My Blog: 'The Artist' Star Uggie's Five Greatest Moments

From teaching Ellen DeGeneres new tricks to stealing the show from his co-stars at the Golden Globes, we've got our eyes on the movie's real star.
By Terri Schwartz

Uggie From "The Artist" arrives at the Oscars
Photo: FilmMagic

It seems like the "The Artist" is the major front-runner at the 2012 Oscars, so that means there's a pretty good chance that the film's leading pooch, Uggie, will be walking the red carpet. Our eyes are peeled to MTV News's red-carpet live steam for a chance to see the scene-stealing pup, but to help tide us over we decided to put together a list of Uggie's greatest moments in the past year.

The celebrity pup has been busy making the press rounds over the past few months to help promote "The Artist," and if we've learned anything, it's that his cuteness is not contained to the big screen. Read on for a list for our picks of Uggie's five greatest moments since "The Artist" came out.

"The Artist" Itself
From the first moment Uggie came onscreen in "The Artist" to the end of the film, it became clear that Hollywood's cutest canine was the real star of the movie. Of course, the Academy Awards doesn't have a best onscreen canine award (yet), so leading man Jean Dujardin got the honor of a Best Actor Oscar nomination, but we all know he really was just great support for Uggie. It's impossible to not have your heart melt when the 10-year-old dog goes to get the police officer's attention at the end of "The Artist." Now that deserves an Oscar!

Teaching Tricks to Ellen DeGeneres
Uggie can pull off such great performances onscreen thanks to a lot of help from his trainer Omar Von Muller. The duo visited "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" while doing promotion for "The Artist" and taught her how to cue Uggie up for some of his best tricks. After watching "The Artist," it should come as no surprise that Uggie knows how to ride a skateboard and duck his head when he's kissed. The entire adorable video makes us wish that we could train our dogs as well as Von Muller can.

Announcing — and Winning! — the Golden Paw Award
Sure, this can sort of be considered a conflict of interest, but we'll assume that Uggie meant no ill will when he helped his "Artist" co-star Penelope Ann Miller announce the nominees for Best Dog in a Theatrical Film at the Golden Collar Awards, a category in which he was nominated twice! Unsurprisingly, Uggie took home the puppy-size statuette, but his excitement at being nominated is the instance that makes our list of favorite Uggie moments.

Stealing the Show at the Golden Globes
The entire cast took to the Golden Globes stage when "The Artist" won Best Picture at the awards show, but before any of the cast and crew could start their acceptance speeches, Uggie made his own onstage statement. Led by Dujardin, Uggie bounced across the stage on his hind legs before performing his token trick of playing dead. The crowd went nuts, and Harvey Weinstein has never looked more pleased of his little black-and-white silent film that could.

The New Face of Nintendogs
Though Uggie's trainer announced recently that the adorable pooch would be retiring soon, Nintendo couldn't resist making use of the "Artist" star's newfound popularity by hiring him to be the video game company's first ever "spokesdog." Uggie will be the new face of Nintendo's 3DS games "Nintendogs" and "Nintencats." We're hoping that this partnership will result in some awesome commercials for the games headed to a television set near us soon.

The MTV Movies team has the 2012 Oscars covered! Keep it locked at MTV.com for our two-and-a-half-hour red-carpet live stream and stay with us all night for updates on the night's big winners. Head to Next Movie for a printable Oscar ballot and join the live conversation by tweeting @MTVNews with the hashtag #Oscars.

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