You Forgot Who Is Rin Tin Tin Eh?

In today's The Star there was a plug-in spread for the latest heroic dog cartoon movie and one of the articles was talking about the Hollywood do heroes through the ages below :

Friday November 28, 2008

Hollywood’s heroic hounds

PUT it down to animal attraction but Hollywood has had a soft spot for putting heroic canine crime-fighters and life-savers on screen for decades. The truth of the matter is that Bolt is merely the latest in a long line of do-good dogs to topline their very own movie or television show over the years.

One hot dog: Scooby-Doo is the iconic Great Dane.

·Scooby-Doo: The star of the longest continually running cartoon series in television history, Scooby-Doo is the iconic Great Dane who remains instantly recognisable to most kids and adults as Mystery Inc’s crime-busting mascot. Just like his best friend and owner Norville “Shaggy” Rogers, Scooby loves his food and is scared of almost anyone and anything. Amazingly, Scooby has managed to outlast most of his on-screen counterparts and has enjoyed the distinction of not only being the star of his own cartoon series but also two Hollywood movies.

·Underdog: TV’s crime-busting beagle from the mid-60s to early 70s may not nearly be as famous as Scooby-Doo but he’s just as potent to baddies nevertheless. A cartoon parody of Superman and other heroes with secret identities, Underdog’s premise was that geeky Shoeshine Boy, a cartoon dog, was in truth the superhero pup Underdog.

·Lassie: Have a conversation about heroic dogs and Lassie’s name will pretty much come up. Lassie’s heyday might have been in the 50s but this brave and selfless collie’s amazing exploits still manage to live long in the memories of TV addicts worldwide.

·Benji: Another heroic dog to have captured the imagination is Benji, the small, lovable mixed breed pup with the uncanny knack of being always being in the right place at the right time. Such was Benji’s appeal that it has managed to remain a star of the small and silver screens for more than three decades and counting. The latest news on Benji is that he will be starring in an episode of Season Five of the popular HBO series Entourage.

Even though the 'transvestite' English sheepdog is more famous, I actually find the Lassie franchise story line quite lame but I still remember spending many a weekend as a kid watching black and white movies and the TV series of the original (to me at least) hero dog Rin Tin Tin. Rin Tin Tin did heroic acts on its own without needing to call his humans befitting its origins as a war dog, even starring as a soldier dog in the Old West in the TV series. In fact to this day if there is any breed of dog that I would like to keep if the situation warrants it as outlined by Muslim law, that working dog would be a German Shepherd in tribute to Rin Tin Tin. I really believe the popularity of the breed in Malaysia actually arose from the exploits of Rin Tin Tin as watched by Malaysians at that time, maybe the younger generation just do not know about it. You do not really that many 'Lassies' around right. Anyway this is my ode to Rin Tin Tin, may the younger generation get reacquainted with him soon and be able to watch him running towards you once again as his trademark opening sequence.