116. Long-ears in pop culture

Deep in the Internet rabbit hole recently, I’ve learned of three long-eared characters with some level of fame in the pop culture of my childhood.  They were all patently and irretrievably dopey, and during their heydey I either deliberately avoided them or happened to be spared encountering them.   But maybe I’d heard of them? and maybe they contributed to my longstanding interest in donkeys?  Gawd, I hope not . . .  

Just for the record, my discoveries began with Dominick the Italian Christmas donkey, the subject of a schlocky, third-rate kids’ song committed to vinyl by Lou Monte and released by Roulette Records in 1960.  The gist is how Dominick helps Santa deliver toys (made in Brooklyn, presumably by all the Italian-American artisans living there?) to the children of Italy, because mules are better at climbing mountains than reindeer are. [listen here, on an empty stomach] 

Mired in the gloppiness of Dominick, I slipped over into the series of 1950s movies starring Francis the talking mule.  I didn’t view any of them, but I was reminded that they starred Donald O’Connor, a genius at physical humor if not at picking scripts, and featured the old character actor Chill Wills doing the voice of the mule.  (I also read that Francis moved his lips because he’d had thread put into his mouth and was working to get rid of it — the same method used on Mr. Ed.  Not very kind or respectful, and thus fully reflecting the spirit of the 1950s and early ‘60s.)  Again, I opted not to rot any brain cells by watching it, but the plot involves an incompetent football team that recruits an equid kicking specialist, Gus the mule, who indeed saves the big game by back-kicking a 100-yard fieldgoal.  I regret and hasten to say:  I am not making this up.

I did recently watch most of Shrek, the 2001 animated movie about an adventurous green ogre, whose sidekick is a donkey voiced by the brilliant Eddie Murphy.  Now, there’s a donkey that begins to approach the social intelligence and practical self-interest of the actual species.  Still, these show-biz characters ain’t a patch on the living, breathing, adorable/abominable Gus that I get to hang out with.