Poor Fred McMurray is a dog hating mailman with two teenage boys in Disney's 1959 movie The Shaggy Dog. Tommy Kirk plays the older son, a rocket enthusiast, and Kevin Corcoran plays the younger son, a kid. Annette Funicello plays the cute girl. Tim Considine is Tommy's rival for Annette's affection, at least until the even more interesting and foreign Roberta Shore arrives in town with a large shaggy dog in tow. Tommy, while hanging out at the museum run by Cecil Kellaway, tries on a ring that curses him. His curse? Turning into that same shaggy dog. Yeow! It's the movie that jump started Fred McMurray's flagging career and launched a long line of live action comedies for Disney. They would follow TSD with the two Fred McMurray comedies involving Flubber. Maybe you heard of them. While Tommy tries to deal with turning into a dog he discovers that Roberta's uncle is really a spy. Soon Fred gets into the antics. That leads him to the police and getting analyzed by vetran voice actor Paul Frees. I've always been a fan of the man. More running about and the movie is over. The director is Charles Barton who worked with many of the young actors in the movie on the Disney series Spin and Marty. That was a pretty entertaining series that ran in little short episodes on the Mickey Mouse Club Show. There was a dvd out a few years ago but it's probably out of print. The Shaggy Dog was based on story The Hound Of Florence by Felix Slaten, who wrote the novel Bambi.
The 1976 sequel The Shaggy DA has Tommy Kirk all grown up. He's played by Dean Jones now. Dean's married to Suzanne Pleshette and they have a little boy. Keenan Wynne is the town's District Attorney and the bad guy. He played that role in several previous Disney movies. Tim Conway is the comic relief machine, no Othello for that guy, still a meaty part. Tim has the dog that Dean turns into, an ice cream truck with more than 39 flavors, and Jo Anne Worley as his girlfriend. She's in the roller derby. That's a whole movie's worth of running gags right there. Some criminals are working the city pretty hard. The current DA is doing little. After his house is cleaned out Dean decides to run for DA and clean up the town. The crooks steal the ring and it starts working it's mojo while Dean is trying to get his campaign on. Hi-jinks insue. The sequel isn't as charming as the first movie, but it's still ok. Not great but entertaining enough.
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