Why the dead dog?

[on:]

All the joy went out of it in the episode with the fossilised dog.  The scene at the end where you saw it sitting in the rain and pining was horrible.  Not funny.  Don't see the point.

Pets routinely die in The Simpsons but you never see anything.  The actual protrayal of an animal suffering over a long period was a terrible thing to show.  Can anybody tell me the point?

[Reply #1 on:]

Hmm... Why do people watch dramatic movies where the main character dies a slow, horrible traumatic death from cancer?  Why do people enjoy war movies where you see the bloody deaths of thousands of people?  Sadly, because it's entertaining.  Personally, I don't give a rats ass about cartoon dogs when you look at the fact that by the time I die, I'll have seen 1 million deaths from movies and television, or whatever the statistic is.

In my humble opinion, the point was to create an entertaining show.  If you want to dig a little deeper, the episode painted a nice picture of loyalty and friendship. 

The dog was emotionally suffering, not being beaten with a baseball bat.  I just don't see what the big problem is.  I would complain about shows that show the murder and torture of people before getting upset about a mutt that lost his master.

That said, I did cry at the end anyway.

Oh, and welcome to PEEL.   

[Reply #2 on:]

The cruellest moment in Futurama, in my opinion.

[Reply #3 on:]

the end of every show is cruel for me!

[Reply #4 on:]

hmm what about the fact that it probably wont be any more episodes.

There are threads similar to this but get a grip, it's a cartoon ofr god's sake

[Reply #5 on:]

I think Kloudes point about digging deeper to a story of loyalty and friendship comes closest to answering my question.

It may be just a cartoon but that makes the whole thing even more premeditated.  That scene was plotted, planned and then drawn one frame at a time.  That's pretty cold.  So my point was what did people think the writer's were trying to evoke in their audience.  I think Kloude has answered that quite well.

I also wanted to see if a group of people who are self confessed fans of the program had any degree of sympathy with the effect it had or whether you'd all just flame me. 

[Reply #6 on:]

There's already a discussion about the episode here -
 http://www.peelified.com/cgi-bin/Futurama/3-000673-1/