Spuds

Where do you go when you have everything you ever wanted? When the world is your solid gold doggie dish filled with never-ending Snausages? There's only one way to go...down. It's inevitable. Today you're the dee oh double g, tomorrow you're a full-grown dog in a pet store full of puppies. It takes a special breed to get through times like these. A very good boy. A dog like Spuds MacKenzie. This is his story.

Any school boy could tell you about Spuds' meteoric rise to the top. How he was discovered pissing on a soda fountain by a local talent scout. His bit parts in Elvis movies. His late nights howling at the moon with Checkers Nixon. The bitches. Oh my, the bitches. The commercials, the t-shirts, the merchandising that knew no bounds. He was so much more than a dog. He was to Bud Light what Bill Cosby was to Jello Pudding Pops. A paid spokesman.

But America is a fickle mistress. Her taste for low-quality mass-produced beer and the dogs that promote it is as unreliable as, um, something that you really can't rely on. Like winning the lottery. Or, say, the Celtics ever winning another game. No? How about as unreliable as LiLo on a coke binge? Anything? Hello?

Where was I? Oh yes, Spuds. The dog once had it all, you see. But after complaints from "concerned" "parents" about marketing beer to "children", the Anheuser Busch folks sent old Spuds packing. (The follow-up Bud Light campaign featuring Bobo the Clown was a smash, as you no doubt recall). And poor Spuds was in the dog house. Well, not really. He wished he was in the dog house. But having failed to learn from the Hammer Tragedy of the same era, he over-extended himself and his crib was repossessed. For months poor Spuds was living paw to mouth.

But Spuds was always a fighter. He dusted himself off and got work where he could find it. Auto shows with King Kong Bundy and Alf. Lectures at community colleges. His three episode arc on Simon & Simon was classic Spuds. Things were turning around. But then, like a Greek tragedy about dogs who sold beer, tragedy struck.

Stories differ about what happened that tragic night, full of tragedy. Spuds had always battled addiction; his stints chained outside the Betty Ford Clinic were tabloid fodder for years. But friends claimed he was off the rawhide and down to two pig ears a day. Maybe Spuds had just had enough; that kind of lifestyle would make anyone dog-tired. Some say Spuds isn't really gone at all; he and Jim Morrison are playing Frisbee in a park outside Paris as we speak. I say those people are idiots.

The important lesson, my friends, is that Spuds was a good dog. I mean, not Lassie good, or certainly not Underdog good - that dog could fly and solve crimes, for Pete's sake. What kind of impossible standard is that to live up to? What is wrong with you people? Anyway, I just want us all to think about the Spuds inside each one of us. So the next time you're drinking a Bud Light, first you should ask yourself, why am I drinking this crap? But soon after that, you should be thinking of Spuds MacKenzie. It's what he would want. I guess.

RIP Spuds. Play dead. Stay.