Watched: 08/09/2025
Format: Disney+
Viewing: First
Director: Charles Barton
First, this movie's opening sequence slaps.
The rest of The Shaggy Dog (1959) was never going to live up to whatever that was, but I basically enjoyed it.
I tell you what - for what this movie is, which is a near 70-year-old movie for kids probably up to age 12 or so, and adults looking for utter nonsense, this fit the bill for some silly viewing.
The basic plot is not basic - it is, in fact, a "shaggy dog story". I don't know why we call intentionally long stories with side-plots and a sad trombone of an ending a "shaggy dog story", but we do, and Wikipedia has a theory as to why. But, yeah, it's an entire movie leading up to a punchline about Annette Funicello finding a better guy than the two guys initially interested in her.
However! Annette is not the star of the film. Fred MacMurray gets his name listed first, but the star is really 1950's child/teen-staple actor Tommy Kirk. He's a teen nerd who comes upon a ring cursed by the Borgias (I know), and the ring makes him take on the shape of the gigantic sheepdog of the new neighbor, a cute but pretentious daughter of a museum curator. He can still speak - which is funny - but he's a dog now sometimes, and sometimes himself, depending on what the gag needs.
Fred MacMurray plays Kirk's father, a mail carrier (ho ho!) who hates dogs, and who has a murderous bent when it comes to dogs, which is a problem if you, yourself, are now a dog. He is absolutely Fred MacMurray here.
Other stars include fellow Disney kid-star Kevin Corcoran (Swiss Family Robinson) and Jean Hagen a decade on from her star turns in Asphalt Jungle and Side Street, seven years after Lina Lamont and an Oscar nom for Singin' In The Rain, and well after she'd been established as a mom on The Danny Thomas Show.*
As if the problem of being a teen trying to land cute girls who live on one's street whilst randomly turning into a sheepdog isn't enough of a problem, it turns out actual, literal spies have moved in and we have to foil the heisting of nuclear secrets. We have two cops who can't believe what's happening, a goofy and useless professor, etc... The gags are not bad, and watching a dog put on pajamas and get ready for bed is just good movie.
If this all sounds like a lot, I remind you: a shaggy dog story.
There's a mix of real dog or dogs, and puppets that are surprisingly effective (Disney Imagineers for the win).
Anyhoo... I finally saw it, and I liked this silly movie. And I don't always love Disney live action movies, particularly from the late 1960's. I'm still mad about being forced to watch The Horse In the Gray Flannel Suit, and I saw that in 3rd grade. But you can see why they kept trying when you see something goofy like this that actually works.
Also, this scene is way closer to my high school experience with The Admiral than I care to admit.
*there's probably a whole post some time about how Hagen left the show and was one of the first major characters killed off on a major TV show to explain someone's absence.
Hagen is, of course, dressed to not be a fox here, but I'm not sure it works
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