GENUS PEDIGREE: Bloodhound (dog)
KNOWN ALIASES: Rover, Pluto Pup
KNOWN RELATIVES: Mickey Mouse (owner); Fifi the Peke (wife/girlfriend); Pluto Jr. (son) and four other pups, Kid Brother.
KNOWN CONFIDANTS: Fifi the Peke; Dinah the Dachshund; Ronnie the St. Bernard puppy.
KNOWN RIVALS: Butch the Bulldog; Figaro the Kitten; Milton the Siamese cat; Chip ‘n’ Dale.
1st PRINT APPEARANCE: “Mickey Mouse” serial “Pluto the Pup” (Jul. 8, 1931); later in “Mickey Mouse” #2 (1932).
1st FILM APPEARANCE: “The Chain Gang” (Sep. 5, 1930 – as an unnamed dog); “The Picnic” (Oct. 23, 1930 – as Minnie’s dog, Rover); “The Moose Hunt” (May 3, 1931 – finally as Mickey’s dog, Pluto).
VOICE ACTOR: Pinto Colvig, Lee Millar, Sr., Clarence “Ducky” Nash and Jim MacDonald (former); Bill Farmer (“Prince and the Pauper”).
BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS: Pluto began his career as Minnie Mouse’s dog named Rover, but the studio changed his name to Pluto and his owner to Mickey Mouse, making him Mickey’s best pal. Like a boy and his dog, they did nearly everything together from fishing to watching TV. In several cartoons his girlfriend, and even wife, is Minnie’s own pet dog, Fifi the Peke. They even had a litter of puppies together, one of which was named Pluto Junior. Later, Pluto’s wanderings introduced him to Dinah the Dachshund. Pluto’s primary rival is the meandering neighborhood bully, Butch the Bulldog, another couple of nuisances prove to be Chip ‘n’ Dale in their more rodent form, as well as Figaro the Kitten (Minnie’s cat), Milton the Siamese Cat (Mickey’s cat), and Bianca the Goldfish. One of Pluto’s best dog-pals is a little St. Bernard puppy named Ronnie. While Pluto’s actual canine breed is a subject of dispute, in his appearance as Minnie’s dog, Rover, it was as a ‘bloodhound.’ This probably still holds true.
HISTORICAL FACTS: Pluto was featured in over a 100 theatrical cartoon, many of them with him as the headliner, and he even had his own Sunday comic strip in the late 1930s, his own Dell “Four-Color” comic books from 1952 to 1962, and he was regularly featured in stories with Mickey, Donald, the Twins, Minnie, Butch, Fifi, Dinah, Figaro, Chip ‘n’ Dale, and others.