Line #18 Awesome/LadyAndTheTramp


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tramp_protect_lady_from_the_stray_dogs.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Mess with the Lady, you get the Tramp!]]
3
4	* The rat's re-appearance in the film's climax heralds a series of moments of awesome for the four main dog characters.
5	** First, there's Tramp's brief conference with Lady. However stung he was by her calling him out for his love-'em-and-leave-'em past minutes earlier, when he hears her barking, he knows something is ''very'' wrong, and he comes running back immediately. The conversation itself really shows how close they are; they didn't even need to discuss the situation, they play off each other so well. Also, Tramp's tone when he comes bursting onto the scene; he's deadly serious, because he can ''tell'' that Lady is deadly serious. There's no ''time'' for jokes, and he doesn't make any. For Tramp, that's a big deal.
6	---> '''Tramp:''' What's wrong, Pidge?\
7	'''Lady:''' A rat!\
8	'''Tramp:''' Where?\
9	'''Lady:''' Upstairs! In the baby's room!\
10	'''Tramp:''' [[LetsGetDangerous How do I get in?]]\
11	'''Lady''': The little door on the porch!\
12	(''Tramp sprints through the dog door to get inside the house'').
13	** Once in the house, Tramp viciously attacks the rat [[PapaWolf to protect the baby]]. True he may have been cynical about human children to begin with but as a dog he wasn’t gonna let anything happen to the baby. It remains one of the most harrowing fight scenes in the Disney canon, and the rat puts up a hell of a fight, but Tramp finally kills him once and for all.
14	** Meanwhile, outside, Lady is so beside herself with [[MamaBear protective rage]] that she pulls on her chain until it rips out of the wood of her doghouse, then barrels inside after Tramp. Aunt Sarah clearly has no idea just how much Lady cares about her owners and their infant son.
15	** Unfortunately, Aunt Sarah finds the dogs next to her nephew's overturned crib, jumps to exactly the wrong conclusion, and locks Lady in the cellar while shutting Tramp in the closet until the dogcatcher can take him away. He leaves as Jim Dear and Darling return, whereupon Lady shows her master and mistress the evidence of what really happened, a conversation Trusty and Jock overhear. Cue the cavalry springing into action...
16	*** Trusty's always been the big, goofy friend, but he takes a ''serious'' [[TookALevelInBadass level in badass]] when he and Jock realize Tramp is about to be killed for something he hasn't done.
17	---->'''Trusty:''' Come on. We gotta stop that wagon!\
18	'''Jock:''' But, man, we don't know which way they've gone!\
19	'''Trusty:''' We'll track 'em down.\
20	'''Jock:''' (''flustered'') Ay, and ''then''?\
21	'''Trusty:''' (''darkly'') [[LetsGetDangerous We'll hold 'em. Hold 'em at bay...]]
22	*** It's a reminder that Trusty's not just a retired hunting dog--he used to ''track criminals'' for a living. His owner is probably a retired policeman or something along those lines. Trusty ''knows'' what he's doing, weak sense of smell or none.
23	----> '''Trusty:''' Why, some of the finest people I ever tracked down were jailbirds!
24	*** And despite Jock's doubts, Trusty regains his sense of smell and successfully tracks the pound wagon, knocking it off the road and saving Tramp from certain death. The cherry on the cake comes with the absolutely ''bone-chilling bay'' Trusty gives when he's caught the scent. To think that once upon a time, Trusty was young and strong, and criminals shivering in the swamps heard that sound off in the night...
25	*** Trusty's quick thinking and willingness to save another dog from being put down [[DisneyDeath nearly costs him his life]]. This shows how dedicated Trusty is, not only to his job before retirement, but also to someone he considered an enemy mere hours before. When Jock believes the wagon killed him, he starts howling as if to mourn the death of a hero.
26	* When Lady's been taken to the pound and is visibly terrified of the rougher dogs staring at her and laughing about her collar, Peg, who's a ''Pekingese'', steps out of the woodwork and immediately shuts the much larger, much more dangerous dogs up; it's a small thing, but to ''Lady'' it clearly meant the world.
27	--> "All right, all right, you guys! Lay off, will ya?! [...] Can't you see the poor kid's scared enough already?"
28	* Bill the pound worker petting Lady and reassuring her with a very telling "All right, baby, they've come to take you home. You're too nice a girl to be in this place." The man's job might require him to do some unfortunate things, but he clearly loves dogs.
29	* Tramp saving Lady from a ''pack'' of feral dogs each at least twice his size. What's more, they ''freeze'' the minute they see him.
30	* Lady calling Tramp out for not looking out for her when she was caught and taken to the pound — sure, audiences of today may find it rather slow and sappy, but it really knocks sense into him and makes him realize he's been a jerk.
31	* It's not character-based, but the animation in the scene where Darling is rocking the cradle is stunning. Her skirt is swaying, the cradle is rocking, the bow on the cradle is moving slightly behind the cradle movement, the curtains are swaying in the breeze, the trees are moving their branches in coordination with the breeze, all at the same time. Perfectly coordinated, and done in hand drawn cell animation in 1955. Today's computer generated animation, even with masterful physics engines, don't even come close to the beauty of this scene.
32	** Similarly, the facial animations are superb. When Trusty is trying to explain Darling's pregnancy with "the birds and the bees" and "the stork", you can really see that Lady is thinking, "''What'' is he talking about?"
33	* At the end of the pound scene when Bill is coming to get Lady, look at the hole just before [[TunnelKing Dachsie]] covers it up. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. He really did tunnel them out!

Context Awesome / LadyAndTheTramp