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Leave it to John Swartzwelder to make a show about a family’s dog far from sentimental. The addition of Santa’s Little Helper to the Simpson household was the culmination of the show’s pilot, and he was central to a few plots early on. Here, he suffers a serious ailment, one that requires a hotshot vet ripped from ER to fix things. As some with actual pets know, this yields a pricey vet bill.
Thus, the family, particularly Homer and Marge, come to resent Santa’s Little Helper a bit. Yes, it’s not a story of love and compassion, but one of life’s frustrations. Santa’s Little Helper can feel the iciness and runs away. Of course, from there Mr. Burns trains him to be an attack dog but Bart’s love wins the day. Everything does return to where it began, but the journey there is unexpectedly dark.
All that said, “Dog of Death” isn’t a terribly funny episode. It’s fine. It’s just not remarkable. There’s little to say about it. The most-memorable thing is the vet that’s a riff on medical dramas of the era. It’s certainly not an episode I would have turned off back in the day of reruns, but it’s not one I’d choose to watch now just for the fun of it. Well, it does have that one great sight gag I included as the image for this review, but that’s the one standout highlight.
