but I think it’s really meant to be as such.
Rewatching this episode also reminded me that I friggin’ loved Lola. She’s hilarious and actually a helpful and nice character among a sea of characters that tend to serve as antagonists to Catdog.
We even get a great musical number that I sing frequently even today around the Halloween season. If you can track it down, listen to it. It’s an awesome ear worm.
All in all, this is truly a classic Halloween special. Even if you’ve never watched Catdog in your life, I guarantee you’ll get at least a few laughs out of it.
And just to play us out!
♫ Trick or treat, smell my pits. Feed me chocolate, give me zits. Wreck my teeth, make me sick. Make me hurl a Halloween brick! ♪
♫ Comb the country, scour the town. Find all candy, woof it down. Every morsel, every crumb, eat it ’til your mouth is numb!♪
♫ Trick or treat, smell my butt. Shovel sugar into my gut. Give me the candy motherload. Feed me junk ’til I explode! ♪
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The Anime Madhouse 