3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This was a Great Family Show, August 12, 2001
This review is from: Shaggy Dog [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I watched this when I was young and I still remember the movie. It left an everlasting impression. The boy turned into the dog and his brother helping him. It showed love and understanding and caring all in one movie. It is very comical and a well done movie. All the right actors for the scenes. I need to buy this movie so my grandchild can watch this.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Disney's First Comedy, November 20, 2005
This review is from: Shaggy Dog [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The Shaggy Dog is about young Wilby Daniels (Tommy Kirk), who's magically transformed into a dog by the spell of an enchanted ring. His father (Fred MacMurray) hates dogs. Jean Hagen (Singin' In The Rain, Panic In Year Zero) plays the mom, Tim Considine (The Private War of Major Benson) appears as Wilby's rival for the most popular girl in town, Annette Funicello (in her screen debut). In my opinion to some extent Kevin Corcoran steals the show as the little brother, who, learning Wilby has turned into a dog, decides he wants to keep him.
Before this one, Disney's live-action features were westerns (Davy Crockett), adventures (Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea), and partially animated family dramas (So Dear To My Heart). The Shaggy Dog was their first comedy (The Invisible Boy was made a couple years earlier, but it was more a childrens sci-fi adventure than comedy), and it's success led to dozens of similar ones - often with some of the same cast - through the next couple decades.
I give The Shaggy Dog 5 stars not for it's comedy, nor for the sci-fi / fantasy plot, but because it's tremendously nostalgic, especially to Disney fans or anyone who lived through the late 1950's and '60's with fond memories. Three of this film's stars were regulars on The Mickey Mouse Club: Annette Funicello, of course, and Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk played Frank and Joe Hardy, respectively, in the Hardy Boys serials, and a couple scenes here evoke a nostalgic Harrdy Boy's feeling. Annette Funicello co-starred with Tommy Kirk in The Misadventures of Merlin Jones and The Monkey's Uncle. Kirk and Kevin Corcoran appeared together in Old Yeller a couple years before, and would again in The Swiss Family Robinson and Savage Sam, and with Fred MacMurray in Bon Voyage. Kirk also appeared with MacMurray in The Absent Minded Professor and Son Of Flubber, and of course they each appeared in a number of later Disney films, Kevin Corcoran appearing in Pollyanna and starring in Tobey Tyler, for instance. Here they're all together in the first comedy, and that makes it a sentimental sort of milestone.
The cast also includes Cecil Kellaway (Gunga Din, The Proud Rebel, etc.) and Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke) so young I didn't recognize him. Shortly before writing this I saw a trailer for a new version with Tim Allen. It appears that this time a grown man (Allen) will turn into a dog, and the plot is entirely different, so comparison is probably irrelevant.
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