Release Date: 2004
Run time: 33 minutes
Animated short, Korean
This odd little animated short is a uniquely-crafted fable offering a fresh, inspirational take on the meaning of life. The stop-motion animation is simple yet elegant, and the voice characterizations are delivered with candor, feeling and completely devoid of irony. Now when a film's protagonist is a sad, bulbous mound of excrement, it's easy to summarily dismiss it as ridiculous, trite, even tasteless. But remember, it wasn't so very long ago that parents were gazing quizzically at the television as their delighted children squealed at the antics of a yellow sponge wearing jeans. At the end of the day, it isn't so much the animal, chemical or mineral make-up of the main character, but whether or not the story achieves a poignant emotional high. This tale of a hopeful little pile of poo brings the viewer along on a shared journey, and why not, as every one of us seeks to find our place in the...
...dude, you were seriously gonna keep reading that? No. What you just read is literally the worst kind of writing, in my opinion. Here's the real on Doggy Poo: it is SO WEIRD but you should see it.
I first stumbled across Doggy Poo in 2007. Somehow I'd come across the cover art online, and if you know me at all, you know I watched that shit twice and then posted an essay on Diaryland. Now it's five years later. Every person who watched Doggy Poo because of me feels a certain kinda way about it, as will you, especially Generation X. As kids, our entertainment characters included a whole multiverse of monsters, dolls, fairy tale things, vaguely humanoid weirdlings and a bunch of unexplainables. Those would be Smurfs, Weebles, the Schmoo, Cousin Itt, Grimace. Everything talked. From an adult perspective, I've grown to appreciate today's "things," like Pokemon, Spongebob, and whatever the Yo Gabba Gabba guy Muno* is -- but even Muno's one-eyed nubbed-for-her-pleasure shape are nothing compared to the strangeness of Doggy Poo.
So allow me to tell you about Doggy Poo.
Once pinched out of a grunting puppy's butt, Doggy Poo plops onto the side of the road, and there he sits, miserable, immobile. Doggy Poo can only mewl, moan, cry and hiccup, forced to endure ongoing torment by wild birds, barn fowl, a year's worth of weather, and a mean pile of soil. Poo's keening mouth quivers, his eyes fill with tears and stream down his...cheeks? On the one hand, you want to sympathize. On the other hand is a plastic glove holding a pooper-scooper.That's one mean pile of soil.
Soil is the antagonist who tells Doggy Poo what he is in a taunting tone. "You know where you came from, what else did you think you were?" Soil is eventually guilted by Poo's sorrow into apologizing, but not before his taunts have made Doggy Poo sob appallingly for endless minutes. Soil tells his own sad story: having been dug out of the ground where he was perfectly happy fulfilling his life's work of growing potatoes, he got shoveled onto a cart, and then jounced out and onto the road, where he will soon die at the next passing cart's wheel.Thanks for bumming everybody out, Soil.
Easy to miss given its litany of quirks is the problem of Doggy Poo's time span. The puppy takes a dump in autumn. Through sweeping scenery shots it is suggested that a year passes. In that entire year not one person swept away a grunt in the road? Nor did it get driven over, stepped in, trod upon or washed away in the rain. You begin to wonder if maybe this is going to morph into story about a super-heroic, indestructible poo. Maybe the title is actually his superhero name. Maybe he'll get a cape and a leotard. Big "DP" on the front in comic book font.
Or not.
Okay, I'm poking fun at Doggy Poo. But obviously it made an impression, since this is the second time I'm writing about it, you clicked on this and you've read the whole thing. So I feel I owe you guys this much: It's an uniquely-crafted fable offering a decidedly strange but fresh take on the meaning of life. The stop-motion animation is simple yet elegant, and the voice characterizations are delivered with candor, feeling and completely devoid of irony. Though Doggy Poo dabbles with some universal themes such as entitlement, morality, destiny and class warfare, the ultimate message is that everyone here has a purpose in life. Even if you're just a piece of shit. You know who you are. ∎
(* Muno is a big talking dildo)
