The Shaggy Dog (1994)

Ray Loynd began his review by stating, “The curious thing about this remake of Walt Disney’s 1959 “Shaggy Dog” comedy/fantasy is the filmmakers’ dumbfounding loyalty to the style and sensibility of the earliest Disney live-action movies.”

Writer Tim Doyle has set the remake in the present and inserted some of the original’s obsolete material, like Cold War spies, however, it might as well be 1959 all over again.

Loynd said, “Launching “Disney Family Movies” on ABC, this telepic’s allegiance to the tone of the first “Shaggy Dog” feels exactly like a Disney print lifted from the studio’s old vaults. Such a time warp of a movie might appeal to nostalgic parents won over as children by the first “Shaggy Dog” (not to mention two sequels), but 35 years later the effect is helplessly leaden except for, perhaps , kids younger than 6.”

The thought that a serious, shy teenager, played by Scott Weinger, should transfigure into a talking shaggy dog because of a spell cast by a romantic ring found in his dad’s pretty museum is imaginary enough. Loynd noted, “But Dennis Dugan’s direction is pedestrian even when Doyle’s script momentarily comes to life.”

The main example of imaginative flight happens when Weinger suddenly starts growing shaggy hair on his face and arms, and then his whole body, while watching “The Curse of the Werewolf” in a packed theater with his first date, played by Sarah Lassez.

Also funny is Ed Begley Jr., in the role of the busy father created by Fred MacMurray, and Sharon Lawrence’s on-point spoof of a happy, dim-witted homemaker.

However, the main subplot, concerns a neighbor, played by James Cromwell, who’s an international jewel thief creating thefts with the help of a look-alike shaggy dog, falls flat, like almost everything else.

As you may have guessed, as a 1994 made-for-TV remake, this wasn’t a valiant effort. You should never watch this on YouTube, because there isn’t anything good about it. I know people may not have liked the Tim Allen version, but I didn’t mind that so much. This, on the other hand, did not need to be made. Just avoid watching it because you will not like it one bit.

Now we are done with this franchise. Tomorrow I will pick up on another franchise that I’m not really a fan of either in “Disney Month 2023.”