Pet Project

"Pet Project" is the second episode of the first season of Disney's Teacher's Pet, and the second episode of the series overall. It premiered on ABC's One Saturday Morning in the United States on September 16, 2000.

Plot

The episode starts a week after the previous episode as Leonard wakes up in fright, explaining to Spot he had a bizarre dream that Spot is able to talk, dress up as a boy and go to school, to which Spot reminds him that this is all true (excluding the man in the monkey suit chasing Leonard in his dreams). On the way to school, Leonard is concerned that people can find out that Scott is actually a dog and he'll always be known as "the kid with the talking dog", but Scott assures him that it's actually a positive for him to be there with him since now his dog can go to school with him and he is also his best friend. At school, Mrs. Helperman claims that she has an unusual dog at home, making Leonard and Scott think that she knows of their secret, but in reality, she ends up talking about certain tricks that Spot can do, which dejects Scott, feeling that's what his legacy will be all about. This discussion leads Mrs. Helperman to tell the class to write an assessment on their favorite pet. Throughout the day, Scott feels concerned because he doesn't have a pet (given that he IS a pet) and Leonard decides to prove that he does his own work after his friends claim that he'll get an easy "A" without even trying because he's the teachers kid. At home, Leonard tells Spot that he can't write about him since his classmates would think he would have gotten the info from his mother. Spot tries to get some advice from some random dogs, but since they happen to know of his secret ego as "Scott", thinking that Spot is full of himself for acting more human, they decide to beat him up. As Spot returns home, he and Leonard agree to write about Pretty Boy and Mr. Jolly respectfully.

The next day at school, both Leonard and Scott are thrilled to find that they got A's on their assessments (though Scott gets a 110% due to extra credit) as Mrs. Helperman announces that they can bring their pets to class tomorrow as the best one will be photographed by Mary Beth and said picture will be published in the next issue of Mary Beth's Special Pets Monthly Magazine. As Leonard and Scott are both smug about the idea of winning, Mrs. Helperman talks about Scott's pet being familiar to her Mr. Jolly, to which Scott has to lie about and claim that he has a black cat. Later that night, Spot splatters fireplace sod on Mr. Jolly to make his fur seem more black, which Mr. Jolly is less than happy about, especially since he has to leave the safety of his home. Leonard and Pretty Boy in the meantime figure out how Pretty Boy is going to be introduced in class. The following day, as Leonard and Scott wait their turns to show their pets, Mr. Jolly tries to be brave at school but then gets easily frighted by Ian's pet snake and ends up jumping on top of a bookshelf. As Pretty Boy flies him down, he ends up getting eaten by Ian's pet snake and Mr. Jolly ends up saving him. They both leave for home as Leonard is distraught that now people will think he is a loser while Scott is delighted of his loss because now he can lie and say he has an even better pet. But after seeing how important this is to Leonard, he decides to go into the classroom as Spot and go as Leonard's pet, to which the class and Mary Beth are ecstatic about.

On the way home, Leonard claims that it must had felt good for Spot to act like a dog again, but Spot stops him right there, claiming that he knows where he is going with this and with each day he's becoming "more and more human" (It doesn't help his case though when he notices a squirrel and chases after it). That night Leonard and Spot are surprised that Leslie and her pet bunny won the photo contest, but Spot becomes ecstatic when he notices that part of his face is visible in the photo, motivating him from being a writer to instead be a supermodel instead. When Spot wants to take some test shots, Leonard stops him short by rubbing his stomach, making him laugh uncontrollably. The episodes concludes with Spot wondering "why do humans always find this funny?" as he chuckles a bit uncomfortably.

Critical reception

TV.com gave the episode a 9.3 out of 10 ^[1]

Release

The episode is available online on Dailymotion ^[2] and Facebook (Part One^[3] & Part Two ^[4]).

External links/References