All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 opened on this day 30 years ago, and there might be a number of ways you react to this information. “I’m old!” “Wait, there’s an All Dogs Go to Heaven 2?” “Who the fuck knows the date All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 opened?” “This is a Scrat header, isn’t it?”

If you want to know why a sequel to 1989’s All Dogs Go to Heaven even happened in the first place, although the original wasn’t considered a huge hit theatrically (it opened the same day as The Little Mermaid, because studios just played Russian Roulette with their animated movies back then), it was an enormous success on VHS, becoming one of the best-selling titles of its era. That’s quite an accomplishment considering it’s technically a film where multiple dogs fucking die (which I’m guessing is why my parents didn’t want me viewing it as a kid, so we can add that to the long list of “movies everyone else watched as kids but poor Scrat didn’t”).

But how do you make a follow-up to a story that ends with your main character literally in Heaven? Why, you make him bored with Heaven. I guess. Yeah, Charlie’s a dick. You’re in heaven, Charlie. You’re lucky to be there. I don’t care if you can’t get HBO there. You should still be happy. Also Itchy is now in Heaven too, because Itchy also died. And he died from choking on a drumstick. That’s just…that’s dark, man. Anyway, Itchy likes Heaven, unlike Charlie, who sings a song about not liking Heaven, but that’s not important, because Carface (contender for stupidest villain name of all time, and that includes Professor Poopypants) steals “The Horn of Gabriel” from Heaven, and now Charlie must be granted the gift of life again (or maybe he was a ghost at first, idk) to save it. Or something.

As in Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, Charlie is sent to San Francisco. I guess it was just the place to be for dogs in March of 1996. Also, despite the first film clearly taking place in the 1930s, the sequel inexplicably takes place in modern day (well, “modern day” relative to 1996). This means that Itchy must’ve been the oldest dog in the world when he perished, so you know what, good for him. They also meet some kid who wants to be a magician (I think), and they sing a song about that (I think), and Charlie falls in love with a dog who looks like Rita from Oliver & Company (which ironically was re-released the same day, but more on that in another header), and I think when Charlie sang his love song his voice inexplicably switched to a “90s end credit love song voice,” which was unintentionally hilarious, and Satan might’ve been involved.

Oh yeah. We’re now getting to the real reason I covered this film. Normally this is the part where I’d talk about the fast food toys, and All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 did have them, but they were all from Subway. And I can’t for the life of me find the commercial for them. I know there must’ve been one. How else will the kids know they can get their favorite dead dogs with their average-tasting Subway sandwiches? But it’s nowhere online, as far as I can tell at least, and I fucking looked. And looked. And looked. This is All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 Lost Media until someone out there decides to upload it.

So instead of talking about those toys, I’m going to talk about the character who didn’t get a toy, probably because Subway was too cowardly to want kids to get Satan action figures along with their average-tasting sandwiches. Okay, he’s not actually called Satan. He’s referred to as “Red,” but c’mon. This guy’s the motherfucking Devil, long before Cuphead made him cool with the young folk.

You see, Red needs the aforementioned “Horn of Gabriel” to carry out his master plan: since “all dogs go to Heaven,” the only way he can get them damned to Hell like he wants them is to suck them all out of there. So he sets up base in Alcatraz Prison. I’m not kidding. Once he gets custody of the “Horn of Gabriel” (and why is Gabriel the one being in the Bible who gets treated like a Marvel character in pop culture? Gabriel’s in Legion, Constantine, possibly Van Helsing, just to name a few. Who is Gabriel’s agent?), he will use it to drag all of their souls out of Heaven and lock them into the abandoned prison cells. He will then use the horn to transport Alcatraz down into the ocean and straight into the pits of Hell, and then the movie’s real title–All Dogs Go to Hell–will be revealed *The New Avengers style.

Also OF COURSE he has the best song in the movie. Zero contest. What, you thought that song Charlie sings about what a snooze Heaven is would be better? (Actually, to be fair, that song’s probably fine, I’m just being annoying since I sold the soles of my shoes to Red. Joke’s on him! I’m not wearing shoes! Stupid cat!)

Of course, if you’ve read any of my headers on non-Disney animated movies during the 90s, you know one thing: unless the name of your film was Anastasia, then it was almost certainly going to flop hard. And even with the “brand name” recognition, 2 Dogs 2 Heaven was no exception, opening below the previously referenced rerelease of Oliver & Company. But that didn’t stop MGM’s attempts at expanding it into a franchise, as All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series would grace TV screens later that year. And yes, that was actually a thing. Look it up.

Have a heavenly day, y’all!