Feelings on The Dogfather cartoons were a very mixed bag as a child, they had their moments but DePatie-Freleng Enterprises did far better and far more memorable theatrical series. Decided to watch all the cartoons to see out of curiosity how well they stood up by young adult standards, whether they would be better on rewatch, the same or worse. Some of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' theatrical series were good, some were mediocre at best or in one case bad.
'Mother Dogfather' signals the first and only appearance of Crazylegs Crane in the Dogfather series, and the last of his DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' supporting character appearances before he went on to star on his own (very poor) theatrical series. Never cared for him as a character and 'Mother Dogfather' does nothing to change my mind. Also found this cartoon to be one of the weaker cartoons in the series, despite a few good things it felt rather mediocre as an overall whole.
It is compensated by the voice work of Bob Holt, who voices Pug with grit and vigour and his voice work for the Dogfather with strong influences of Marlon Brando's Don Corleone and Peter Falk's Columbo is fun too. He does have some amusing lines and of the gags the ending is by far the best part, the only part that is memorable really and where this reviewer laughed out loud.
Pug is a mix of tough and bumbling, but the best character is the crafty Dogfather. The music is suitably dynamic and upbeat with a catchy theme song.
Crazylegs however doesn't do it for me, here he is really bland with not much personality, so it was difficult to sympathise with a character despite what he goes through. Not much crafty here and he also comes over as rather idiotic, the moment he realised that the bundle was heavier he should have deducted that it was something different. He also doesn't really fit within this premise, where the opponents are crafty and clever and not goofy, putting Crazylegs in a series spoofing gangsters and the Godfather is like putting an elephant in the Antarctic or something. His chemistry is very disconnected with Pug and the Dogfather.
Other than the ending, there is very little that is amusing, let alone funny. Due to all the gags (which is not actually that many) being ones we've seen many times before and much better, how many times for example have we seen variations on the alligators gag. There is nothing fresh or imaginative about the material and the cartoon is very low on energy. The story is thin and also very derivative, reminding me strongly of 'Stork Naked', almost everything here could be seen coming from some way off from when it happens. Even the ending is not that much of a surprise.
The animation quality is very simplistic and sparsely detailed, as well as looking very sickly in the colours. While liking Holt's voice acting, Larry D Mann's too oafish voice working never gelled with Crazylegs' look (which is not indicative of a dumb sounding character).
In conclusion, mediocre. 4/10.
