Ouch.
Crazy Mixed-Up Pup is a 1955 animated short film (6 minutes) directed by Tex Avery, produced by Walter Lantz.
Sam and Maggie are a middle-aged married couple; he has a dog named Rover while she has a fancy poodle named Fifi. Maggie sends Sam out one day with a grocery list, Rover coming along. Sam carelessly walks into the street and both he and Rover are run over by a car. An ambulance arrives, but the cross-eyed bumbling medic winds up giving dog plasma to Sam and human plasma to Rover. The donations save their lives but Sam starts periodically acting like a dog while Rover starts acting like a human, only for both of them to revert back to their original behaviors until the next episode. Madcap antics ensue.
Tropes:
- Anthropomorphic Transformation: As a result of receiving human plasma, Rover, and later Fifi, ends up acting more like a human, including walking on two legs and even being able to talk.
- Artistic License – Biology: Not that the loopy insanity of a Tex Avery cartoon would care about this—but putting dog plasma in a human and vice versa would go very, very badly for both.
- Big Ball of Violence: Sam and Rover get in a Big Ball of Violence fight when both are briefly acting like dogs.
- Catchphrase: Rover has "You're a sweet kid", followed by tussling the hair of whoever he says it to.
- Cuckoo Clock Gag: Characters keep doing a Wild Take that includes a cuckoo popping out of the top of their head.
- Crazy-Prepared: The medic may be incompetent, but hey, the ambulance did have dog plasma just in case.
- "Dear John" Letter: Sam and Rover come back to find a letter tacked on the door from Maggie, telling Sam that she's leaving him forever and taking Fifi with her.
- Delusions of Doghood: Sam sometimes falls into dog-like behavior (scratching himself, running around on all fours) that he doesn't remember when he becomes human again.
- Eyebrow Waggle: Rover does it several times.
- Funny Animal: What Rover becomes in his human persona, acting just like a human while looking just like a dog on two legs.
- Fur Is Clothing: Somehow, Rover has a pocket in his fur to put Sam's wallet when paying for the steak.
- Here We Go Again!: At the end the exact same things happens to Maggie and Fifi, hit by the same truck, the same EMT confusing plasmas. Sam and Maggie are left chasing each other around while Fifi is agreeing to make dinner for Rover.
- ISO-Standard Urban Groceries: Rover comes home with the standard grocery bag with the standard stalk of celery sticking out the top.
- Look Both Ways: Neither Sam nor Maggie do this while crossing the street, and both they and their dogs get mowed over by a truck as a result.
- Mailman vs. Dog: Instead it's a milkman whom Sam attacks. The milkman isn't at all upset by having teeth clamped on his leg but freaks out when he sees it's a man instead of a dog.
- Running Gag:
- The Wild Take mentioned below.
- Rover continually asks for ham and eggs for dinner. At the end of the cartoon, the anthropomorphized Fifi says she'll make it for him.
- Squashed Flat: Both Sam and Rover are squashed perfectly flat by the car. So are Maggie and Fifi at the end.
- Superhuman Transfusion: Getting their plasmas switched causes Sam to sometimes change to dog-like behavior while Rover sometimes changes to bipedal, verbal human behavior.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending: Just when Sam and Rover are heartbroken over Maggie and Fifi leaving them, the two come back, with Maggie now acting like a dog and Fifi behaving like a human.
- Thick-Line Animation: Thick lines representative of the slow creeping change from the Golden Age of Animation to the Dark Age of Animation in the 1950s.
- Unfortunate Item Swap: All the trouble starts when a cross-eyed bumbling medic gives Sam the dog plasma and Rover the human plasma.
- Un-Paused: After being given plasma, both Sam and Rover continue doing what they were doing before being run over, as if nothing had happened.
- Wild Take: As a Running Gag, each person who sees Sam or Rover act strangely has the same reaction, and it's bizarre even by Avery's standards; waving flags come out of their ears, a cuckoo clock cuckoo pops out from the top of their head, and a party blower comes out of their mouth. At the end, even the end title does it!
