It's just a few short days before Christmas, that time of year when Kathie Lee Gifford's warbling fills the air, when Nick Lachey gets to host things on NBC, and when your thoughts turn to family, friends, and polls ranking famous dogs and their places in pop culture.
"I wonder if Benji, that lovable scamp, will rank higher than bad-boy Spuds McKenzie?" you'll find yourself thinking while downing whatever a "pointsettia" is at your friend's office holiday party. "Certainly Toto will outrank all the other pop culture pooches, considering his contributions to pop culture are so much weighter than the other famous canines, right?"
"What about that painting of dogs playing poker? Do those dogs count as famous dogs in pop culture?" you'll fret while waiting for the stupid AirTrain at JFK. "After all, those gamblin' pooches captured our hearts, didn't they?"
And while you're settling in for a nice Christmas Eve dinner, fully ensconced in your family's warm embrace, there will be one question echoing endlessly in your mind, "Do you think the American Kennel Club will be able to narrow it down to 100 Top Dogs in Pop Culture? Or will they get so many undeniably great famous dog suggestions, they'll have to expand the list to include 125 Top Dogs?"
Well, thanks to the press release below, you now have your answers (besides, obviously, "Shut up.") Looks like Christmas has come early for all of us!
What dog is considered the king of pop culture? Toto, Benji, Snoopy, Lassie or Bo Obama? What canine college mascot scores the most points in the nation? What pooch captured our hearts the most in TV, movies, cartoons, music, and literature?
To find out who the hippest dog of all time is, the American Kennel Club (AKC) and AOL’s PawNation.com joined forces this year to celebrate the AKC’s 125th anniversary and name the Top 125 Dogs in Pop Culture…In total, nearly 76,000 people had the final say of the Top 125 Dogs in Pop Culture.
Some surprising results include the painting “Dogs Playing Poker” topping old-time favorites Toto from the Wizard of Oz, Benji and Rin Tin Tin; the Monopoly playing piece “Scotty” ranking a hair higher than Toto from the Wizard of Oz; and a major college mascot upset – Texas A&M’s Reveille scored more points than University of Georgia’s UGA and Yale’s Handsome Dan.
The list brings together canines from diverse backgrounds for a candid look at how dogs have been woven into the fabric of America.
Personally, I like to collect a year's worth of a dog's clippings and weave those into the fabric of America instead of the actual dog. It's just more humane that way. But if the American Kennel Club wants to run Rin Tin Tin himself through the giant loom that produces America's fabric (it's cotton, right? It has to be cotton.), I guess no one's going to stop them.
But I still have one question: Where is Owen Wilson on this list?