18 August: Pluto (Disney character)

On this date in 1930, Pluto The Dog first appeared in The Chain Gang by Walt Disney. 10 things you didn’t know about Pluto:

1. He’s one of the “Sensational Six” Disney characters along with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald and Daisy Duck and Goofy.
2. He is Mickey Mouse’s pet dog, and he is of mixed breed. Unlike the other biggest Disney stars, he’s not anthropomorphic and not dressed as a human.
3. When he first appeared in The Chain Gang he didn’t have a name and wasn’t Mickey’s friend at all – Mickey had escaped from prison and Pluto was the bloodhound tracking him down. In his second film, The Picnic, he was Minnie’s pet and was called Rover.
4. So why change it to Pluto? The people at the Disney studios decided Rover was too common a name for a dog and wanted something more unusual. So they started calling him Pluto the Pup. It just so happens that the planet Pluto was named the same year. The Disney Corporation says it has no evidence that there’s any connection, but the animators at the time believed Disney named Mickey’s pet Pluto to take advantage of the furore over the naming of a new planet.
5. The first time Pluto had a lead role was in a cartoon called Playful Pluto, in which he gets stuck in fly paper.
6. Pluto doesn’t speak, but rather shows his emotions through facial expressions. His barks and sounds are produced by the same voice artist who does the voice of Goofy.
7. Pluto’s love interests are Fifi the Pekinese and Dinah the Dachshund. It would appear to be Fifi who wins his heart in the end and becomes Mrs Pluto. They have five puppies which appear in the 1937 short film Pluto’s Quin-Puplets. The fact that the Dionne Quintuplets were causing a sensation around that time is not a coincidence. In 1942 Pluto appeared with a son, Pluto Junior who may or may not have been one of the five.
8. Pluto also has a brother called K.B.
9. More than 40 US military units during WWII chose Pluto as their mascot and asked Disney to design insignia for them, featuring the pooch.
10. A cartoon featuring Pluto won an Academy Award in 1942. The cartoon was called Lend a Paw and it also won an award called the Boscar, “the Tailwagger’s own Academy Award” for being the most promising dog actor of the year. 

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

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