Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
I honestly didn’t expect there to be a sixth episode of ‘Dug Days’, the mini spin-off series from the 2009 Disney/Pixar animated film called ‘Up’, which was released on Disney+ in 2021. Apparently, ‘Carl’s Date’ was released recently as the short film before the Disney/Pixar film called ‘Elemental’ at cinemas.
I’ve yet to see ‘Elemental’. 😐 I greatly enjoyed watching ‘Carl’s Date’ on Disney+. It was nice to see this sixth and final entry in the ‘Dug Days’ series after checking out the first five episodes to commemorate Ed Asner (Carl Fredricksen’s voice actor), who had sadly passed away before the series’ release in 2021.
As well as Ed Asner voicing Carl in the episode, there’s Bob Peterson as Dug. Bob Peterson is also the writer and director of ‘Carl’s Date’, having helmed the first five episodes of ‘Dug Days’. He also voices Alpha (now Beta) who was in the ‘Up’ film. Beta talks to Dug whilst Carl is on the phone to someone. 🙂
That someone happens to be a potential love interest of Carl’s, who he’s reluctant to go on a date with since his late wife Ellie’s death. The short film has Carl trying to figure out how dating works and he has Dug help him in his doggy way. It was fun to see the interaction between Carl and Dug in this story.
What’s interesting about this short film is that we don’t get to see the love interest make an appearance. She’s called Ms. Meyers and she’s an elder living at a nursing home. I believe this was the nursing home that Carl was supposed to go to before he ended up flying in his house with balloons. 🙂
I revisited ‘Carl’s Date’ on Disney+ and I noticed that we don’t get to hear Ms. Meyer’s voice when Carl is on the phone to her. We hear Alpha/Beta’s voice certainly when Dug talks to him, since Ms. Meyers owns Alpha/Beta now. But no vocal or physical appearance is made by Ms. Meyers in this little film. 😐
The film concludes on an open-ended note where Carl is on his way to his date with Ms. Meyers and Dug accompanies him. I assume Carl did meet up with Ms. Meyers, but we’ll never know, as that is the last of the ‘Dug Days’ series. 😐 It would have been interesting to see where the series went after this.
It was funny when Dug made dog-related suggestions to impress Ms. Meyers, e.g. buying her a toy. Carl goes out to get some things to prepare for his date, so long as he remembers his house keys and goes in the right direction to the shops. Dug is confused, and convinced his ‘papa’ should go to the vet. 😀
The things that Carl buys from the shops include numerous boxes of chocolate and getting some flowers from his garden. He also practices dancing with Dug, which I found funny when watching the episode. 🙂 He also practices having dinner with Dug as his date. It doesn’t work due to the things Dug says.
Carl also dyes his hair black, which confuses Dug even further, as he’d led to think there’s a stranger in the house. I found Dug’s reactions and how Bob Peterson voices him hilarious, especially the surprise reaction Dug in realising the stranger was really Carl this whole time. 🙂 Dogs must get confused easily. 😀
There’s one point where Carl decides to give up and call off the date with Ms. Meyers. But Dug wrestles the phone away from Carl, destroying it in the process, and he tells him that he should go out on the date and not worry. I like how Dug told Carl to go out on his date with Ms. Meyers in his doggy way. 🙂
I also liked it when before leaving for the date, Carl speaks to Ellie through her photo and tells her that he’s going on a new adventure, and she’ll always be his girl. It’s a nice way to close the ‘Up’ story that’s been going on with Carl as well as set up a potential new chapter, which we’ll sadly never get to see. 🙂
‘Carl’s Date’ has been an enjoyable final episode in the ‘Dug Days’ series. I’m glad I got to see it on Disney+ and I’m glad it was saved for a special occasion two years after Ed Asner’s death. I should do a review on ‘Up’ someday. I hope I’ll get the chance to do, since I have the movie on DVD already. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
Bradley's Basement 