This Don Bluth film tells the story of a dog named Charlie B. Barkin, who ends up getting murdered by his gangster business partner, Carface Carruthers. He ends up in Heaven, but decides to return to life and take revenge upon Carface. After he returns to life, Charlie frees a young orphan girl, Anne-Marie, from captivity at the hands of Carface. At first, Charlie exploits Anne-Marie's ability to speak to animals, but he soon comes to like the little girl and eventually undergoes a change in character.As perspective: the story of All Dogs Go to Heaven, an animated film about cute dogs, revolves around a dog who dies — and for some reason, people find this premise strange.All Dogs landed in theaters on 17 November 1989; on the same day, Disney sent out The Little Mermaid, resulting in one of the worst cases of Dueling Movies in film history. At first, The Little Mermaid was decidely more remembered and popular, but now, All Dogs Go to Heaven is remembered for standing out among movies of the time and even today. The film ended up selling well on home video despite its poor box office performance, and thanks to those numbers, the film received a sequel (par for the course for every animated film ever during that time) and a TV series adaptation. (As usual, Bluth had no involvment with either of those projects.)Due to their loose following of canon and their Lighter and Softer tone, fans widely consider the sequels and the series as disappointing and inferior to the original film. Only three things stay consistent with the sequels and the series: the amount of time between between the second film and the series (two years), David's age (ten years old), and Charlie's age (four, in human years).
All Dogs Go to Heaven serves as the Trope Namer for the following trope:
All Dogs Go to Heaven and its associated sequels/TV series includes examples of the following tropes:
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All Dogs Go to Heaven
Actor Allusion: When the heavenly whippet looks in Charlie's records, his mother and father are named "Loni" and "Burt", and look like canine versions of Loni Anderson and Burt Reynolds (who were together at the time.) Loni also appears in the film as one of Burt's "close friends".
Afraid of Blood: Killer, which may be why he prefers to "use the pliers".
Amazing Technicolor Puppies: The puppies Flo is looking after are all bright unnatural colors compared to all the other dogs who have more natural looking fur colors.
Ambiguously Gay: King Gator and, to a lesser extent, Killer.
Ambiguously Jewish: The Gran Chawhee, about whom Itchy remarks, "I don't care if it's his...his bar mitzvah! That horse is a gluepot!"
Animal Talk: Used weirdly. Dogs can only communicate with other dogs. The orphan girl Anne-Marie is the only character who is able to speak to all animals. This is made explicit when it's revealed that Anne-Marie is being exploited by Carface, since she can inform him who will win in a race. It's held pretty consistent throughout the film... except when it isn't (e.g., King Gator and Charlie's Big Lipped Alligator Moment.)
And even Anne-Marie can't always fully understand some creatures if they speak in a different 'language', as she stated to Charlie when King Gator's rat-minions, who she says "talk too funny", are carrying them to him in their cages. She probably only recognizes and understands English since most animal characters are interpreted/translated in her view as being English.
As well with the horses at the race track. The dogs don't understand what the horses are saying, but the horses understand when the dogs are insulting them.
It's plausible an animal can learn another language.
Author Allusion: Don Bluth's birthday is also September 13, 1937. This makes Charlie about 25 by the new conversion system laid down by scientists.
Ascended Meme: The Blu-Ray cover dedicates an awful lot of space to the big-lipped alligator.
Big Damn Heroes: King Gator pulls this at the end of the movie, showing up just in time to free Charlie and eat Carface.
Family Friendly Firearms: Another bout of Executive Meddling turned Carface's Tommy Gun into "a RAAAAAAAY gun!" Apparently they thought the real gun was too scary. The official story is this: Midway through production there was an incident where a man attacked a school in LA with an automatic weapon. Many children died and the studio did not want to recall the episode, so the tommy gun was changed to something out of fantasy. The thing is, apparently guns are scarier than Hell.
See the Reality Subtext for an even better reason why they might not have wanted regular guns pointed at Anne-Marie. (The movie wasn't released until a year and a half after Judith Barsi's murder.)
Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: Two-legged Charlie, a German Shepherd/Collie mix, contrasts with Itchy Itchiford, who walks on all fours because of his Dachshund anatomy.
Frothy Mugs of Water: Averted - Charlie and several other dogs are shown drinking mugs of beer and clearly getting drunk. It appears that getting Charlie drunk was Carface's first phase of murdering him, as he becomes unable to suspect anything odd.
Almost played straight in the sequel. However instead of water, the pink liquid is "root beer".
Grotesque Gallery: Most of the character designs hover along the Ugly Cute border, but King Gator's character design is... a bit much. Also that one pink horse. Yeesh.
It Is Not Your Time: Quite averted for a story where characters returning from the dead is a theme. Charlie, however, lies to Itchy and tells him this is the case.
Minion with an F in Evil: Killer, who sometimes doesn't seem like he likes following Carface and carrying out his evil plans.
Mood Whiplash: About halfway through the movie, we get, one after another, the ultra-cheery sharing song, Anne-Marie's super-sad "I Want" Song, and Charlie's Hell dream. Good times.
Mook Face Turn: Probably applies to Killer, who loyally serves Carface throughout most of the film, but is the one to swim Anne-Marie to safety at the end.
Reality Subtext: Read this message board post. Now try to watch the film without cringing violently. (The link doesn't make it explicit, but Judith Barsi was also the voice of Anne-Marie.) This may explain the above-mentioned Family Friendly Firearms.
Revenge Before Reason: Charlie is willing to forever forsake his place in Heaven to get revenge on Carface for murdering him in the first place.
Right Behind Me: Near the end, Charlie says that he's only using Anne-Marie and only pretends to be her friend to Itchy, unaware that Anne-Marie is standing on the steps behind him.
Satan: A giant red dragon-like creature appears to Charlie in a nightmare of hell and appears outside Anne-Marie's house near the end of the movie, and is implied to be Satan.
Series Continuity Error: The scene with a certain alligator violates the rules of the movie: animals can only speak to members of their own species, with Anne-Marie being the only being who can communicate with everyone. Yet the Gator and Charlie can share a cross species musical number. This only adds to the sequence being completely out of place in the film.
Maybe they weren't communicating. Charlie only joins in at the end of the song, and only by echoing the one line. He didn't have to understand it for that. Plus, he spent most of the song looking terrified, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was unaware that King Gator had already declared that he wasn't to be eaten.
A horse also seems to respond to Itchy implying that it is stupid.
Not to say you can't, y'know, learn another language.
Shark Pool: Carface uses the piranha-filled version of this trope to dispose of Killer after he fails him twice. That is, until Killer mentions he has a gun.
Shopping Montage: Used to cheer the disillusioned Anne-Marie. We're not supposed to ask what the dogs were going to do with all the money otherwise.
They used it to get Charlie's casino off the ground.
Which raises even more questions, really.
Shout Out: Anne-Marie's outfit and hair are much like Disney's Snow White's.
Through a Face Full of Fur: Killer becomes ill and his whole body turns green from the exposure to passive smoking, causing him to cough, after Carface blows it from his cigar towards him, twice.
Wild Take: Killer springing in mid-air, his eyes bulging in and out, and screaming, after he retrieves and puts back on his glasses, when he sees Charlie and Itchy are out of prison clearly enough the second time.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Halfway through the movie, Carface is lowering Killer into a piranha tank, after discovering Charlie is still alive.
Odd that Satan would appear as a talking red cat in the sequel, because in the original he seemed to be some kind of demonic dragon thing.
Actually, it's implied that Red is not Old Scratch himself, but his lap cat. Charlie makes mention of "his boss" yanking his leash, which could be a reference to the dragon in the first film being Satan.
Frothy Mugs of Water: Played straight in the sequel, in which the drinks at the bar is "root beer" (which is purple for some reason).
Gonk: Oh boy, look at most of the humans in this installment. Some of them have huge noses, angular heads, awfully skinny bodies and stuff like that.
The Great Depression: The first film is set in 1939. The sequel seems to be set in more modern times, which would be fine and dandy given the lifespans of angels, but it begins with Itchy having been recently deceased. Must have been a really long timeskip somewhere in there.
Incredibly Lame Pun: At the end, after Charlie defeats Red and sends him into Hell he delivers this wonderful line: "Hello...double chili CAT burger with onions and pickles!"
Is that even a pun?
In Name Only: The film bears nearly no resemblance to the original whatsoever—except for a few of the character names.
Karma Houdini: Averted to Karmic Death. Two minutes after Red gets dragged to Hell, Carface shares the same fate. Itchy's words at the end of the scene poked at the saying and title of the movie.
Itchy: Well, what do you know, and I thought all dogs go to heaven.
Lighter and Softer: The sequel certainly had lighter tones to it. However, some people seem to forget that, while the original had a power-hungry crime lord for a villain, the Big Bad in the sequel is a literal demon.
Mood Whiplash: The "Easy Street" number starts out bright and cheerful, but towards the end, instantly turns into a heartwrenching Tear Jerker melody.
Non-Standard Character Design: David is the only human in the entire film to be drawn with as much detail as the dogs.
Broad Strokes: To say that the series followed the films... loosely would be an understatement.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: Belladonna describes "the other side" as an equal opportunity employer when she's trying to recruit Charlie to her side.
Heel Face Turn: Charlie's character growth could be considered this to some degree. He ultimately invokes this on Carface to turn him good so that Belladonna's plan could be stopped.
Mood Whiplash: Practically invoked in "Clean Up Your Act" in the Christmas Carol. It goes back and forth between visions of Heaven and of Hell. It works because its done by the Ghost Of Christmas Future (played by Charlie) and is showing both possible outcomes to Carface's future.
Punch Clock Villain: Happens with Carface in the Christmas Special, which is also the series finale. Applies because he was working as Belladonna's henchman at the time.
Villain Song: Belladonna, Anabelle's demonic cousin gets one in both appearences. In the first one, it's Take The Easy Way Out, which is an attempt at luring Charlie to her side and it works...for a bit. In the Christmas Special, where she's the Big Bad, she sings I Always Get Emotional At Christmas Time, a song about how much she loves ruining Christmas.
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