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"Kiss me."
— One of two lines ever spoken by Pluto, from "The Moose Hunt".

"Mammy!"
— The second of two lines ever spoken by Pluto, from "Mickey Steps Out"—although it's technically a shout out to The Jazz Singer.

Pluto, also called Pluto the Pup, is an animated cartoon character from the Walt Disney cartoon studio, the loyal pet of Mickey Mouse and, for a while, the star of his own series of short subjects during The Golden Age of Animation. At one point, he even overshadowed the mouse in his own cartoons. He is notable for being one of the few recurring classic Disney animal characters who is not anthropomorphized.

He acted as a foil for Donald Duck, Figaro, Butch the Bulldog, Chip 'n Dale, and sometimes Salty the Seal and Milton the cat. He also occasionally has a Love Interest in the forms of Fifi the Pekingese in the 1930s and Dinah the dachshund in the 1940s and '50s. In some comic stories, he is also the official mascot for the Junior Woodchucks.

His current official voice actor is Bill Farmer, who also happens to be the voice of Goofy.

For a full history of the character, go here.

Oh yes, and don't confuse him with the former planet (even if the dwarf planet's "heart" looks like him), that other Pluto, the god also known as Hades, and especially not that Pluto, much less Pluto Nash. And no, he is not expendable. (Though he sure is treated that way.)


     Filmography 

1930

  • The Chain Gang: Pluto's official debut, where he acts as a guard dog actively chasing down Mickey.
  • The Picnic: Pluto—er Rover appears here as Minnie's Pet. This is also the first time where Pluto is portrayed with black ears and tail.

1931

  • The Moose Hunt: Pluto's first appearance as Mickey's pet, and first one where he is officially named as such. He also talks quite a bit in this short.
  • Blue Rhythm: A weird cartoon in which Pluto is portrayed as a Funny Animal.
  • Mickey Steps Out: Pluto's second and last speaking appearance, where he says "Mammy" at the end.
  • Fishin' Around
  • The Beach Party: First time Pluto's teeth were redrawn from fangs to more human-like teeth.
  • Mickey Cuts Up
  • Mickey's Orphans

1932

  • The Duck Hunt
  • The Grocery Boy
  • The Mad Dog
  • Barnyard Olympics
  • Mickey's Revue
  • Just Dogs: A Silly Symphonies short where Pluto stars in his first role without Mickey.
  • Mickey's Nightmare
  • Trader Mickey
  • The Wayward Canary
  • The Klondike Kid
  • Parade of the Award Nominees: Makes a cameo at the end.
  • Mickey's Good Deed

1933

1934

  • Playful Pluto: Noteworthy for the famous "Flypaper Sequence", a milestone in personality animation.
  • Mickey Plays Papa

1935

  • Mickey's Kangaroo: The only short where Pluto is shown to have inner dialogue, and is the last time Pluto appeared in black and white.
  • Mickey's Garden: The first colored appearance of Pluto, giving him a red collar.
  • Pluto's Judgement Day: One of the first Mickey cartoons where Pluto is given the major role, with Mickey only briefly appearing in it.
  • On Ice

1936

  • Mickey's Polo Team (cameo)
  • Mickey's Grand Opera
  • Alpine Climbers
  • Donald & Pluto: Billed as a Mickey Mouse short, although he is completely absent from it.
  • Mickey's Elephant
  • Mother Pluto: A Silly Symphonies short centered around the pup.

1937

  • The Worm Turns
  • Hawaiian Holiday
  • Pluto's Quin-Puplets

1938

  • Mickey's Parrot

1939

  • Society Dog Show: First time Pluto was shown wearing a green collar.
  • Mickey's Surprise Party
  • Beach Picnic
  • The Pointer

1940

  • Donald's Dog Laundry
  • Bone Trouble: Pluto's first standalone short.
  • Put-Put Troubles
  • Pluto's Dream House
  • Window Cleaners
  • Mr. Mouse Takes A Trip
  • Pantry Pirate

1941

1942

  • Pluto Junior
  • The Army Mascot
  • The Sleep Walker
  • T-Bone For Two
  • Pluto At The Zoo

1943

1944

1945

1946

  • Pluto's Kid Brother
  • In Dutch
  • Squatter's Rights
  • The Purloined Pup
  • A Feather In His Collar (commercial short)

1947

1948

  • Mickey Down Under
  • Bone Bandit
  • Pluto's Purchase
  • Cat Nap Pluto
  • Pluto's Fredgling
  • Mickey and the Seal

1949

  • Pueblo Pluto
  • Pluto's Surprise Package
  • Pluto's Sweater
  • Bubble Bee
  • Sheep Dog

1950

  • Pluto's Heart Throb
  • Pluto & The Gopher
  • Wonder Dog
  • Primitive Pluto
  • Puss Cafè
  • Pests of The West
  • Food For Feudin'
  • Camp Dog

1951

  • Cold Storage
  • Plutopia
  • R'Coon Dawg
  • Cold Turkey: Last short to be released under Pluto's series.

1952

  • Pluto's Party
  • Pluto's Christmas Tree

1953

  • The Simple Things: Pluto's last classic appearance, alongside his owner Mickey.

1990

1995

Episodes of the 2013 series of Mickey Mouse shorts that prominently feature Pluto:


Tropes:

  • Action Pet: At times, depending on the cartoon.
  • Adaptational Badass: Pluto can survive the huge jungle-lie garden and fight off the giant bugs in "My Little Garden" just fine, unlike his last encounter in "Mickey's Garden".
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: The title character from "Pluto's Kid Brother", who proves to be a handful for his older brother, who just wants to sleep. Instead, his younger brother keeps getting them both into several misadventures, first with a tough alley cat and then with Butch, who tricks the younger dog into stealing a string of wieners from a butcher shop for him, which arouses the dogcatcher.
  • Balloon Belly: In "Plutopia".
  • Be the Ball: The armadillo in "Pluto and the Armadillo", being an armadillo, has the ability to roll herself up into a ball, which is what drives the plot of the cartoon. Eventually, Pluto rolls himself up into a ball as well.
  • Bee Afraid: As seen in "Bubble Bee", in which Pluto has a brush with Spike the Bee, who usually appeared in Donald Duck shorts.
  • Big Friendly Dog: Most of the time. He has a temper and an occasional selfish streak, but is loyal to Mickey and has more limits in his Jerkass tendencies than, say, Donald.
  • Breakout Character: Yes, even Pluto was more popular than Mickey Mouse at some point. The poor mouse just can't catch a break, can he?
  • Bumbling Dad: Pluto has also erred on the side of this in some shorts where he becomes a father to at least one or more puppies, as seen in "Pluto's Quin-Puplets" and "Pluto, Junior".
  • Butt-Monkey: On occasion, but especially later on in many shorts. Sometimes, like in "Pluto's Judgement Day," it went too far.
  • The Cameo: Pluto makes a brief appearance in the Recess episode "Rainy Days".
    • He also makes an appearance in the Goofy short "Victory Vehicles", a Wartime Cartoon. This cartoon shows alternate modes of transportation (since gas and rubber were rationed). One vehicle is powered by a dog (hence, Pluto) that chases after a cat (a scraggly-looking black cat that bears a passing resemblance to Figaro), when it's put front of him.
  • Cartoony Tail: His tail is rather thin and mouse-like.
  • Cats Are Mean: If "Pluto's Judgement Day" is any indication. The same goes somewhat with the dog's run-ins with Figaro, though somewhat more downplayed.
  • Character Focus: After Mickey's Flanderization, Pluto pretty much became the star of Mickey's cartoons.
  • Chaste Toons: Averted. Pluto has five puppies in "Pluto's Quin-Puplets" and a son named Pluto Jr.
  • Crying Critters: As shown in episodes like "A Gentleman's Gentleman," "Pluto and the Armadillo," "In Dutch" and "Pluto's Housewarming," Pluto is very much prone to Inelegant Blubbering.
  • Deranged Animation: "Plutopia", which was infamous enough to get a Homage in Epic Mickey.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: In his first appearance, he was a bloodhound trying to capture Mickey after he escaped from prison. In his second, he was Minnie's pet and was named Rover.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: "Pluto's Playmate" manages to do this trope without a single word of dialog: Pluto starts out playing with his red ball on the beach when a playfully annoying seal, who keeps taking his ball away. Midway through, the seal goes into the ocean and Pluto starts following him, only for an evil octopus latch onto his face and start trying to drown him. The seal eventually frees Pluto and squeezes all the water out of his lungs so he wont drown. After this the two of them become friends and start playing catch using Pluto's ball.
  • Funny Animal: Oddly portrayed as one in the B&W cartoon, "Blue Rhythm."
  • Furry Confusion: An age old question which has plagued mankind since the 30's; how can Pluto and Goofy share the same universe, if Goofy is also (allegedly) a dog? The most common answer to the former question is that Goofy is to Pluto what a human is to a chimpanzee.
  • Good Angel, Bad Angel: Pluto's become recurring characters in the shorts.
  • Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Don't ever try to play music near him, as he will howl along and it is screechingly off-key.
  • Home Made Sweater From Hell: Minnie knits Pluto one of these in "Pluto's Sweater", which is hideously fuchsia in color, which Pluto takes an immediate disliking to, and from which, after being forced into it, he spends much of the short trying to extract himself.
  • Hypno Fool: Donald Duck hypnotizes Pluto into acting like a bunch of different animals on command in "The Eyes Have It".
  • Interspecies Romance: Strangely enough, "Pluto and the Armadillo" features a lot of Ship Tease between Pluto and a female armadillo.
  • Jerkass Ball: It shows up, but not as much as in Donald.
  • Love Interest: He has two of these: first, Fifi the Pekingese in the 1930s, and then, Dinah the dachshund in the 1940s and '50s. Four, if we count Tiki from the House of Mouse short "Pluto's Penthouse Suite" and the amount of Ship Tease he has with the armadillo from "Pluto and the Armadillo".
  • Love Triangle: The main plot of "Pluto's Heart Throb", in which he and Butch the bulldog vie for the affections of Dinah.
  • Metaphoric Metamorphosis: In "The Sleep Walker", after destroying Dinah's dog house and discovering that she has six puppies, a guilty Pluto turns into a heel.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: In "The Sleep Walker", Pluto realizes in horror that he just destroyed Dinah's home leaving her and her puppies out in the cold.
  • Out of Focus: Despite being a part of Disney's "Sensational Six", Pluto tends to get sidelined in modern productions to the point where he's more of a supporting character.
  • Papa Wolf: Pluto adopts several chicks and fiercely protects them, even from the chicks' real mother.
  • Poorly Disguised Pilot: A year prior to Pluto getting his own individual shorts, one Silly Symphonies cartoon, "Mother Pluto", was centered entirely around him, having virtually nothing in common with the typical Silly Symphonies short.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Occasionally displayed towards Dinah, such as in "Canine Casanova".
  • Sticky Situation: The celebrated flypaper sequence in "Playful Pluto".
  • Strictly Formula: Many of the shorts are centered around Pluto either befriending another animal or becoming an enemy of another animal, with the gags ensueing from his botched attempts to deal with them—sometimes a combo of both is used.
  • Through a Face Full of Fur:
    • In "The Army Mascot", Pluto turns green after swallowing a plug of chewing tobacco. He tries to swallow the green away, but it just comes back up. He then turns other colors as well, including, yes, plaid. Even his tongue!
    • In cartoons that are set in some snowy region, such as "Alpine Climbers", "Lend a Paw" and "Mail Dog", there are instances when Pluto gets so cold that he turns blue.
  • Tunnel King: Pluto shows that he's a Tunnel King of sorts in the 1943 short "Pluto and the Armadillo", diving underground to chase after a female armadillo who qualifies as a Tunnel Queen.
    • He also does then when going after the gopher in "Canine Caddy".
  • Uncatty Resemblance: His mouse-like tail resembles Mickey's, but that's about it.
  • The Voiceless:
    • Sans his sole words in "The Moose Hunt" and "Mickey Steps Out", unless you count barking as dog talk. Occasionally, he would make panting sounds that sound similar to "yeah, yeah!"
    • Hilariously lampshaded in the '50s-era MAD spoof "Mickey Rodent" in which Pluted Pup laments being the only animal in the Walt Dizzy universe who can't talk, by way of holding up signs.
    • In Mickey's last black and white short, "Mickey's Kangaroo", the viewers get to hear what Pluto's thinking throughout the short.
    • Played with in "Pluto's Blue Note": Pluto, whose tail can be used as a record needle, serenades a group of female dogs. It seems like he really is singing, until his voice suddenly sounds like a skipping record, and he peeks into his doghouse to adjust his tail on the record before continuing, revealing he's really just lip-synching to the record.
    • Japanese dubbed versions of the classic shorts made for Nippon TV in the 1980s, with Daisuke Gōri voicing Pluto, gave the pup some additional dialogue, such as Tasukete! (Help me!) or Boku-chan shiawase! (I'm so happy!).
  • White Gloves: Shown wearing them in the B&W cartoon, "Blue Rhythm".
  • You Dirty Rat!: In "Dog Watch", Pluto tries but fails to protect a ship from a wharf rat that raids the officer's mess and gets Pluto blamed for it. Pluto, however, gets the last laugh in the end.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Pluto

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Traumatized cat (Pluto's Judgement Day)

According to this cat doctor, Pluto left his patient so traumatised that even a bark from a small toy can trigger him and drive him into insanity

How well does it match the trope?

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Main / TraumaButton

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