Adaptation Displacement: The number of people who have even heard of the original 1943 book by Beth Brown, much less read it, could be counted on one hand. The book itself is exceedingly rare, and it can fetch up to hundreds of dollars on Amazon. The two have essentially nothing in common, save that they're about death and dogs. Bluth himself admitted that despite having known the story as a child, when making his version, all he could remember was the title, and after failing to find a copy of the book, combined with info being scarce back then, he deciced to make his own story using the title.
Alternative Character Interpretation: Did Charlie really mean it when he told Itchy that they'd use Anne-Marie for all she was worth than then dump her in an orphanage, or was he just telling Itchy what he wanted to hear? Consider the guilty look on his face when he notices Anne-Marie listening in on the conversation.
Say what you will about Burt Reynolds' singing, but "Let Me Be Surprised" is genuinely good. It helps that Charlie's parts aren't too rangy for Reynolds' limited singing skill and he shares the song with the more musically capable Melba Moore.
"Let's Make Music Together" (yes, that song). Once you get past the sheer insanity of it, it's actually a solid R&B tune.
Charlie himself as well. While no one can deny he starts out greedy and selfish, there is a lot of debate from viewers over whether his Character Development is enough to redeem himself or not.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Trope Namer, albeit indirectly. While the character does come back a few scenes later, King Gator's bombastic, Esther Williams-style musical number is neither foreshadowed or even mentioned after it occurs (aside from King Gator singing the single word "Forever!" once). However, it does give some plot points: Anne-Marie gets sick after she's been drenched in sewer water, and the alligator even comes to eat Carface later because he liked the sound of Charlie's howl. The Trope Nameraspect comes from the fact that the movie breaks its own rules about who can talk to what to make the musical number make sense. King Gator shouldn’t be able to speak to Charlie and vice versa.note That being why Anne-Marie is so valuable; she alone can talk to all animals.
Common Knowledge: Ironically, while King Gator's out-of-place music number sticks in people's mind, they generally forget that he's not just a One-Scene Wonder — King Gator returns, defeats (and eats) Carface andattempts to save Charlie (who dies nevertheless when his life-watch stops).
Critical Dissonance: The film was widely panned by critics in its initial release, with most making unfavorable comparisons to Disney's The Little Mermaid, so much so that Bluth's American tour to promote the film was ended very early, according to his online biography. Upon its video release, audiences were able to appreciate it without it being caught in the shadow of Mermaid.
Crosses the Line Twice: One of the puppies comes to Charlie wanting more pizza. Charlie tells him to eat the box.
The Hellhound — for managing to be the darkest and scariest villain in the series, despite having the least lines and screentime of the Rogues Gallery.
Fanfic Fuel: While the sequels were never meant to be a legitimate expansion of the first film's canon, fans have taken it upon themselves to connect several elements that appear across the movies and the TV show (the leaps in time and space, the events leading to Charlie and Itchy becoming guardian angels, Carface's Villain Decay, the politics between heaven, hell and Earth) into a more linear story. It helps that the story is still fairly simple and the characters are very loosely defined.
First Installment Wins: While the sequel and TV show have their fans and are agreed to have their own memorable characters and interesting stories, the first movie is generally agreed to be the only one that works as a whole movie rather than a bunch of decent, disjointed ideas.
Friendly Fandoms: There exists a lot of fanart and fanfiction which cross this film over with the Steven Spielberg-produced Balto, another Renaissance-era animated feature starring dogs. It helps that most of the animators for that film also worked on the two Bluthfilms Spielberg produced, so their character designs compliment one another to the point that many mistake Balto for a Bluth film.
Despite the entire movie being about his character's death, Burt Reynolds was the last of his co-stars to die. Of the main cast, at least. As of 2023, supporting actors - Ken Page, Loni Anderson, and Melba Moore are still alive. note Many sentimental fans remarked that Reynolds' death in 2018 meant that Charlie, Itchy and Anne-Marie can be together again.
A film with heavy themes of mortality and several scenes of a little girl in danger becomes a lot more difficult to watch knowing the tragic fate of that little girl's actress. Even worse, the film's plot is kicked off with a murder.
Charlie makes a passing remark about Carface having put on weight early in the movie. Vic Tayback, Carface's VA, died of a heart attack six months after the movie's release.
Not that anyone doubted the acting abilities of the great Dom De Luise, but his tearful "You're my friend" speech to Charlie is easily his best performance in a Don Bluth film.
Burt Reynolds' acting is also an example. Most of his dialogue was ad-libbed, giving it a certain restraint and sincerity not often heard in animation, not to mention providing the animators with a very natural performance to work with.
Judith Barsi, as she always did, gives it her all. Making the What Could Have Been because of her murder at the hands of her father all the more tragic.
Related, one of the supporting characters in The Princess and the Frog is a musically inclined big-lipped alligator who lives in the Louisiana bayou.
The Fire-type starter Pokémon in Generation IX evolves into a singing no-lipped alligator with a secondary Ghost type and a voodoo-like (or possibly demon-like) appearance.
As the pink whippet angel chases around Carface, yelling that he can never come back if he uses his stopwatch to escape Heaven, Charlie assures the audience that "he'll [Carface] be back". Seven years later, the characters will indeed be back in a sequel.
Jerkass Woobie: Charlie Barkin. He's a con artist and a compulsive liar, but he literally goes to hell and back for the people he loves, plus it's implied that, despite his crimes, he's extremely nice to his customers. After having to say goodbye to Anne-Marie with tears rolling down his face, he most definitely needs a hug.
Moe: Anne-Marie. She is a sweet, orphaned little girl who just wants a family, and refers to Charlie as her best friend. For a good many folks who grew up during the Renaissance Age, she was THE Heartwarming Orphan.
Narm Charm: Despite its infamy, "Let's Make Music Together" is still a really good song. It helps that King Gator seems to be a nice guy once you're on his good side.
Never Live It Down: Trope-namer for Big-Lipped Alligator Moment. Which has now been used to describe something not foreshadowed and with so little influence, yet people forget the original scene does have a plot effect.
Parody Displacement: The "Let's Make Music Together" musical number starts out as an homage to King Kong. Many people won't recognize this, because while everybody has heard of King Kong, many people haven't actually seen it. Even if you have, the song is so distracting that it's easy to forget the reference.
Popular with Furries: Like many of Don Bluth's other films, this one was considered by many furries who grew up in the 80s and 90s to be their equivalent of a Closet Key.
The Problem with Licensed Games: The game on Amiga and DOS is just a collection of poorly programmed mini-games tied together with cutscenes. The horrific ear-bleeding sound combined with the three colors it runs in the DOS version practically defines Sensory Abuse. And while the Amiga version has better sound, the limited space results in short audio clips playing on loop.
Sequel Displacement: Because of the utter lack of continuity between the first film and everything that followed it, many are surprised to realize that Sasha, one of the most popular characters of the series, was not in the original, or that the Heavenly Whippet is yet to be named Annabelle.
So Okay, It's Average: Maybe not Bluth's best movie, but it's certainly not his worst. The sequel and TV show also have a sizable fan base of people who feel this way about them, saying that they have a lot of interesting ideas and characters but weak stories.
After Charlie sings the line, "I don't wanna die," he reacts to the appearance of the little thing of powder for taking his pawprint, and then it appears.
In the shot where Killer is bringing Anne-Marie to the shore at the end, we can see the fire-consumed boat sinking into the water. Problem is, the perspective of the water on the background combined with the placement of the boat completely ruins the foreshortening, accidentally making it look like the boat is a really tiny object sinking right next to Anne-Marie and Killer.
Sweetness Aversion: "What's Mine Is Yours." Justified in-universe in that Charlie is not only being watched by wholesome, sweeter than sweet Anne-Marie, but the pups' caretaker — who also happens to be an old flame of his. The pups, for their part, disregard the lesson almost immediately.
Values Dissonance: Itchy's stereotypical "Chinaman" gag in "You Can't Keep A Good Dog Down." The film was released in 1989, and even then jokes like that were just barely acceptable.
Vindicated by History: While it got mixed reviews and didn't make much money at the time of its release, the first movie has since garnered a cult following, along with a lot of viewers who see it as Don Bluth's last good movie before his Audience-Alienating Era. The film was also a massive sales success on VHS, making it a staple of a lot of kids who grew up in the Nineties.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Undoubtedly Don Bluth's least kid-friendly film, despite a few scenes that are obviously for kids. Not only does a murder-revenge gangster story include a lot of "inappropriate" stuff like first degree murder, theft and drinking, but the movie plays it totally straight. That's not to mention the terrifying images of Hell and Satan, and the real clincher, killing the protagonist permanently, which is unheard of in Western animation for children.
Itchy, after his run-in with Carface near the end of the movie. The animated series ups his Woobie status even further, showing him as being the victim of an abusive owner and in the episode "Fearless Fido", he has a PTSD reaction to Ferris wheels due to a traumatic event he had as a pup.
The TV Series
Award Snub: "A Little Heaven", the theme song for the TV series, was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in 1997, but lost to Guiding Light.
"Find A Little Heaven," a sweet little gospel pop tune.
While most of the songs in the Christmas special range from passable to awful, "I Always Get Emotional At Christmastime" is an excellent, almost Broadway-quality showstopper. It helps that both singers are Broadway veterans, and the song works in the favor of both their singing voices: not too rangey for Charles Nelson Riely, but it allows Bebe Neuwirth to give a slinky, over-the-top performance.
And Steven Weber is clearly having fun with "Clean Up Your Act."
Contested Sequel: Like the sequel proper, it has plenty of dedicated fans, but is generally agreed to be extremely sub-par to the original.
Cry for the Devil: Ghost Of Christmas Past in The Christmas Carol reveals that Carface had a rather tragic past that certainly makes one feel sorry for him. Even the Ghost (Itchy) thinks it was pretty unjust.
Guilty Pleasure: It has fans who like it sincerely, but it also has just as many who don't but have a soft spot for it, especially if they're fans of the original Bluth film.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Ernest Borgnine and Charles Nelson Riely play the Big Bad and his incompetent sidekick, respective. Two years after the series ended, they'd appear in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants with the roles reversed, Borgnine as an incompetent superhero and Riely as one of his many nemeses.note And like the sequel, Borgnine is playing a character who is "EEEEEE-VILLLLL!!!"
Iron Woobie: Itchy Itchiford. There are several moments throughout the series where you'll want to reach into your screen and hug the poor guy. In a flashback episode, Itchy is forced to do humiliating tricks to a cruel master who treats him like trash and calls him stupid. There are many times in the series where Charlie will outright lie to or manipulate Itchy for his own personal gain. In the episode "Fearless Fido", its revealed that he had an absolutely humiliating date as a puppy that was so bad that it gave him a PTSD reaction to ferris wheels and let's not forget the episode where Charlie uses a miracle dog tag to become human and ties poor Itchy to a post when he goes off and dines at a fancy restaurant. Yet despite all this, Itchy remains Charlie's loyal sidekick through thick and thin.
Killer is a textbook example of this, as what little menace he had in the movie is completely gone here. It's especially notable in episode "Sidekicked" where he constantly badmouths and insults Itchy yet feels depressed over the fact that his boss, Carface will most likely leave him to rot at the pound.
Despite Charlie reverting to his old ways for the sake of comedy, he has his moments now and then, like when he talks about never celebrating a birthday in "An Itch In Time". "He Barked She Barked" also makes apparent that Charlie is aware of his many vices and how often he lets his friends down, lamenting that he deserved to get Easily Condemned by Belladonna.
Carface of all dogs becomes one in the Christmas Special, due to his revealed Freudian Excuse of being callously abandoned as puppy and finally starting to demonstrate pangs of conscience serving Belladonna.
Teddy from the episode "Field Trip". He's a brat who hates dogs so much he deliberately sends them to the pound but he's also clearly neglected by his grandmother in favor of the dogs she takes care of. His tearful and horrified reaction when Charlie tells him about what happens to dogs at the pound is enough to make him change.
Padding: Belladonna's part of "I Always Get Emotional At Christmas Time". It really has nothing to do with the plot and kind of comes out of nowhere, as the musical number is Killer's until she shows up and her part is mainly just to make it longer.
Sweetness Aversion: Bebe Neuwirth sounds like she's trying really hard to sound whimsical as Annabelle, reading all of her lines with an over-the-top tremolo, but it comes off less as whimsy and more like she's sitting on a washing machine.
Took the Bad Film Seriously: The show's animation and writing is pretty low budget and formulaic, even compared to other cartoon shows of its time, and absolutely compared to the original film. It retains a lot of the All-Star Cast of the two movies however, and they all seem to be giving it their all with what they're given.
Surprisingly, the TV series had a considerable amount of expectations from the films' small but dedicated fanbase when it first aired, and most of them were disappointed that it largely eschewed themes of mortality, not to mention turned Charlie back into an unsympathetic jerkass, in favor of mediocre Saturday-Morning Cartoon antics. Most would agree that Charlie and Itchy becoming guardian angels is at least a good setup.
The Grand Finale of the series, and the franchise as a whole, ending on Carface actually redeeming his soul after contemplating all his experiences with the afterlife made for good Book Ends to Charlie doing the same in the first film, and even adds a genuinely tragic backstory to the mix. It could have done with a more believable execution than a cheesy Yet Another Christmas Carol however.
One truly ideal use for Belladonna would have been to connect the dots between the series and the two films and use her presence to explain the characters' new circumstances (eg. Annabelle recruiting Charlie and Itchy specifically to protect other dogs' souls from her, Carface having escaped from hell by allying with her, with Killer getting dragged in). However there is no elaboration, and Belladonna herself only appears in a handful of episodes, let alone gets dynamics developed.
seems to depict Anne Marie giving the viewer bedroom eyes.
