Great Dane - Great Danes in Popular Culture

Great Danes in Popular Culture

• English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) kept a Great Dane named Bounce. Pope, who was crippled, physically weak and subject to threats due to his frequent lampoons, never left his house without Bounce for protection. His dog was immortalized in his poem, "Bounce to Fop," a satirical address from his dog to the royal dog Fop, and also in the painting "Alexander Pope and His Dog, Bounce" (1718) by Jonathan Richardson .
• Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel was nicknamed as "the Great Dane".
• The Great Dane was named the state dog of Pennsylvania in 1965.
• Scooby-Doo, the famous Hanna-Barbera character, was based on a Great Dane by animation designer Iwao Takamoto. Takamoto based his illustrations on sketches given to him by a Hanna-Barbera employee who bred this dog. Scooby closely resembles a Great Dane, although his tail is longer than the breed's, bearing closer resemblance to a cat's tail.
• The athletic teams of the University at Albany have been known as the Great Danes since 1965. Damien The Great Dane has been the mascot since that time. In 2003, the school added Lil' D, a smaller Great Dane, to help Damien entertain the crowds.
• Astro, the dog in The Jetsons
• Brutus in The Ugly Dachshund, a Great Dane raised by a Dachshund mother.
• Marmaduke is a newspaper comic strip drawn by Brad Anderson from 1954 to the present day. The strip revolves around the Winslow family and their Great Dane, Marmaduke.
• Singer, the main but tragic hero of The Guardian, a novel by Nicholas Sparks.
• Elmer, a Great Dane in Oswald the Lucky Rabbit by Walter Lantz
• In each film version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles", a Great Dane was cast as the cursed hellhound that kills the Baskerville family.
• Ace the Bat-Hound, from the Batman comic series, was depicted as a Great Dane mix.
• Just Nuisance who was the only dog to be officially enlisted in the Royal Navy. Done mainly as a morale booster for World War II enlisted troops, Nuisance proved to be a lasting legacy of the small Cape Town suburb of Simons Town.
• Zeus of Otsego, Michigan is the tallest dog in the world. The Guinness World Records 2013 book published September 13, 2012 verified this. Zeus measures 44 inches from foot to shoulders, but standing on his hind legs, stretches to 7-foot-4.