Dug’s Special Mission – Dug’s Special Mission (2009)

Directed by: Ronaldo Del Carmen | 5 minutes | animation, short film | Original voice cast: Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft, Edward Asner, Jordan Nagai

In addition to constantly surpassing itself, adding extra short films to the DVD or Blu-ray release of a cinema film is one of the finest traditions of animation giant Pixar. In the case of ‘Up’, ‘Dug’s Special Mission’ has been added to the DVD and Blu-ray in addition to ‘Partly Cloudy’, which was shown as a movie preview in theaters.

The talking dogs may be one of the less successful aspects of the successful ‘Up’, but ‘Dug’s Special Mission’ does have added value. The story supervisor of ‘Up’, Ronnie Del Carmen, took on this directing job and is doing it very creditably. The story revolves around Dug, the good-natured four-legged friend who accompanies Carl and Russell in ‘Up’. We see exactly what he is doing in the minutes before he meets the grumpy old man and the Boy Scout. The three false dogs Alpha, Beta and Gamma want to get rid of their “colleague” and constantly give him new assignments. They hope to get rid of what they see as a useless animal once and for all, but the reality is different… Dug keeps coming off without clothes, er… fur tears, while the bullies fall into their own trap. Dug, however, naively but optimistically continues to try to gain a foothold in the in-crowd, which he so desperately wants to belong to.

The atmosphere of the film is reminiscent of the cartoons of Road Runner and Bugs Bunny due to the high “Who digs a pit for another” content. Dug is the ideal son-in-law among dogs: he wants you to like him. Who doesn’t fall for this cute cuddly dog? ‘Dug’s Special Mission’ is a prequel to (part of) ‘Up’, but it is recommended that you only watch this funny short after you have seen the main film.