Otis (Son of the Mask)

Otis Take away any of Milo's likability and change his name to Otis, and you get this guy. Gender: Male Type: Flanderized knock-off of Milo (R. Otis); Jealous Pet (M. Otis); Homicidal Egotist Species: Jack Russell Terrier Portrayed by: Richard Steven Horvitz (Real-life Otis) Bill Farmer (Masked Otis) Status: Alive Media of origin: Son of the Mask

Otis is Tim Avery's dog, a Jack Russell Terrier that wears a plain brown collar. He finds the mask washed up in a river and uses it when he gets very jealous of the baby, Alvey Avery, being considered the favorite in the house. In the end, Otis comes to accept Alvey and gets back on good terms with Tim and Alvey.

Why He's The Crappiest Dog in Craptown

1. Executive meddling: Masked Otis’ scenes were added by New Line Cinema to add extra visual effects.
2. Just like Tim, he serves as the replacement for Stanley Ipkiss's pet, Milo. Not only does he try hard to be the new Milo only to miserably fail and instead feel like a flanderized version of Milo, who was once a lovable, adorable, faithful, talented, surprisingly intelligent, loyal, and very heroic pet to Stanley Ipkiss, but this version of Milo has become more of a blander downgrade of himself who, with the mask on, becomes a grotesque jerk that is two-faced, loud yet forgettable, mostly selfish, indulgent, psychopathic, crazed, extremely malicious & underhanded yet unlucky, and a 'comedically' accident-prone villain who comes up with a convoluted plan to get rid of the baby so he can be the center of attention but is very incompetent with his attempted murders. He manages to be an overall boring and painfully unfunny secondary character.
   • Unlike Milo, who uses his powers for good. Otis starts off as somewhat of a malicious antagonist since he is jealous of the baby, Alvey, and plots constantly to get rid of him so Tim can care for him more than Alvey.
3. His self-serving goal of getting rid of the baby to be the center of attention is incredibly petty since Tim already shows how much he cares for Otis, and it seemed vague from Otis's perspective as a regular dog since it was never hinted that he hated him until his subplot took place.
4. If his plans didn't fail miserably, then it would essentially be him attempting to commit first-degree murder towards the baby and still causing property damage just to have all the attention for himself. Not only does this make him hard to root for as an "outcast" since Tim already showed how much he cares about Otis before Otis got the masked transformation, but it's also way too dark and violent for the movie's PG-rated audience. It makes more sense when you realize the film was originally PG-13.
   • He also shows how sadistic he seems to be, as he laughs and revels in his murderous plans succeeding. One example is when he thought the baby fell for his trap and blew up, Otis laughs maniacally at the death of the baby and ashes falling before he got deceived by an explosive bone with a fuse inside of it.
   • Speaking of which, his villainous and underhanded actions are more mean-spirited than humorous, even by The Mask standards. While yes, he is intentionally made to be a despicable and unlikable villain for us to see him get his comeuppance for wanting to harm an infant out of envy, he just goes way too far with his ruthless actions to the point of coming off as extremely heartless and selfish to like him.
5. Masked Otis seems to come across as an over-the-top rip-off of Tom from Tom & Jerry, Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester and Taz from Looney Tunes, and Muttley from Wacky Races/Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, all at once. (Mainly Wile E. Coyote and Muttley)
   • Examples of this include having wild and rabid traits to make him look deranged & dangerous like his gibbering and hyperactivity while being inarticulate (what Taz is), having underhanded plans that continually backfire on them in cartoonishly humiliating ways (what Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester and Tom Cat are known for; the latter two being pets no less!), and being a snickering/muttering dog who is on the side of evil (what Muttley is).
6. Due to the previous pointer stated above, Otis as a villain, is this film's canine embodiment of Claude Cat from Looney Tunes' 1952-1962 shorts by personality, but way worse. Especially since they are both shameless rip-offs of well-executed animal villains from Looney Tunes who are depicted as overly mean-spirited pets that have malicious and selfish tendencies just to get all of the attention for themselves, even when it comes to being egotistic bullies towards the family members in their own home, yet they receive what's coming to them at the end in a humiliating and predictable way. Not only that, both their respective personalities are all brought in as the result of atrocious "flanderizations" from their "original incarnations", where Claude Cat was drastically changed from his original incarnation as a likable Butt-Monkey cat in the pre-1952 Looney Tunes shorts into a selfish and despicable attention-seeker cat in the 1952-1962 Looney Tunes shorts, while Otis on the other hand is a clear rip-off of Milo from the original 1994 The Mask movie with Milo's worst character traits exaggerated to extremes.
   • On that topic, many of Otis' antics of unsuccessfully attempting at getting rid of baby Alvey to be the center of attention seem to be total rehashes of Claude Cat's shorts with Frisky Puppy or Pussyfoot in the Looney Tunes shorts "Two's A Crowd", "Terrier-Stricken", "No Barking", "Feline Frame-Up" and "Cat Feud". As the result, he and baby Alvey somewhat serve as inferior versions of Claude Cat and Frisky Puppy/Pussyfoot from the 1952-1958 Looney Tunes shorts respectively.
   • It also doesn't help that much like Claude Cat whose character design resembles a clone of Sylvester, Otis' character design resembles a clone of Milo from the first film, and Otis himself is a silent animal villain much like the 1952-1962 version of Claude Cat.
7. Masked Otis' design is BEYOND terrifying. Where his cartoonish design fits more in 2D animation, his CGI design is incredibly nightmarish due to his face design having abnormally sized eyes and teeth that make him look too grotesque in the cartoony fashion.
   • In fact, Masked Otis' design looks a lot worse than Milo's cartoonish transformation in the first film, and the film's lower budget doesn't help either.
   • In the scene when he gets blown up by dynamite, his banged-up, scuffed design of being blown up into sticks of black ashes, looks downright horrifying.
8. Masked Otis' ugliness aside, his bumbling hijinks make him out to be a typical punching-bag. Especially since Otis' plans always backfire in the most forced and predictable ways by Alvey (who is practically the movie's Karma Houdini).
9. There are many creepy scenes he contributes to, especially when his plans backfire in an over-exaggerated fashion, many of these include:
   • French kissing a real-life dog named Venus before giving the mask back to Tim.
   • The infamous scene where a trap that he set for the baby by placing a hook on the baby so it'd be flown back, which backfires on him since the baby deceived him and the hook snags him by the collar, causing his eyes to literally pop out of his head and bounce on the floor while scrapping his nails onto the ground.
10. Whenever he gets hit, swung, or squished by anything during his physically destructive "humiliation scenes" made for the sole purpose of slapstick humor, all of his expressions and deformed physiques generally come off scary, creepy, and unsettling due to his ugly design, and how many close-ups he gets that looks too unnatural to get a good laugh.
    • Examples of this are when he gets crushed in a piano, goes through a vent which makes him crushed into a cube, almost getting shredded by the ceiling fan before being snagged on its blades, being dropped into tar, getting covered in chicken feathers, dragged underground, flattened, drowned, and then flattened again after spinning in a machine. All while his cries for dear life can be heard in the background. This comes off as incredibly disturbing and doesn't make him any less creepy and pitiful than he already was.
11. Bill Farmer (best known for his iconic role as Disney's Goofy) made Masked Otis's voice sound surprisingly obnoxious and grating, possibly due to getting uninspired voice direction for voicing Masked Otis. The worst offenders to this are his constant acts of gibbering, yelling, wailing, and laughing, which often sounds more unpleasant than charming or humorous.
12. He is incredibly pointless as he serves little to nothing to the plot. In fact, you can replace him with any random pet character and the film's plot wouldn't change in the slightest.
    • Aside from being a loyal pet to Tim, he solely exists to be the comic-relief antagonist for this one subplot he has, who then goes back to his usual self and only gives Tim the idea to make a "zany" cartoon based on the rivalry Otis had with Alvery. Even by that, he lacks what makes many comic-relief antagonists from slapstick comedy-driven cartoons like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery MGM Cartoons tend to have, to be "love to hate" type of villains that the viewers don't need to necessarily hate to like them and these iconic characters are still lovable as villains who the viewer wants to see defeated for their schemes, which is a certain amount of charm and enjoyability that Otis lacks in the film.

Redeeming Qualities

1. He can have some funny moments every now and then.
2. Before and after Otis had the mask on, Otis as a regular dog is rather adorable and passable.
   • You might even feel bad for him in the scene he felt left out of the family over Alvey.
3. Some viewers can find his CGI-masked design to be awesome looking.
   • His animated 2D design is a whole lot more appealing than his CGI counterpart.
4. At least he isn't as bad as Tim Avery. Especially since he does become on good terms with Alvey at the end of the movie since Tim convinced him to be good since Alvey will be his best friend in return.
5. Richard Steven Horvitz (Destroy All Humans, Invader Zim, and Billy & Mandy) does a decent job at voicing Otis as his more realistic counterpart.

Trivia

• He bears a striking resemblance to Milo from the first film.
• His name is a take-off from the movie Milo and Otis.

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