Should dog owners consider training their dogs for TV shows?
How did I sleep through TV sitcom "Living Single" having a dog named Sanford?
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Who is Sanford? And how did a dog lover like me forget all about this “Living Single” dog?
“We just saw Sanford the puppy there,” Yvette Lee Bowser, creator of “Living Single,” explained to actresses Kim Coles and Erika Alexander. “We couldn’t afford him in season 2, so we just kind of quietly let him go away.”
I sat in front of my television screen, scratching my head and wondering why I didn’t recall a dog in “Living Single” at all. Then it hit me that this dog kept appearing in episodes with jaw-dropping moments that made me forget about him.
In season one, episode 21 (“Re-Living Single lists it as episode 23), I was too excited to see the King of Late Night (i.e., Arsenio Hall) and still hadn’t gotten over “A Different World” ending. Seeing Kim Reese (played by Charnele Brown) was also too much excitement for me. I forgot all about Kyle’s pet allergy complaints and him handing over a very adorable puppy as an apology for the fish-devouring chaos.
Then, in the season one finale, came the epic scene with Kyle (played by T.C. Carson) waking up next to Maxine Shaw, Attorney at Law (played by Alexander) in his apartment. As Overton said in the pilot episode, “Aw sookie sookie now!”
Sanford came and went too fast for me to properly appreciate him, but I damn sure remember that kente cloth scene!
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Writer’s note: I make no profits from recommending the official Little Free Library’s Dog Treat Box. I’m a bookworm who has several library homes in my neighborhood and love them. The dog treat boxes and little libraries with poop bags are much appreciated for dog walkers and dog owners who run out of bags mid-walk. Find the boxes on the official site or try Amazon as an alternative.
How much money can dog actors make on television?
I revisited Bowser’s comment about pet profitability. While it made sense that music artists and labels would make money each time their song was played on the show (in this case, from the speakers of Overton’s raggedy chair), Bowser immediately explaining other pricey costs like dog appearances caught my attention — and I reached for my calculator.
I know exactly how much money I’ve made from a well-known company purchasing non-exclusive rights to use a photograph of my purebred German Shepherd (Faith) through Catch & Release. And I’m counting down the days until Junee (who gets complimented on a weekly — if not daily — basis while I’m walking her) gets a photography contract too.
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But I can’t imagine either one of these photogenic dogs on a TV set. (I know for sure that my first dog, Shep, would tear everything up. I love that Labrador Retriever mix, but our family didn’t do him any favors by never training him and letting him rule the backyard.)