Music For Animals

I have to say that I was very disappointed after watching The Greatest American Dog – or rather, after watching about five minutes of the show.

I was hoping that someone in Hollywood had finally got it right vis-a vis creating a reality show based on animal content – dogs specifically. Once again it seems that people creating shows about animals have missed the boat by featuring the owners, not the dogs.

I was involved with a show on Lifetime with the same problem – the writers and/or producers seemed to have forgotten that a show called something like The Greatest American Dog should be about dogs – not the people who own them. Anyone tuning in to the show for the first time is doing so because they love dogs – not because they want see people they don’t care about trying to get famous through their dogs.

I also noticed that there didn’t seem to be any mutts involved – dogs or people. Beverly Hills all the way. There’s nothing wrong with Beverly Hills but I certainly think some other neighborhood might have been included. After all, it is called the Greatest American Dog and most dogs in America are mutts. The whole show was a mish-mosh of the worst of three or four other reality shows currently on air. Doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of creative originality going on in Hollywood land these days.

Why the producers didn’t go to shelters for a contestant or include rescue dogs or guide dogs or war dogs or fire dogs or just plain dogs is a mystery to me. It seems like the people who created the Greatest American Dog didn’t really like dogs at all. I wonder if any of them actually own a dog.

I personally couldn’t have cared less about the human contestants - or the hosts for that matter. They were interchangeable with every other Hollywood reality show and boring from he start. I don’t think it was their fault, I think probably it was the direction of both the actors and the show.

The whole program reeked of corporate Hollywood. Those guys should get out in the real world a tad more. If you’re going to do a program about dogs – especially the Greatest American Dog – do a show about dogs. If you would like to see a great American Dog google Skid Boot.

CBS has a chance to do some really good things for dogs and the network itself. All they need to do is get some people on the show that actually seem to like dogs as opposed hanging around the swimming pool swirling champagne. Maybe it’ll pick up, but I doubt it. It’s very hard to screw up something that is canine based, but I’m sorry to say I believe the Greatest American Dog has achieved that distinction.

It’s really too bad. The only thing missing on the Greatest American Dog were the dogs.