Pup pup pup puppy dog paaaaaaaals (bark bark bark)!
Sorry, even writing the title of this post got the theme song stuck in my head.
This is the show of the week at my house. Literally. Whenever I ask my kid what they want to watch this week it's "Puppy Dog Pals!"
This show is about two pug brothers, Bingo and Rolly, who are perpetually stuck as puppies despite the multiple seasons of this series, and who go on "missions" to help others. Most of these missions are for their owner, a guy named Bob who gave his dogs extremely advanced collars, but he never realizes his dogs are using those same collars to make his life perfect.
Here's a typical episode. Bob is happy about something, and then something happens to make him not happy. I'm convinced Bob whines about anything not perfect in his life because his dogs ensure that any slight inconvenience in his life is fixed. One of your socks is missing? We'll fix it. No snow on the mountain you want to ski on? We'll fix it. The Mona Lisa, which you maybe wanted to one day see in person has been stolen? We'll fix it. Bob has never had a lasting problem since getting these dogs and thus the tiniest difficulty is suddenly a tragedy.
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| In this episode, Bob can't find his golf socks and is forced to wear these purple ones which fit him so badly he is constantly tripping on them. If he didn't have super dogs, maybe he would learn where to buy a good pair. |
Bob then leaves his dogs alone and they say, "Poor Bob, I wish there was some way to help him. Oh, wait, we have collars that Bob invented which have Mary-Poppins-like magic allowing us to carry literally anything inside. Also time is a construct and we can somehow fly anywhere in the world and back before Bob even notices we're gone. I think we can help Bob!"
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| Hissy is actually a very nice cat, but besides sleeping and hating water does not do much on the show. |
Hissy, the cat who also lives with them (who is actually not hissy at all and super chill), usually says, "Cool, you guys have a great time on your mission. I'm'a stay here and sleep," and the pups are off. The earlier episodes usually involved them flying somewhere in the world on a chartered flight (who knows how they got aboard, but they are always in paid seats and no one minds), but many of the newer ones stay in their neighborhood.
The missions themselves range from the probable to the impossible. For example, one mission was simply about getting a food truck to Bob's house because he didn't have time to drive to his favorite food stand for dinner because he was so busy with work. But another mission saw them attempt to capture wind from Chicago (the windy city) in a jar to bring back to Bob so he could fly a kite; the wind ended up being sentient and followed them back to their house.
At the end, Bob is always elated that his problem was somehow fixed, never suspecting that it was his dogs that did the fixing. The dogs never, ever, ever get credit for solving Bob's problem, and they are fine with that, which is nice. I'm just saying, you would think that eventually Bob would notice that nothing ever stays wrong in his life for long and start to wonder what his dogs with magic collars THAT HE GAVE THEM do all day.
Some things I forgot to mention: the pups also have a robot dog brother called ARF. Bob built him for the express purpose of cleaning up after the pups, but he treats him like any other pet.
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| ARF stands for Auto-doggy Robotic Friend. Despite his soulless eyes, he is actually quite useful and nice, and probably won't eventually join the robot uprising. |
There are two older dogs who sometimes attempt to foil Bingo and Rolly's plans, but in the Christmas episodes Santa still says he sees that deep down they are good dogs. Even though they really aren't, the little pink one is seriously the worst.
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| Rufus and Cupcake. Rufus doesn't really talk and is more of an enforcer. Cupcake is just mean. |
There's this couple in virtually every episode, Frank and Esther, that often help the plot move along by exclaiming, "Look at that, Frank! [Exactly what Bingo and Rolly need]!" Frank is relaxed and is voiced by none other than The Office's Leslie David Baker, giving him a deep, smooth voice. I think Esther might be part hummingbird; if she ever gets any amount of caffeine in her, her already hyperactive heart might explode.
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| I know Frank is giving Esther the side eye in this picture, but they have a better marriage than most people in real life. |
At some point in the later seasons, Hissy disappears and I don't know why. My kid is currently re-watching season 3 and I check every now and then to see if she's still there because I want to know how the writers explain why the beloved family cat is suddenly no longer part of the household.
Ratings:
My kid's entertainment: 5/5 stars. This might be her favorite show right now. At the very least, when I ask, "What do you want to watch while I take a shower?" She turns down Frozen AND Bluey in favor of Puppy Dog Pals.
My entertainment: 3/5 stars. There are some good jokes every now and then, and some of the songs are pretty banging. But also some of the songs are super annoying, and I feel like Disney keeps shunting all of the voice actors with awful voices to this show. Still, my husband walked upstairs to find only me watching an episode while I was getting dressed because my kid had wandered off and I was mildly interested in the story.
Content: 3/5 stars. There are lots of good morals about being a good friend, and at the very least they introduce some geography and culture about the world. But at the same time, there are a lot of un-truths and stereotypes in the show that sort of counteract the knowledge the kids should be getting, so it all kind of cancels out to be middle of the road as far as children's edutainment.
