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Forgotten Childhood: All Dogs Go To Heaven

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Initial Release

We all remember the film All Dogs Go To Heaven as that random 90’s film that your Mam brought back on VHS from the video shop, it was the Don Bluth film that people forget as being a Don Bluth film and also that it was in fact created and produced in Ireland with the move of Sullivan Bluth Studios to Dublin.
There are many reasons for this and the most important one being that All Dogs Go To Heaven was released in 1989 on the 17th of November the same day as Disney’s massive hit The Little Mermaid, it is widely known as the film that begun the Disney Renaissance. A hard act to go up against and was most of the criticism given to “All Dogs Go To Heaven” as it was compared to its Disney rival. All-Dogs-go-to-HeavenIt was criticized for its quality in animation, disjointed narrative and musical attempt with sings from T.J Kuenster and Charlie Strouse. Not to mention the fire it came under for its darker than Disney subject matter which was seen as perhaps too bleak for a family film.
One thing the Sullivan Bluth Studio’s never did was shy away from the darker a narrative that was perhaps too grown up for a family audience because there always was a message or lesson to be learned from it that could register to real life.
It is not a surprise that All Dogs Go To Heaven is considered a forgotten film with it not reaching the same success as its predecessors An American Tail and The Land Before Time which beat out the Disney releases of the same time. All Dogs Go To Heaven is however one of the bestselling home video releases selling over 3 million copies in its first month of release. It was popular enough to spawn a theatrical release sequel All Dogs Go To Heaven 2, a television series of the same name and a Christmas special set to the narrative of “A Christmas Carol”, none of these however involved Don Bluth.
There was also a grim aspect to the release of All Dogs Go To Heaven as it was child voice actress Judith Barsi who played Anne-Marie in the films last film before she was killed by her father in 1988, she was 10 years old.
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My Full Experience

I was not joking when I said this was the film your Mom unexpectedly came back with from the rental place as a treat back in the nineties. That’s how I first came across it and until now I was fully convinced it had been released in the mid-nineties and not at the end of the 1980’s. Watching it again feels the same as when I watched back in 1995, it holds the same value as when I first watched it.
All Dogs Go To Heaven tells the story of Charlie B. Barkin a scruffy German Shepard (played by Burt Reynolds) who is murdered by his business partner but deserts heaven to return to Earth where he teams up with his best buddy Itchy and an orphan girl by the name of Anne-Marie who can speak and understand animals. Although Charlie’s original intention is to use her for his own selfish gains and means she slowly begins to teach him about how to be honest, loving and most importantly loyalty.

The title is a giveaway that there is a dark tone to this film from the very beginning, it does not shy away from the issues that it is tackling, the main one being death is imminent. It takes a life lesson that most parents find difficult or feel they cannot explain to a child. Critics slammed this film for having a dark narrative but in reality I learned more from this film that any other from the house of mouse and I’d count myself as one of the biggest fans of Disney, this film treated kids as future adults. While it wasn’t shy on including ‘kiddy’ aspects, with plenty of musical numbers and childish jokes it had a more adult look with far more black humor than any other family film at the time and watching it again now I can see and appreciate the film more than I would have as a child.
Seems cliché to say that a child’s film taught you a life lesson now a days because every child’s film now is shoving some sort of message or life lesson at you blatantly with no finesse of how it is portrayed, All Dogs Go To Heaven tries to show a message to the viewer without literally coming out and telling you it is there, for example you see the inner struggle within Charlie to save himself or to save Anne-Marie, a child could see that as you must alligatormomentalways think of others before yourself where as an adult watching this can see it as much more, this is someone laying down their life for another person.
Also this is a film that is famous for a scene that has been used to explain unnecessary or random never mentioned again moments in films, that scene has been dubbed a “Big Lip Alligator Moment.” A scene so randomly placed about a singing homosexual alligator that it has become a placeholder for internet critics to use to explain all other random scenes.
All Dogs Go To Heaven” is one of those forgotten classic that still holds up even now and it still successfully makes this viewer weep like the little girl she was and is.
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