Spunky, The Malevolent Cocker Spaniel (2024)

Spunky: The Malevolent Cocker Spaniel will be a British adult stop motion television special produced by Laika, Williams Street and THX, the short received high and very good reviews. Based on a young adult short story of the same name written and illustrated by M. Dayanna. It will air on Adult Swim on May 25, 2025.

The plot follows some dogs that live with their worst owner named Agnes. The pack lived in slavery to Spunky, a sadistic and cannibalistic cocker spaniel who poisons Blackie, the former leader of the good-hearted dogs. Spunky maliciously has a plan to devour to all dogs. dogs in full moon and be the only one.

Plot
Some dogs that live with their owner named Agnes who mistreats them, despite behaving well, except for Spunky, a narcissist and psychopath, decides to have a meeting in the basement of the garden, Blackie talks about what is happening, a small dog called Brunito who tells him that if he dies who would be the leader, so he prepares an evil plan for Spunky, throws a strong poison at him, until he dies and becomes the leader.

In the garden, a dog named Nannok, for carrying a piece for the statue, slips and breaks one half of the statue, for which Spunky wakes up and sees it, enraged, takes it, devours it and dismembers it (beginning the explicit violence), at the end, Spunky goes to bathe, when he finishes he sees some $100,000 bills and steals them, when Agnes returns for his money and Spunky throws it at some twin puppies, Agnes insults them and threatens to take them to the pound, when Agnes left Spunky takes them to devour them, when the twins' mother finishes, Spunky scolds her and takes her to the black market, where she threatens her friend to give her money, she refuses and bites her nose, at home, Brunito paints a picture of Spunky vanishing the screen.

At home, Agnes returns for the twin puppies, but she doesn't see them and forgets and watches television until the doorbell rings and it's Margaret, Agnes's fake friend, who asks her to take care of her ten kittens so as not to look bad, she accepts and Margaret leaves, Agnes then throws them away and goes to drink alcohol, Spunky threatens them to shut up, but ends up devouring the kittens, when Agnes comes back and falls asleep, Spunky plans to devour everyone on this full moon night, Margaret goes back for her kittens but Spunky bites her by the neck, then she begins her plan and devours each one of the dogs, the next day she sees the bones of the dogs standing and bloody, Agnes with a strong hangover so she doesn't see the patio, she only took Spunky who ends up biting her neck, she escapes, while the credits appear.

Reception
The short received positive reviews, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the short a score of 80% based on 382 reviews, the website's critical consensus reads: "A very bizarre, gory and technically impressive great TV special." Stop-Motion and a true blood effect, for teens and adults to read the book ''

The Beginning
After the publication on Wattpad, Christopher Nolan read the story and loved it a lot, due to the success of his movie  Radcliffe: A Different Adventure , he started the idea in 2022 and asked some friends to make Stop-Motion to the short film I accept and almost would be the porcelain objects the characters, almost the draft was made all sketch.

Launch Confirmation
He presented the first sketch in 2023, almost a complicated job, an agreement on the actors and characters, the producer almost with a machine to be able to move the characters, Christopher Nolan said that it could be launched by 2025.