Isle of Dogs

Narrator:
Canine saturation has reached epidemic proportions. An outbreak of snout fever rips through the city of Megasaki. Blizzards of infected fleas, worms, ticks, and lice menace the citizenship. Dog flu threatens to cross the species threshold and enter the human disease pool. In a special midnight session at the Municipal Dome, Mayor Kobayashi of Uni Prefecture issues emergency orders calling for a hasty quarantine: the expulsion and containment of all breeds, both stray and domesticated. By official decree, Trash Island becomes an exile colony.

Mayor Kobayashi:
(in English Version) Banish all dogs. Save Megasaki City of Uni Prefecture!

[The audience applauses]

Narrator:
The Isle of Dogs.

Narrator:
The exiled dog population grows weaker, sadder, angrier. [A sack lands on the island] Desperate.

[Igor and his pack of white dogs check it out, but they see the alpha dogs Rex, King, Duke, Boss, and Chief, the leader, who arrived and start growling at each other, getting ready to fight, but Rex interrupts]

Rex:
Wait a second. Before we attack each other and tear ourselves to shreds like a pack of maniacs, let's just open the sack first and see what's actually in it. It might not even be worth the trouble.

[Igor and his pack murmur for a second]

Igor:
All right.

[Rex opens the sack, and inside it is garbage with maggots all over it as Igor's pack and the alpha dogs look at it]

Rex:
A rancid apple core, two worm-eaten banana peels, a moldy rice cake, a dried up pickle, a tin of sardine bones, a pile of broken egg shells, an old smushed-up rotten gizzard with maggots all over it—

Chief:
Okay, it's worth it.

[Both dog packs start the fight, then Chief grabs Igor's ear and rips it out, ending the fight]

Chief:
Get out of here and don't come back.

[Igor and his pack turn to leave]

Dog:
Sheesh, Igor, I think he chewed your ear off.

Igor:
Mm-hmm.

Rex?:
I used to sleep on a lambswool bean bag next to an electric space heater. That's my territory. I'm an indoor dog.

King?:
I starred in 22 consecutive Doggy Chop commercials. Look at me now, I couldn't even land an audition.

Boss?:
I was the lead mascot for an undefeated high school baseball team [sneeze]. I lost all my spirit. I'm depressing.

Duke?:
I only ask for what I've always had. A balanced diet, regular grooming, and a, uh, general physical once a year.

King:
[to Rex] Okay, I got a question. What's your favorite food?

Rex:
A double portion of Doggy Chop from the can mixed into a bowl of broken Puppy Snaps with a vitamin crushed up into it.

Boss?:
King's the spokes-dog for that. He's the Doggy Chop dog.

King:
Used to be.

Duke?:
Was that your daily meal?

Rex:
Not always. My master was a schoolteacher and we weren't rich, you know. You?

King:
A center cut Kobe ribeye, seared on the bone with salt and pepper.

Rex:
Wow.

King:
It was my birthday supper, every year.

Boss:
Mine's hot sausage, yakitori style. The snack vendor always saved me one on game days.

King:
[to Duke] Duke?

Duke?:
Uh, green tea ice cream. My master had a sweet tooth, I probably inherited from her. [Boss sneezes] You heard the rumor, right? About Doggy Chop.

Boss?:
Remind us again.

King:
What rumor?

Duke?:
They folded.

Boss?:
Oh, no.

Rex?:
Hmm.

Boss?:
Doggy--? Doggy Chop folded?

Rex?:
[to Chief] How about you, Chief? What was your favorite food?

[Duke, King, and Boss turn to Chief]

Chief:
Me? Uh, I don't care. Garbage, trash, scraps of rubbish. I'm used to leftovers. [King, Rex, Duke and Boss murmur] Of course, I wasn't always a stray.

[Rex, Boss, Duke and King turns to Chief again]

Rex?:
Wait, what'd you say?

Chief?:
I said, of cou-- I wasn't always a stray.

[King, Duke, Boss, and Rex asks Chief why he wasn't a stray. Chief sighs]

Chief:
Rex! King! Duke! Boss! You made it!

Rex:
What happened to you?

Chief:
I took a bath.

Rex:
What, he's got soap?

Chief:
Just a little.

Rex:
You're too fluffy.

Chief:
We played fetch.

Rex:
With a stick?

Chief:
With a hunk of rubber radiator tubing.

Rex:
And you brought it back to him?

Chief:
Yeah. He's a good boy.

Rex:
Don't you tell me that! I'm the one that tried to make you be loyal to him, in the first place.

Chief:
Stop. Stop! This is the rendezvous. Where's that trash-tram taking you?

Rex:
You think we booked this ride through a travel agent? We were fighting for our lives in a high-velocity trash-processor while you were getting scrubbed and brushed.

Chief:
Jump.

Rex:
Where?

Chief:
Here!

Rex:
When?

Chief:
Now!

Rex:
Why?

Chief:
WHAT?!

Rex:
Let's take a vote. All in favor of jump... [the trash-tram stops]

Chief:
I'm standing by, Master Atari.

Chief:
[first lines] Okay, it's worth it.

Chief:
[to Igor and his pack] Get out of here and don't come back.

Chief:
You make me sick. [vomits and walks to the four dogs] I've seen cats with more balls than you dogs. [yells at Duke] STOP LICKING YOUR WOUNDS!!! [Duke's eyes shift awkwardly as he just sits with his tongue out. Chief walks up to Boss] You hungry? Kill something and eat it. [walks up to Duke] You sick? Take a long nap. [walks up to King] You cold? Dig a hole in the ground, crawl into it, and bury yourself. [walks up to Rex] But nobody's giving up around here, and don't you forget it, ever. You're Rex. You're King. You're Duke! You're Boss! I'm Chief. We're a pack of scary indestructible alpha dogs. You're talking like a bunch of housebroken... pets.

Chief:
Go ahead, say it. I'm a stray, yeah.

Chief:
We’ll find him. Wherever he is, if he’s alive, we’ll find your dog.

Chief:
[to Rex] You're not our leader, we all are. Let's take a vote.

Chief:
I don't sit.

Chief:
[enraged; to Spots] You son of a b*tch!! If we don't drown, I'm gonna strangle you myself. I don't care how many exploding teeth you try to spit out at me. Do you have any idea what that little pilot just went through to try to rescue you? How DARE you?!

Chief:
[to the owl] You'll meet a b*tch named Nutmeg. Tell her Chief says, "I'll see you in Megasaki."

Chief:
Wait, what?

Chief:
[to Rex, Duke, King, and Boss] Let's take a vote.

Chief:
[growls after Atari tries to pet him] I bite.

Chief:
I've never been offered a Puppy Snap in my life. I don't even know what they taste like. Okay, I'll try it. [trying his first Puppy Snap] Crunchy. Salty. Supposedly, it cleans your teeth. This is my new favorite food. Thank you.

Chief:
Why should I?

Chief:
I've been hunted by dog-catchers all my life. I'm not easy to trap. I've only got three captures on my record where I actually got sent to the pound, I mean, and the first two times, I escaped within 24 hours, but the third time... I got adopted before I could finish digging the break-out-tunnel. It was a big family. Five kids, two other dogs, already. They stuck me in the back of a station-wagon and drove me out to the middle of the sticks. Grass, trees, swimming pool, cartoons on TV. Anyway, one morning a week later, the youngest boy, his name was Toshiro, woke me up at 6:15, bright-eyed, wide-awake, and he tried to pet me. He didn't mean anything by it. He was just being friendly. Apparently, I bit him so hard, I nearly chewed his hand off. Blood all over the kitchen floor. They rushed him to the emergency room and I got pad-locked out in the tool-shed with the lights out. It gave me some time to think. What happened? Why did I do that? To this day, I have no idea. I guess he scared me. I bite. That night, an old woman, she must've been the grandmother brought me out a bowl of some homemade hibachi-chili. I like to think she cooked it for me, personally, but who knows? Maybe it was just more leftovers. But... You've got a tick. [takes off the tick off Rex's nose and spits onto the golf hole] Anyway, that's my favorite food I ever ate. The old woman made a great bowl of chili. [Rex: What happened after that?] I dug my way out by morning, jumped on the back of a dump-truck, and hitched back to Megasaki. I was always a street-dog, let's face it.

Chief:
[after Atari gives him a bath] Where'd you get that dog? He looks like me with a pink nose. I come from a nine-dog litter, but they drowned the sisters. We're not a rare breed: short-haired-Oceanic-speckled-ear/sport-hound-mix. [stammers] I'm getting confused now. My--my belly feels funny.

Chief:
Don't ask me to fetch that stick.

Chief:
I'm telling you, I don't fetch.

Chief:
I'm not doing this because you commanded me to, I'm doing it because I feel sorry for you.

Chief:
[to Atari, as he was checking his size to ride the Pagoda Slide] No, you can't ride the Pagoda Slide. You're below the safety-limit, anyway. Let's go. We made an emergency plan, even if we didn't get to vote and agree to it yet: rendez-vous at the cause-way to the Far-away Cuticles, and go find your dog. Maybe everybody else just got crushed, compacted, and incinerated- but we're going to be there. Let's go. [Atari goes up the stairs] Don't. Repeat: don't. I am not your pet. I never liked you. I don't care about you. I won't wait for you. I bite. [Atari goes up the slide] Good luck.

Rex:
I don't think I can stomach anymore of this garbage.

Rex:
We get the idea. You're looking for your lost dog, Spots. [to the other dogs] Does anybody know him?

Rex:
To the north, a long rickety causeway over a noxious sludge marsh leading to a radioactive landfill polluted by toxic chemical garbage. That’s our destination. Get ready to jump.

Rex:
[to Chief, Boss, Duke, and King] All in favor of not eating the little pilot, say "Aye".

Rex:
I used to sleep on a lambswool beanbag next to an electric space heater, that's my territory. I'm an indoor dog.

Rex:
Chief, sit!

Rex:
I want my master.

Rex:
Let's take a vote. All in favor, say "Aye".

Rex:
I think I might give up.

Rex:
[losing his patience; to Chief] You're disobedient! Sit!

Rex:
You think we booked this ride to a travel agent?

Rex:
[to Duke, King and Boss] All in favor of Chief fighting the robot dog, say "Aye".

Rex:
All in favor of kicking Chief out of the pack and never speaking to him again, say "Aye".

King:
I starred in twenty-two consecutive Doggy Chop commercials. Look at me now, I couldn't land an audition.

King:
[after seeing Nutmeg] How's she keep her fur so clean? There's no shampoo on Trash Island.

Spots:
[to Peppermint] Oh, dear. Uh, I think I offended him. I'm truly sorry. I had-- I had no idea. What is this place? How long have you been here? I can see you've been mistreated.

Spots:
[to the owl] We're listening, owl. Tell us your message.

Spots:
Are you okay? My name's Spots, Spots Kobayashi. How can I be of service to you?

Spots:
That's highly confidential. Um, anyway, I'm not the mayor's accountant's dog. That's Butterscotch, and she got crushed in a glass compactor the day before yesterday. No, my duties are, uh, focused entirely on the protection of the mayor's ward, Atari. I'm not supposed to be his friend, but I love him very much, but that's a private matter. Um, the only reason I even said that was because we're all probably going to die out here and I'll never see him again.

Tracy Walker:
Mayor Kobayashi, elected leader of Megasaki City. For 150 years, you and your ancestors, known as the Kobayashi Dynasty, a procession of dog-hating thugs, stooges, felons, and their criminal underlings, have betrayed and deceived the citizens of Uni Prefecture. You make me so mad! Professor Watanabe, Science-Party Candidate, deceased. The wasabi in your blood showed poison-levels in excess of ten times the maximum dosage required to stop the heart of a whale. Why'd you do it? Atari Kobayashi, adopted ward to the mayoral-household. You heroically hi-jacked a Junior Turbo-Prop XJ750, and flew it to the island--

Tracy Walker:
Atari, you heroically, as I was saying, stole the little airplane, because of your dog and... [stammers] I lost my train of thought. [turns off her recorder] Damn it. I’ve got a crush on you.

Tracy Walker:
We call upon dog-lovers everywhere to harken to this transmission.

Tracy Walker:
Thank you, Editor Hiroshi. You all know me. I speak my mind and sometimes that ruffled some feathers. Please forgive my bluntness. Mayor Kobayashi is a crook and I hate him. Right now, he faces a divided congress to a hotly contested re-election year. Dogs are dying on a miserable island, gullible masters have been brainwashed, the Science-Party Candidate is being held against his will with no recourse to legal counsel. Somebody is up to something.

Tracy Walker:
(throws a board eraser at Editor Hiroshi) I'll spell it out. I believe Municipal Dome propaganda has deliberately stoked irrational Anti-Dog fear and suppressed a medically proven dog flu treatment in order to promote a secret campaign to turn the country against its innocent house pets! (regains her composure) There, I said it.

Tracy Walker:
Young masters of Megasaki, UNITE!

Tracy Walker:
That crook! He's stealing the re-election again! Let's go!

Tracy Walker:
This landslide re-election is a massive fraud, and we demand a recount!

Tracy Walker:
Mayor Kobayashi has dog's blood on his hands. You all do! Atari was a hero. Professor Watanabe was murdered. The serum works! The mayor is a crook, and I hate him.

Jupiter:
[to an owl] He's going to poison us. Re-election Night: at the moment Mayor Kobayashi is re-inaugurated, he'll give the order, and the extermination-process will begin. Oracle saw the plan in her visions.

[Cut to a flashback in which Oracle sees a TV showing Mayor Kobayashi announcing his plans]

Nelson:
[voice-over; interpreting for Mayor Kobayashi] If the voters choose me again on Re-Election Night, I promise: a final and permanent end to the Canine Saturation-crisis.

[Oracle is visibly shocked by this. Massive crates labeled Wasabi-Poison are set around the dog-prison-camp. Cut back to Jupiter and the owl.]

Jupiter:
Every pet in the Trash Island Camp will die. It may be too late, already; but, if the black owl reaches you with this message in time: Go to Megasaki City. Find our masters. Appeal to the people. Stop the mayor. Save us.

Chief:
I'm standing by, Master Atari.

Nutmeg:
So how does it feel to be a former stray?

Chief:
Hmm. I take it one day at a time. Last week, I nearly be-handed an industrial lobbyist from West Suzuki. They had to give him a blood transfusion.

Nutmeg:
He probably had it coming.

Chief:
Maybe. Learned any new tricks?

Nutmeg:
Actually, yes. Just one.

Chief:
Can I see it?

Nutmeg:
I'm supposed to be juggling ten bowling-pins engulfed in flames over my tail at this point, but you just have to imagine that part.

Chief:
I can picture it. You still against bringing puppies into this world?

Nutmeg:
I'll tell you when I get to know you better.

Chief:
Fair enough. My friends think I like to fight, but it's just not true. Sometimes I lose my temper and blow off a little steam, but I've never enjoyed it. I'm not a violent dog. I don't know why I bite.

Nutmeg:
I'm not attracted to tame animals. [licks a flower off Chief's snout]

Chief:
Thank you.

Spots:
We're crossing the river tonight. Begin preparations immediately.