There is much to love about Pixar’s UP, a film which has given us one of the most poignant opening sequences to any film ever.
One of the most memorable characters from a film with a slew of them is Dug, the adorably sweet, non-thugish canine henchman of Charles F. Muntz (Christopher Plummer), a ruthless old explorer who will stop at nothing to secure the luminously-bright Beast of Paradise Falls.
Unwilling to treat Carl (Ed Asner) and Russell (Jordan Nagai) as the enemy, who have become friends with and protectors of the avian Beast, Dug is ostracised by his dogmates who take a dim view of one of their own going soft.
Truth is, Dug was never one of the mindless pack, and with his ability to talk using an electronic collar which picked up his brainwaves and translated them into speech, he displayed all the best attributes of man’s best friend and then some.
Now Disney IRL has given us a gloriously funny, adorable taste of what it would be like if Dug was a real dog – I mean of course he is young children! Just that this one is, um, more real – by unleashing a friendly Golden Retriever, a prop dog collar with the requisite blinking red light and one very talented voiceover person hiding behind banks of hidden cameras on the unsuspecting inhabitants of a park.
The results are every bit as wonderful as you might expect, confirming what we already know – the world needs Dug IRL and NOW.