Was anyone else disturbed when he threw the dog over the bridge?

"No, it didn't disturb me because that stuffed toy being punted was not a real dog. I would have been pissed had it been a real dog, but it wasn't."

Agreed and I'm a dog lover too.

Plus I love that scene of Baxter later emerging from the river downstream, shaking himself and responding to the news horn with canine language.

Fare thee well, Baxter. You shall always be friend of the bears.

A stunningly illogical post from haw_haw_haw;

a)"People view mass murders and bombings in movies without flinching" - says who? Where are these "unflinching" audiences who watch atrocities with insouciance?

b) It all depends on INTENTION. "Mass murders and bombings" tend not to be elements in comedies.

c) The day after watching this, I saw - on Animal Planet - a video of Animal Control Officers rescuing a terrified dog from an ice-cold, torrential urban river. For real. So Jack Black's pathetic 'gag' kind of sticks in the throat, huh?

d) "when one dog is thrown into the river suddenly it's over the top??"
Nobody is claiming the scene is "over the top", just that in the context of a comedy, even if the "dog" is clearly a toy/stuffed prop, "when one dog is thrown into the river" just isn't funny.

e) "no more disturbing than an actual man being thrown over a bridge."
Well, with that statement you are implicitly suggesting that *both* scenarios potentially are disturbing. And the difference is that a man can fight back, call for help, and knows what is happening and has a number of human resources to call into play, whereas the dog - presumably a domesticated and trusting companion animal - knows nothing but the terror and bewilderment of not understanding what is being done to it.

f) Just a note to consider - most people who care deeply about animal welfare don't find the movies' easygoing (and lazy) approach to both horror and comedy either frightening or funny whenever either genre uses animal death and animal cruelty as default dramatic/comedic mechanisms. Heaven knows, animals suffer enough in the making of movies (as Variety magazine recently pointed out in a long and alarming feature about the lax enforcement of Humane Association guidelines for using animals in films.)

And people who care about animals invariably, in my not inconsiderable experience, care deeply about *people* as well. It is not an either/or proposition.

I'm in complete agreement.

Good thing this was just a stuffed dog!

animal cruelty is NOT funny

it never has been

it never will be