Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Hoze Houndz"

Have you ever wondered why firefighters usually have pet dalmatians? Well, it's because before the fire engine was invented, firefighters got around via horse-drawn carriages. Dalmatians and horses are pretty compatible, so they trained the dogs to run in front of the carriages to help clear a path and guide the horses, and then to calm the horses down when they get to the place that's on fire. When the horses were phased out, the firefighters kept the dalmatians around, though they tend to stay at the fire stations nowadays.

The dalmatian standing proudly alongside firefighters is such an iconic image, isn't it? So it's no surprise that eventually someone came up with the idea of a cartoon show where the dalmatians actually WERE the firefighters. That someone was a Mr. Gerald Tripp, and that cartoon was Hoze Houndz.

Hoze Houndz premiered on Family Channel in October 1999. It starred six firefighting dalmatians - Hozer, Squirt, Steamer, Fontaine, Crystal, and Brooke - living in a world of anthropomorphic cats and dogs, specifically in the town of Bonehead Hollow. For a lesser-known cartoon, it actually did pretty well, receiving six seasons. I have no idea if the show ever aired in the United States (we don't have Family Channel over here, do we?), which is likely the reason for its obscurity. But what luck, you can find episodes of the show on YouTube!

So, is Hoze Hounds any good? We'll be watching the episodes "High Bred Hound" and "Hozer, I Shrunk the Houndz" to find out.

The episode starts off with the Hoze Houndz (called that because "Z"s are cooler than "S"s are, apparently) being called in to handle a wild rampaging boar. Seems more like a job for Animal Control than firefighters... do they even have Animal Control in a world populated by anthropomorphic pets?

Everybody knows that cats are a wild boar's natural prey.

Some WHACKY SHENANIGANS ensure thanks to Crystal's stupidity, filling the mansion with mud. To Brooke's shock, her parents - neither of whom appear to be dalmatians like she is (maybe she's adopted?) - are there as well. It's their house! And apparently Brooke never told them that she's a firefighter.

I wonder if in this world, it's just sort of expected for dalmatians to get jobs as firefighters. Y'know, like how it's just sort of expected for really tall people to become basketball players or for muscular people to get jobs as wrestlers.

Why WOULDN'T Brooke tell her parents that she's a firefighter? That's one of the most
respected jobs in the world!

Brooke's parents send her upstairs to put on some dry clothes and have their butler throw the other Hoze Houndz out. Wow, nice way of treating canines who SAVE LIVES, Mr. and Mrs. Snooty Dogs. They debate whether or not they should go on without Brooke. Crystal, who reminds me a lot of Janice from the Muppets, says that, like, family is, like, soooooo important. Fer sure, rully.

"So then I said, 'Look, Mother, it's my life, okay? So if I want to live on the beach and walk around
naked, I..."

But there's no time to talk about it further, because they get a call about some ding-dong in distress down at the bell tower. Alas, the Hoze Houndz are pretty incompetent without Brooke, which is going to make saving the dog version of Quasimodo... or should that be QuasimoDOG? Ha. I amuse myself... anyhow, it's gonna make saving the hunchback dog difficult.

So does this mean that Bonehead Hollow is somewhere in Paris?

Back at the mansion, Brooke tries to tell her parents that she's a firefighter, but she's not having much luck. They'd much rather throw her a fancy party and talk in their stereotypical snooty rich person accents. When the other Hoze Houndz try to call her, the butler deletes their number because he thinks of firefighters as lower class riffraff. Again, these people SAVE LIVES. This is a really disrespectful way to treat firefighters.

So Hozer, Squirt, Steamer, Crystal, and Fontaine decide to just go and get Brooke. But how will they get past that tool of a butler? They're not exactly the poster dogs for rich and refined.

I take it the fat one's main character trait is that he loves to eat.

The Hoze Houndz walk into Brooke's parents' mansion dressed in fancy clothing. Well, at least three of them are wearing fancy clothing... Crystal, it would seem, skinned Barney the Dinosaur and made a suit out of his hide, and the short one's getup makes him look like he's going to start boogieing to "Stayin' Alive".

Pictured: five dogs who shouldn't have to wear fancy clothing to be welcome at a party
considering they're, y'know, FIREFIGHTERS.

The tall skinny one and the short one (they haven't mentioned any of the male ones' names yet, so I'm not sure which one is Hozer, which one is Steamer, etc... I'm guessing the short one is Squirt because that's a name usually given to someone who's tiny) get distracted by some good-looking female dogs, turning them into a couple of horndogs (ha ha ha, dog puns). The fat one, whose name is revealed to be Steamer, gets into some WHACKY SHENANIGANS while trying to get at the dessert tray, and the tall skinny one (I'm assuming his name is Hozer) goes flying off a ladder and into a cake.

"You girls must be my backyard, 'cause I really dig you!"

Needless to say, the Hoze Houndz fit about as well at a swanky party full of rich snobs as a Yankees fan at a Red Sox convention. At that very moment, the boar from earlier is drinking out of the toilet, only to wind up falling in and clogging it. So in this world of anthropomorphic dogs and cats, pigs are the equivalent of dogs? That's a bit odd. I wonder what the equivalent of cats are... maybe sheep?

"Please don't question why I, a French bulldog, am the father of a dalmatian. Anthropomorphic
dog genetics are weird!"

Eventually, the pressure from the pipes builds up too much, and they burst.

This is why you shouldn't let pigs drink out of the toilet. Well, that and because it's disgusting.

The parents wind up hanging from a chandelier, and Brooke orchestrates a plan to get them down. "Mom, Dad, these are my friends. I work with them at the fire station," she says once they pull it off. "And what's more, I wanna KEEP working with them, not hang out at some silly party." The dad then admits that they don't like these fancy parties either, they just figured Brooke would want one. The mom prefers repairing vintage motorcycles and the dad is taking up surfing. What a twist!

I imagine it's much easier to chase cars when you're on a motorcycle. Y'know, 'cause they're dogs.

Brooke falls asleep... and that's it. That's how it ends. Uh, okay then... next segment.

Hmmm, I wonder what 1989 movie this one was inspired by... I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Twister?

After having to deal with some sort of problem at a hockey game, Fontaine (the brunette female dog who doesn't wear glasses, I think?) asks Crystal how on Earth she can be so peppy all the time. She explains that it's because of her tofu power drink, which she takes one teaspoon of a week.  A little goes a long way.

"Like, I got it from a guy at Nickelodeon. He said that it was what they used to make their
trademark green slime!"

The other Hoze Houndz aren't exactly tempted to drink something that looks like a blended frog. "My body is a temple. And slimy green gunk is against my religion!" Squirt declares. Hozer (the tall skinny one) and Fontaine decide that they're all out of shape... I dunno, maybe Steamer is, but the others seem pretty trim to me... so the next morning they're gonna start doing some exercise.

But in the middle of the night, everyone except Crystal and Hozer sneaks over to the refrigerator and guzzles down some of that Grinch-colored glop (despite Squirt's saying earlier that drinking slimy green gunk went against his religion). By morning, they all have plenty of energy. But they also look a bit smaller. In Steamer's case, just barely.

So, it gives them more energy, but it also causes them to shrink? I'm a little confused
by this...

By the time they're done with their brisk morning job, Steamer, Brooke, Squirt, and Fontaine are teeny-tiny, and Hozer towers over them. Squirt is very annoyed by the fact that he's still the shortest of the bunch.

Just a recap - drinking more than a teaspoon per week of this fancy tofu energy drink causes you to shrink down in size? Shouldn't there be a warning label on that jar? "DON'T DRINK TOO MUCH OF THIS OR YOU'LL SLOWLY SHRINK DOWN TO THE SIZE OF AN ANT"? Why is this stuff even still being made? Why aren't there more reports of dogs drinking too much Tasty Paste and shrinking?

"Hey, from this angle I can see up Hozer's nose!"

Adding to the pint-sized dogs' stress is that Crystal and Hozer can't hear or see them (even though they're not THAT small), so they're unable to get their attention. Then the fire truck rolls their way and they get squashed under the gigantic tires, killing them instantly.

Just kidding. They survive the squashing, but they have even MORE problems to worry about. Because Hozer is washing the fire truck, they have to put up with water from the hose dousing them. And then Crystal comes out with a teaspoon of the energy drink - with cranberry juice added for flavor - and some of it falls on them, shrinking them down even more. Then what should show up but a GIANT BUG.

"Buzz. Gotta go find blood to suck. Buzz. 'Cause I'm a mosquito and that's what we do. Buzz.
That's odd, my back suddenly feels a bit heavier..."

Eventually, they make it back into the fire station, and thanks to Squirt's magnified image in a glass of water, Crystal manages to spot (no pun intended, even though they're dalmatians) them. They fall into the blender, and then Hozer sees them and figures out what's going on... right before unknowingly turning on the blender. Uh oh...

Fortunately, Crystal dumps them out of the blender and onto a cold pizza. How will they ever get back to normal size? Apparently, the only way they can is through exercise... but in that case, shouldn't the exercise that they were doing earlier have offset the shrinking power of the energy drink?

They should consider suing the company that makes the energy drink? Seriously, shouldn't there
be a warning label on the jar?

And that's it. That's how it ends. We don't see them get back to normal size, but I assume they do off-camera. Otherwise it'd be pretty hard for them to be, y'know, firefighters.

What's the Verdict?

This was okay. Most of the jokes are funny, the animation is decent, the characters are a bit flat but likeable (Crystal can get kind of annoying with her stereotypical valley girl voice, but I could stomach her fine), and the voice actors all do a good job. It's not the greatest cartoon ever, but if you want something light-hearted and goofy, it gets the job done. Of the two segments I watched, I liked "Hozer, I Shrunk the Houndz" more than "High Bred Hound" simply because of how strange it was. I was expecting them to encounter some sort of dog scientist with a shrinking ray and THAT'S how they would get shrunken, but nope, it's because of a tofu energy drink. I feel like there's supposed to be a moral about using something only as directed, but I don't know if it's pulled off super-well.

Incidentally, can you believe that it's a cartoon about dalmatians and yet I didn't make one One Hundred and One Dalmatians joke in the entire review? Nor did I make any puns about spots (for example, "It's easy to SPOT the dalmatians in a crowd!" or something along those lines)? That's pretty impressive.