Snoopy, Lassie, Marmaduke, Beethoven, UnderDog, and even Huckleberry Hound had their moment of glory over the years. Some were flashes in the pan and others have become social icons. Dog posters of these characters are easy to find, but what about some of the more obscure canine companions? For every superstar, there were at least ten not-so-famous pups who could use a little recognition. Some of them have become enduring symbols and others are just what they are supposed to be, man’s best friend, always by our side and never looking for recognition for their achievements.

Since the early 20th century, there have been movies and famous artists portraying dogs of all breeds doing heroic and hilarious things that have earned them at least one mention. Before 1900, there were artists who painted dogs, some of whom became famous for other works. That also happened in recent years, as you will read below. If you’re a dog lover and trivia aficionado, this is a list you’ll definitely want to check out. It is not numbered or ranked, because there is no way to rate one dog as more important than another. However, it is a list of important four-legged furry friends who have quietly made history. You will definitely be surprised by some of the little known facts found here.

Rover’s real name was Blair

Hollywood has glamorized dogs since they started making movies in the early 20th century. In 1905, a silent film called Rescued by Rover showed a heroic collie saving a baby from a beggar woman who kidnapped her while the family nanny was distracted and talking to a handsome soldier. The film is widely considered to be the first film of any kind to use paid actors. The nursemaid, the soldier, and the beggar were given half a guinea to play their parts. The film was so successful that the filmmaker, the British Cecil Hepworth, had to shoot it twice. The negative from the first shooting wore off after several screenings. In both versions, Hepworth used his family dog ​​and his own young son. The dog’s name was not Rover. It was Blair.

Where would Annie have been without Sandy?

Little Orphan Annie, a popular comic strip character created by Harold Gray, first appeared in print on August 5, 1924 and ran virtually non-stop until June 13, 2010. During that time, she was loved and hated, respected and despised, pitied and envied, but there was always one constant: his dog Sandy. Like any good canine companion, Sandy stood by her through thick and thin, never wavering even when Gray’s politics threatened to scuttle her fledgling career. During her years on radio, from 1930 to 1942, Sandy had a speaking role in the introduction and a regular spot during the fifteen-minute afternoon show. Who did Sandy’s voice? Beginning in 1936, she was a little-known NBC employee named Orson Welles. He was twenty years old when he was first cast in the role, just two years before his famous broadcast of The War of the Worlds.

Mike, Fritzi, Rags, Bozo or Homer?

Most people have seen the dog poster from Disney’s 1955 animated film Lady and the Tramp, and most assume the stray dog’s name is simply “The Tramp.” There are friendly families who feed him and call him Mike or Fritzi, but neither of those is his real name. During the film, he is not specifically addressed by any title other than “The Tramp”. The cast of the film, the ones who did the voices, experimented with several different tags, including Rags and Bozo, but chose not to assign the poor pup when the film was finally released. For those of you who are fond of trivia, his real name, the one written in the original script, is Homer. Why is this historic? Homer and his friends were part of the first animated feature film shot in CinemaScope Widescreen, a revolutionary aspect that would change the field of filmmaking for decades to come: the 1960s and 1970s.

Andy Warhol and Maurice

Andy Warhol was an American painter and filmmaker whose 1963 painting The Eight Elvises sold for a record $100 million. The purchase made Warhol a legend, on a par with Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock. The painting, which is a screen print, is a portrait of Elvis Presley which, at the time of the sale, was owned by Italian art collector Annibale Berlingieri. The buyer is unknown. Warhol also produced another painting called Portrait of Maurice, a depiction of a dachshund that belonged to friend and fellow art collector Gabrielle Keiller. He can find reproductions of Maurice anywhere dog posters are sold for as little as $10 each. However, you won’t find it on any of the many Internet lists of famous Warhols, but the total sales of the image far exceed the selling price of The Eight Elvises. It seems that the small amounts really add up over time.

Toto – The Dog Who Saw in Color

They say dogs see in black and white, but there is one dog on this list that definitely saw things in color, at least once the house finally landed in the jolly old land of Oz. One of the most celebrated dog poster dogs of all time, Toto was the first Canis Lupus Familiaris to set foot in Munchkinland and will be forever immortalized for it. The film itself is ranked as the most viewed of all time and is credited with finally bringing vivid color to the film industry. Toto, however, was not the dog’s real name, nor was he the male dog Frank Baum created him to be. Toto was played by a female black cairn terrier named “Terry” and was a professional actress. She was paid $125 a week, which was $75 more than each of the munchkins made, and she broke her foot during production when one of the witch’s guards stepped on it. His owners, no doubt influenced by the popularity of the film, changed his name to Toto in real life after the film’s release in 1939. He lived to be eleven years old and is the only dog ​​on this list to have his own “autobiography”. “, written by Willard Carroll.

Copyright (c) 2010 Trey Markel