The Series
- Adorkable:
- Leonard is the shy, dorky and quiet protagonist of the show who just wants to fit in with everyone else. He also can’t speak around Leslie, whom he loves.
- Mrs. Helperman. She is Leonard’s mom, so being a total dork is completely inevitable. She’s perky, eccentric and has such a funny laugh that makes her all the more endearing.
- Aside from his gross out habits and mannerisms, Ian is still a sweet and lovable person. Plus, the fact that he’s considered an outcast can make you feel for him.
- Leslie is a sweet and pretty Girl Next Door who loves animals and is kind to everyone, regardless of social status.
- Even Younghee has earned a place on this section. Despite being a snarky tomboy, she still is petite and has a girly streak that isn’t seen too often.
- Awesome Art: You can really tell that they wanted to make the show look like Gary Baseman’s paintings came to life.
- Awesome Moments: In "Movin on Pup" When Leonard sees the fifth grade bullies throwing Spot in the trash like they did to himself before, he confronts them with a demonic growl that literally scares their pants off and makes them run away and he yells after them not to bother them anymore.
- Awesome Music:
- The background music for this show ran the gamut, from Classical to Gospel.
- Any catchy song that intended to teach you something; "Photosynthesis"
and "The Flipping Motion" are just to name a few.
- Broken Base: There are those who find Gary Baseman's art style to translate well to animation, and some who find it to be very garish and borderline Unintentional Uncanny Valley. It becomes even more divisive in the movie, where the colors become much brighter to capture a more cinematic quality.
- Canon Fodder: What happened to Leonard's dad?
- Cult Classic: Like every show from One Saturday Morning's last couple of seasons, this show has quite a dedicated fanbase.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The show has a bit of a following in Russia.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Spot and Mr. Jolly's campy, flamboyant attitudes as well as their Ho Yay moments with Leonard and Pretty Boy are even more hilarious after their respective voice actors Nathan Lane and David Ogden Stiers came out as gay.
- In the episode "A Dog For All Seasons" (Which was released in December 2000), Spot tries to figure out what kind of holiday dogs celebrate by going to a librarian, where she notes that she can't find any for dogs as Spot notes there are stories for other animals. The TV special, Olive, the Other Reindeer, in which a dog convinces Santa and his crew to fly with her as a replacement "Reindeer", was released a year prior; although the book was released originally in 1997. Sure, it's not a special about what dogs celebrate, but it's still a special about a dog.
- Jerkass Woobie: Fred Bitters from "Attack of the Fifty Inch Girl". Her father’s job keeps requiring them to move away and she can never make friends, so she acts out and bullies certain kids, since she will move by next semester, anyway.
- Moe:
- Emma.
- Just about all of the characters are as adorable as one another.
Doug Walker: The design of the characters I'd describe as "Beautifully Ugly"... - Nightmare Fuel: The Episode Title Card of the first episode "Muttamorphosis" depicting Spot slowly morphing into his human persona Scott is pretty unsettling.
- Also in the first episode, we get a closeup of Spot squashing a flea complete with blood.
- Older Than They Think: A dog disguises himself as a boy and tries to fit in at school? KaBlam! did it first with the short Stewy the Dogboy, which was planned to be made into a full series. However while both shows were pitched to their respective networks around the same time (1999), the pilot for Stewy the Dogboy ended up airing first. Disney greenlit Teacher's Pet before Nick could do the same for Stewy; thus causing the latter to be shelved.
- Periphery Demographic: A lot of adults watched the show as much as kids did.
- Tear Jerker:
- The scene in "Movin on Pup" where Leonard cries after the fifth graders throw him into the garbage and Spot didn’t even know that he was being picked on. Spot doesn’t defend himself at all, having realized he left Leonard behind.
- Spot deciding to leave his family and friends so he can be with Fifi. When he is about to say goodbye to Leonard, he realizes he can’t give up what he has just for some random girl he barely knows.
- "The Blight Before Christmas" where Moby and Charlotte's puppies are born in a freezing box shelter. If Spot didn’t find the Helpermans in time, they could’ve froze to death.
- Pretty Boy leaving everyone he loves in "The Grass Seed is Always Greener" so he can be free. Spot and Leonard want him to stay, but they decide to let him go, since he apparently wants this. To say nothing of Mr. Jolly starving himself because he can’t cope without Pretty.
- The ending to "Taint Valentine’s Day", where Younghee is revealed to secretly love Leonard and runs away after seeing him walk by.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- After having small cameos throughout the first season, it's revealed Principal Strickler's cat Tallulah not only can talk like the other animals in the show, but also subtly implies that she knows about Spot's alter ego as Scott Leadready II. Outside of the following episode "Saving Mr. Jolly", she never speaks throughout seasons two or three.
- Mrs. Helperman (or any of the other humans) never finding out that Scott is actually Spot or getting suspicious of him; although it's played around a few times.
Mrs. Helperman: Say... wouldn't it be fascinating if somehow a dog could transform himself into a little bo- Well... (Laughs a bit) I'm not going to give away my best ideas for science fiction short stories. - Trans Audience Interpretation: Spot wanting to be a human boy is often seen as a metaphor for being a transgender man by modern audiences, which admittedly makes the already divisive ending of the movie worse for some.
- The Woobie:
- Leonard. Poor Leonard. Always feeling put upon and given a hard time for his mom being the teacher.
- Ian, who is considered an outcast amongst his classmates.
The 2004 Film:
- Adaptation Displacement: The movie, despite not being very well known, is still more well-known than the television series. It doesn't help that it's the only part of the franchise that was released on VHS and DVD; although the series premiere episode is included on the DVD as a bonus feature.
- Anti-Climax Boss: Spot and Dr. Krank don’t have a real confrontation until the final act and even then, Krank is defeated pretty easily.
- Critical Dissonance: Received mostly positive reviews, as indicated by its 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Among audiences, it sits at a 48% approval. Even fans of the series weren't too impressed by it.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Leslie mentions that she has a Granny Smith who owns an apple farm.
- One of the lines in "Proud to Be a Dog", when mentioning that everything needs something else, is "Or a princess, a frog". When this line is sung, it shows Cinderella about to kiss a frog, which never happened in Cinderella. Five years later, The Princess and the Frog was released.
- It's Short, So It Sucks!: One criticism of the movie is that it was too short, even for one based on a show, which resulted in the ending feeling rushed. Some even think the movie should’ve been direct-to-video.
- Tear Jerker:
- Spot deciding to become Leonard’s stepdad in order to stay with him. Not only is Leonard furious with that idea, but he is also hurt that his own dog would risk their friendship for the sake of his dream.
- Leonard ordering Spot to relinquish his collar and ID tag after the former decides to end their friendship and kick him out. When Spot sadly leaves, Leonard begins to regret his words.
- The scene where Spot walks down a beach and sees a boy playing with his dog, also named Spot.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Despite being the main villain of the movie, Krank only gets a small amount of screen time. Despite his goal of trying to capture Spot, he doesn’t do anything about it and spends most of the movie yelling at people.
- We don't get to see Dennis and Adele trying to track Spot and Leonard down or get to see their backstory.
- Uncertain Audience: While the movie did receive positive reviews, the fact that it's a theatrically released movie based on a rather obscure Saturday morning cartoon makes it pretty hard to understand what Disney was trying to accomplish, as people who aren't familiar with, or at least aren't fans of the cartoon are unlikely to get into the rather unorthodox animation style and bizarre tone, while fans of the series aren't likely to be fond of the short runtime and overall uncinematic experience.
