Whenever I tell people that Muttley is my spirit animal, they laugh and say the same thing: “Gimme a medal, Gimme a medal!!”

And sure, that’s his catchphrase, his running gag — the greedy little dog forever muttering for a shiny trinket he rarely gets. It’s funny, it’s absurd, and it’s easy to dismiss. But that’s not actually why I think we feel connected to him.

As a kid in the 80s I watched Wacky Races with my Grandad and he nicknamed me ‘Penelope Pitt Stop’ as much as I loved the antics of the Ant Hill Mob and the rest, but for me, Muttley embodies something much deeper: the ache lots of us have.. to matter.

Just think about him. He’s not the star of the show — that’s Dick Dastardly, always scheming and failing in grand, dramatic ways and Penelope, haphazardly getting into dim witted strife and yelling ‘help’.  Muttley is the sidekick, half in the shadows, wheezing his infectious laugh while everyone else runs around chasing victory. He doesn’t have the spotlight. He doesn’t win the race. He doesn’t even get the dignity of words, really —he mutters, snickers, sighs and dutifully does his sidekick job. 

But through it all, Muttley wants one thing: recognition. Not necessarily the glory, not the podium, not the trophy. Just a medal, but the medal is only a symbol that says: you matter, you’re part of this, you were seen.

Isn’t that what we all want at some level? Not the literal medal, but the reassurance that our presence means something. That our laugh, our muttering, our small but constant contributions to the chaos of life are noticed and valued.

Maybe that’s why he’s my spirit animal. Because under the humour and absurdity, there’s an honesty to his longing. He doesn’t pretend not to care. He admits that he wants to be rewarded, acknowledged, chosen. And while the world often brushes him aside, we remember him. We love him. We talk about his laugh, not Dastardly’s plots. He imprinted himself on us in his own authentic, sideways way. 

Muttley reminds us that mattering doesn’t have to look like winning. It can look like being the loyal one, the quirky one, the one who mutters under your breath and still shows up every episode, with authenticity. It can look like humour, sidekick energy, staying power.

And maybe that’s the real medal.