Muttamorphosis

Muttamorphosis is the pilot episode of Disney's Teacher's Pet. It premiered on ABC's One Saturday Morning on September 9, 2000.

Plot

Disney ran the series 'Teacher’s Pet' for 39 episodes between 2000-2002. Envying the life of his 8-year old master, a talking dog disguises himself as a human boy in order to go to school with him, and he becomes the 'big mutt' on campus.

Muttamorphosis was the first episode in the series and first aired in September 9, 2000. The episode drops us to the story of Leonard and Mary Helperman whom we meet as they are getting ready to return to school after summer holidays. Leonard is miserable about going into the fourth grade since his mother will now also be his teacher.

With Leonard away all day, Spot is aimless and bored. Spot laments life without Leonard to Jolly and Pretty Boy (Leonard's other pets: a cat and a parrot), and as he flops down on a pile of dirty laundry he gets an idea. Spot has always dreamed of being a boy. He starts to put on Leonard’s dirty clothes and declares that he wants to head out into the world and go to school with Leonard. Jolly and Pretty Boy are alarmed at the idea and try to talk Leonard out of it, but to no avail. Essentially, Teacher’s Pet is a reinvention of another well-known Disney story: Pinocchio. While Spot/Scott is not known as a liar, he does just want to be a regular human boy attending grade-school, like his master Leonard.

Critical reception

TV.com gave the episode an 8.9 out of 10.

IMDB.com gave the episode an 5.9 out of 10 from 16 users.

Release

This is the only episode from the entire series to be released on DVD (On the Teacher's Pet Movie DVD). The episode is also available online on Dailymotion and Facebook (Part One & Part Two).