By now, most of us know that the line, “Timmy’s in the well and he can’t get out,” was never said in the 591 episodes of the TV show, Lassie. It doesn’t mean we don’t have fun with it:
Amazon’s summer series of commercials for Fire TV, “Watch What You Love,” tapped into popular entertainment genres to show the magic of voice. Amazon partnered with creative agency, Johannes Leonardo, for the campaign.
As you saw, ‘Dependable Dog’ is a story of how Lassie, America’s most dependable dog, is trying to get her owner’s attention to save Timmy who is stuck in a well. However, instead of Lassie’s owner understanding her with no trouble whatsoever, her mistress thinks she’s asking about her new Fire TV Stick with voice control. In the end, Lassie saves the day (as always) but only after they’ve watched her favorite show – The Secret Life of Pets.
It wasn’t the first time advertising had a little fun with Lassie. Look what General Electric did with her back in 2004 with their Security Services “Imagination At Work” campaign:
Poor Lassie, it never ends:
It pays to be careful. In 2011, Classic Media, owner of the fictional Collie, filed a $1 million copyright lawsuit against financial services firm J.G. Wentworth and its advertising agency for making a TV commercial with a dog that was allegedly too similar to its iconic character (you can read more about it here).
But getting back to that well….
The classic Lassie joke has been around for years. It goes like this:
Lassie: “Bark! Bark-bark! Bark!” ”
Human: What is it, Lassie?”
Lassie :”Bark! Bark-bark-bark! Bark-bark!”
Human (who evidently speaks dog): “What, Timmy’s fallen in the well?”
It’s such a classic that the actor who played Timmy,” Jon Provost, entitled his autobiography, “Timmy’s in the Well.” The fact is neither Timmy, nor any other human character, ever fell into a well, but Lassie, herself did in Season 17’s “two-part episode, “The Well of Love,” which aired on 2
That hasn’t stopped the merriment. There’s the chart of Lassie facial expressions.
And in 2018, Brandon Cloud (@theclobra) tweeted this:
There were one or two other “never happened” things about Lassie. The original Lassie from the novel by Eric Knight was described as “a beautiful tricolor Collie,” meaning she was mostly black, with the familiar white markings, and touches of sable. She is also described as having a “perfect black mask” which meant she had no blaze. Every Lassie has been a sable and white Rough Collie
As for the “she” part, all the dogs portraying Lassie have been male. A female Collie was originally slated to play the lead in Lassie Come Home, but when it came for her to navigate through rapids, the female reportedly would have nothing to do with the rushing water. Rudd Weatherwax’s Collie “Pal” was substituted, and he not only mastered the stunt, but won the role, as well.
Now you know!
Of some interest is that the dog in the video clip running a fence line, as well as the dog in the Amazon Firestick ad are sable and white Shetland Sheepdogs, not Rough Collies. The Sheltie in the Amazon ad is oversize (AKC breed standard calls for 13 -16 inches at the shoulder) but the head type is distinctive enough to to tell that this is a Sheltie, not a Rough Collie.
Actually someone did fall into a well in the original Jeff’s Collie in the spider called the well. A man trying to get the water rights for a well on the farm did indeed fall into the well.
Thanks, Samantha, that’s an awesome bit of information!