Napoleon, The Puppy Who Conquered My Ten-Year-Old Heart

 In honor of National Dog Day on August 26th, I recently revisited a favorite movie from my childhood, that I'm not sure if many others will remember:

Napoleon.

Napoleon is one of those movies from my childhood favorite genre, "adorable talking animal goes on an adventure and learns a life lesson". This genre seems to more or less have been lost since the 90s ended, and that honestly makes me feel very sad when I think about it.

Napoleon was probably my absolute favorite of the genre back in the day, even though it was far less widely known than movies like Homeward Bound or Babe. (I loved those movies as well, even once wrote my mom an emotional letter about why she should buy me Babe: Pig In The City on VHS, but Napoleon is my standout.) It was apparently released first in Australia in 1995, and didn't make it to its US direct-to-video release until 1997, which would mean I was ten years old when I first saw it. I believe my first time becoming aware of it was at the home of a woman who used to babysit all of the neighborhood kids. I can't recall now if I actually watched  it there, or just saw the VHS cover, but I remember renting it from the local video store shortly after the fact, and it became my go-to movie for quite awhile. 

Napoleon is the story of a puppy named Muffin, who longs to be taken more seriously, and seen as "tough" rather than an adorable house pet. Outside of his owners' home, he frequently hears the call of the "wild dogs", and longs to run with them. He hates his cutesy name, begging to be called "Napoleon" by his mother. On the day of a child's birthday party at his home, Muffin jumps into a basket with many balloons tied to it, and winds up on a makeshift hot air balloon ride out of the city and into the wild, where he attempts to fully embrace the wild dog persona he's created for himself, officially as Napoleon. 

Napoleon encounters many different animals in his quest to find the wild dogs, befriending a tropical bird named Birdo, and running afoul of a cat who's completely lost her mind after living alone in the wild for so long, and believes every living being she encounters is a mouse. Eventually, Napoleon comes to find that the howls he's been hearing and believing to be the "wild dogs", have actually been coming from a lizard. Dejected, he heads off to find shelter from a desert rain storm, only to encounter what he believes to be two other lost puppies. After saving one of the puppies from drowning in a flood, their mother comes home and Napoleon realizes that he has been with the actual wild dogs. Typical children's movie life lessons play out, and after the wild dog mother agrees to let Napoleon stay, he realizes that he was happier back home with his own mother, and that he never had to prove his bravery by becoming "wild" after all. On the journey back home, he encounters a penguin with similar sentiments to himself at the beginning of the movie, and becomes the voice of reason. He soon reunites with his mother, who finally agrees to call him "Napoleon". The final shot of the movie is of the villainous feral cat appearing outside of Napoleon's home, finally acknowledging to herself that he is not a mouse but a dog, and that the dog must die. I've always wondered (and as a child, greatly hoped) that this was setting up for a sequel adventure, but that never came to fruition. From an adult perspective it's actually kind of grim that they ended the movie on that note, but then I've never liked a cliffhanger with no resolution. Regardless, the movie made me smile just as much at almost 38 years old as it did when I was ten. 

As per usual when I revisit a movie that I hyperfixated on in my childhood, I surprised myself by remembering so much of the plot, along with the lyrics to pretty much every song in the movie. My ten year old self was absolutely obsessed with the songs, particularly How Far I'll Fly and My Hills To Climb, and I was truly always singing them. When the former started playing in the movie, I immediately turned into a kid again, dramatically throwing my arms out and singing along as if I myself were a puppy flying into the wild. I'm not sure how long it had been since I'd watched the movie prior to this viewing, but I know it's at least twenty-five years. It's crazy to think of how old these childhood favorites are now.

If anyone else has fond memories of Napoleon, I would love to hear about them! And if you've never seen it but love cute animals and a fun little adventure, I highly recommend it for all the nostalgic puppy-love feels.

My Not-So-Little Obsession With Littlest Pet Shop

 Today I'd like to take you on a journey into another of my most intense childhood hyperfixations. (Is it as intense as the one that made my parents believe I'd been molested ? Perhaps not, I don't think anything can top that, but still.) 

I was born in 1987, and was therefore pretty much the perfect age for the OG Littlest Pet Shop toys when they debuted in the early 90s. I've always been an animal lover, and there were so many different animals to collect, and so many fun little features. I have a very distinct memory of my very first one being a purple bird with a little cage, with a swing he could balance on, who'd flap his wings when you pressed his head.

(Not my picture, this is from an Etsy listing, but this is the exact one I had, and apparently it was actually a toucan, not a parrot.) 

One Christmas I got both what I believe was called the "Kitty Club Treehouse", and some sort of pretty igloo set with a bunch of husky puppies, and I spent all morning playing with them until relatives started arriving.

(Again, not my pictures, but these two sets, particularly the igloo, are things I could actually see myself rebuying one day.)

I was particularly obsessed with a certain line of horses, and my grandfather helped me collect them all from a local shop.

(I distinctly remember this one being the first one I got, and she remained my favorite even after I completed the collection. She's the only one who really sticks out in my mind.)

Another favorite of mine was a shih tzu from some kind of pet show line, which I pronounced "shy tazoo" at first. 

There even was a board game that I was absolutely obsessed with playing. Usually my mom would play it with me, and I'd beg her just about every night. You had to collect matching cards to be able to adopt one of the four pet figurines that came with the game, and I was absolutely obsessed with the bunny. If whoever I was playing with managed to adopt the bunny before I did, it broke me, despite the fact that I could very easily simply remove the bunny from the game box and play with her at any time. I don't actually recall having any other LPS bunnies, save for the little one that came with the igloo set, oddly enough. 

One day, though, just a few days after my eighth birthday, I came home from school to my mother telling me she had a surprise for me: Littlest Pet Shop had just debuted as a TV series!

I was over the moon. It came on just before I would've been getting home, so my mom actually recorded the episode for me and I couldn't wait to watch. When I finally did, though, I was incredibly thrown off.

The characters looked absolutely nothing like the toys. They were so stylized and strange to me. I was very confused as to how and why they were calling this "Littlest Pet Shop" when it didn't even appear to be taking place in the same universe. 

The series centered around five specific pets within the titular "Littlest Pet Shop": Stu, a bumbling blue dog, Chloe, a purple cat who was sort of the voice of reason and would often talk about her previous lives, Viv, a pink bunny with musical talent and a hat that held more than you could ever imagine, Squeaks, a monkey, the most normal looking of the five and the only one that didn't actually speak, and Chet, a yellow and blue horse who was established as being the newest member of the group in an early episode. They went on bizarre adventures, and often would get adopted out only to return to the shop. There's not really one specific episode that sticks out to me, unfortunately, but I'd love to see them all again one day.

As bizarre as the show was to me at first, it only took an episode or two for me to get absolutely hooked. I fell in love with the characters, particularly Chloe and Viv, and Littlest Pet Shop became my favorite show for its entire run. (Which apparently was only one season, but these things always feel longer when you're a child.)

One evening in early spring 1996, my mother and I stopped in Toys R Us after the family had been out to eat at a nearby IHOP. I can't remember if we had a particular objective or what, but I was super surprised to see a very small, carded plushie of Viv available on one of their shelves. I was super excited, and my mother bought her for me. I remember the back of the package showed that Chloe, Stu, and Squeaks were also available. It became my holy mission to find Chloe, which I eventually did, but I never saw Stu or Squeaks on a store shelf. I'm not sure why they didn't bother to make Chet, but I feel like every 90s cartoon series always had that one character that never had a toy made of them. 

Anyway, once I had that little Viv plushie, she became my constant companion. I have very vivid memories of sitting with her in the evenings and writing in my diary, telling her about my day, and just taking her along pretty much everywhere I went. 

Chloe was probably actually my very favorite character on the show, but I don't remember forming such an attachment to the little plushie of her once I had it. I was happy with it, sure, and we actually had a little secret club of sorts called "Scatland", where we'd sit at the very back of the hallway by my bedroom (right in front of my grandfather's bedroom door, actually) and write down "secrets" about my classmates and family members, AKA random things I learned, or things I suspected about them, such as who I thought might have crushes on each other in school, or the one time on the way to my grandparents' house when my father suddenly pulled over to the side of the road because he had to pee. I also have a very distinct memory of one of the secrets being "I suspect my parents still have sex." Hey, I was eight. "Scatland" also had two entities presiding over it named "Skidoocat" and "Windowcat", though I don't really remember what their functions were. "Skidoocat", I believe was regarded as a god of some kind, while "Windowcat" was his messenger, if I recall correctly. I have no idea how or why I came up with any of this, and these two characters were never represented outside of just images in my mind, though I think I did dream about them once. 

My final real memory of collecting anything Littlest Pet Shop related is of a small pink plush cat named Cupcake, who also became part of the "Scatland" roster.

It seems as though Cupcake here came out toward the end of the OG LPS run. I'm not sure exactly how or when I moved on from my love for all things LPS, but I do have a very distinct memory of writing in my childhood diary one day, years later, probably when I was ten or eleven, about realizing how much I missed it and how much simpler life was even then, though I was still a child. I think I very briefly tried to bring back "Scatland" in my tween years, but it was never the same. 

Littlest Pet Shop did make a comeback in my adult years, with far more stylized figures and a connection to Blythe dolls, and I did try to collect all of the spiders at one point, but I never got super into it, and it still weirds me out to think that this is the LPS that more people seem to know.

Anyway, my main inspiration for writing this post is the fact that, finally, after all these years, I've managed to find a Viv plushie of my own again. I've been searching on and off for her for years, but I feel like not very many of the cartoon plushies were made, as they seem to be extremely rare. Chloe is the only one I've seen pop up somewhat frequently. 

I'm very happy to have this little piece of my childhood back with me, and this has been super fun to relive. If anyone else remembers the 1995 LPS cartoon, please let me know!