Wishbone is a children’s television show about a dog who not only can read, but about a dog who has a particular taste for canonical literature. Associating a dog with appropriated literary references serves to implicate his “otherness.” He acts out the tales as if he were human, speaking in the dialects of the characters (usually British) and mimicking human actions. But there are limitations, he is after all a dog and he cannot sip water out of a glass as people do; producers and directors have modified sets and props to accommodate this. Wishbone does have similarities to the Oriental, in that he is created by Western culture, marked as distinctly different, has ties to literary dominance and is a part of a larger discursive network. Ultimately Wishbone becomes embroiled in power politics, he takes on the role of the hero, the crime solver, yet the humans end up saving the day, with Wishbone taking a secondary role.

In this episode, cleverly titled Pup Fiction (though the literary counterpart is “Northanger Abbey”), Wanda receives mysterious typewritten notes in present day. These notes are originally perceived to be a potential love letters but are quickly assumed to be haunting and threatening. Wanda even remarks that these notes are specifically typewritten, pointing out the care that was taken to produce the notes. The haunted becomes implicitly implied with typewritten text. Furthermore in the “literary” story the haunted is also portrayed in the Gothic novels read, the stormy background, and the story about the dead mother. Haunted texts become an undercurrent that specifies not only the mode of the story but the physicality of it. The menacing qualities has characters looking over their shoulders, dropping objects, physically manifesting fear. The Gothic books for Catherine and the letters for Wanda both act as mediums for which the hauntings emerge.

The relationship between these two lies in the fact that Wishbone often scares the children who are also reading ghost stories in modern day. Wishbone, the other, frightens them, haunts them by accident. His otherness is illustrated when he puts his bony paw through the tent in which the children are sitting, paralleling their reading of a ghost/skeleton reaching through a door. Haunting is related to his otherness, his otherness related to haunting; a relationship within the larger discursive network. It turns out that the notes were a false trail intended to distract Wanda from a surprise party in her honour. Wishbone does not solve the mystery and the humans bond while Wishbone is scolded for prematurely eating the cake (aside from the fact that if he ate chocolate cake in real life he would be dead). The link is that Wishbone retains his otherness through his lack of crime solving ability. He acts as a tool to reinforce human relations, just as the Oriental reinforces notions of the West. Wishbone is held under the power of the humans and ultimately reminds viewers that he is a silly dog who just wants food. Furthermore at the end of the episode plays a short about the creation of Wishbone, negating the possibility for children that Wishbone can actually comprehend and read literature. The message that Wishbone is a construction is placed at centre stage then.

— Jaime Kirtz