User Reviews

This episode is practically love-craftian. I can't believe I'm the first person to review it because it has been stuck in my head since I watched it when I was about 9 or 10. The visceral distress and horror it brought me as a kid is indescribable, and I still feel a little nauseous when I watch it 9 years later. The episode is light hearted; Kevin gets kidnapped by the giga dogs and in the first scene that they discover him on their ship there is already a sickening atmosphere as if something is horribly wrong. The child dog asks to keep him and when you hope his huge dog parents will interfere and be merciful they instead have a discussion about Kevin's freedom, in a throw away manner, because they only care about if it will benefit their son. Kevin, an intelligent being who has agency over his own actions is suddenly little more than a slave, or even more terrifyingly a pet, because these giga dogs believe that they are doing nothing wrong and that he is a lesser being only there to entertain them. Their size in this scene is terrifying, Kevin is easily overpowered by a child of this giant dog race and is completely at it's mercy as the dog licks and hugs him. The dogs mock his intelligence, because he is a lesser lifeform to them therefore he can be treated as a pet. He is put in a leash upon arrival to the house, in this new planet, and I remember feeling helpless when watching this as a child because there is really nothing that he can do as a small boy in this world, he needs krypto to save him. He is dragged to his own house outside the home of the giga dogs and there is only a blanket inside to entertain him. He even comments on this in the scene, saying something along the lines of "oh, of course a pet wouldn't need entertainment." It is a short moment in the episode but it set my imagination wild, being confined to this small prison with no mental stimulation, only taken outside when something wants to play with you. The dogs then feed him a bowl of chocolate milk and burgers, this was more scary for me now as I found out recently that I am lactose intolerant. There's something to the fact that it is the child dog that keeps Kevin, it makes it seem like he is in much more trouble, children have less impulse control, need to be monitored, can hurt someone unknowingly. This made some of the scenes have this stressful atmosphere, because the young dog could do anything to Kevin and get away with it. The episode is made in a light hearted way, which for me only adds to the existential dread of the whole thing. Who came up with this idea? It's torturous; being stuck on a unfamiliar planet treated as a pet by creatures that look exactly like dogs hulking over you, being just a plaything to their son with no hope of escape. This short childrens episode managed to have so many themes about good animal care and how we perceive animals in our society in general that it's amazing that it's an episode of Krypto the superdog. Not only that but the depth of meaning depends on the viewer, you can derive a lot from the small scenes and comments in the episode if you want to but it's all viewer dependent. I'm sure some other kid could watch this and not be horrified, but I was. Perspectives like this in our treatment of animals is rare to find in such a thoughtful way even in adult media. I have found more enjoyable horror in this idea than in the whole Insidious franchise, so check the episode out if you want.