Page "Santa's Little Helper" Paragraph 11

Writer John Swartzwelder has noted that the staff members of the show write the character Homer in the same way that they write Santa's Little Helper: " Both are loyal.

Both have the same emotional range.

And both will growl and possibly snap if you try to take their food.

" Although animals in cartoons often behave with " semi-human awareness ", Groening said on the DVD audio commentary for the episode " Two Dozen and One Greyhounds " that he prefers animals in cartoons to behave exactly the way they do in real life.

As a result, Santa's Little Helper is depicted in this way on the show.

There have, however, been some exceptions for gags, but most of the time the staff of The Simpsons tries to keep animals acting realistically.

Several journalists have commented on the greyhound's lack of intelligence.

In an article that compared The Simpsons to the animated series Family Guy, Todd Camp of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted that " though Santa's Little Helper may be the only Simpson who's dumber than Homer, the Griffins ' pooch < nowiki >< nowiki ></ nowiki > is the brainiest member of the household ".

In 1991, Copley News Service's Alison Ashton described Santa's Little Helper as a " sweet and stupid dog ".

Tom Coombe of The Morning Call wrote in 2002 that " fans of The Simpsons will tell you that the cartoon family's dog [...] is often dumb, disobedient and skittish.

Fans of the real-life breed will paint a different picture — of dogs that are peaceful, affectionate, not given to drooling, panting ".