Review: The Shaggy D.A. (DMC #60)
Wilby Daniels’s story continues in The Shaggy D.A., the sequel to The Shaggy Dog! This film has the honor of being the sixtieth film in our Disnerd Movie Challenge. (Have we seriously reviewed sixty films already?! Before we know it we’ll be hitting 100!) You can follow along with our synopsis if you’re unfamiliar with the story. For the rest of you, scroll down for our review!
Synopsis
Wilby Daniels has grown up and become a successful lawyer who is married to Betty, and the two have a son named Brian. The family returns home to Medfield after a vacation only to discover that their house was robbed while they were gone. Just earlier, two men named Dip and Freddie sneaked off with their belongings while disguised as movers. Wilby contacts the police to report the robbery but doesn’t receive much help, and angrily claims that criminals are allowed to walk free thanks to the current District Attorney, “honest” John Slade. That night the robbers break in to the Daniels house and steal the remainder of their belongings. Fed up, Wilby decides to run for D.A. against Slade and make Medfield safe again. In public, Slade defends himself and his contributions as D.A., but in secret is working with a local crime boss named Edward Roshak. At a local museum, Professor Whatley shows a group of people an exhibit on the Borgia family, recounting the story of Lucretia Borgia turning a man into a dog. Freddie and Dip are in the group and spot a ring with a scarab on it: the same Borgia ring that transformed Wilby into a dog in his youth. The two criminals steal the ring and take it to Roshak, but he refuses to buy it as he considers the ring to be junk. Meanwhile, Brian gets some ice cream from the local salesman, Tim, who owns an Old English Sheepdog named Elwood. Back at home, a news crew is setting up to interview Wilby and his campaign. Brian listens to a radio and Wilby overhears about the Borgia ring being stolen. He privately and tells Betty about what happened to him when he was younger (while Brian listens at the door). Betty laughs it off and assumes Wilby is just stressed about the campaign. Freddie pawns the ring off to Tim who decides to buy the ring to impress Katrinka, a local roller derby star and pastry assistant. While inspecting the ring he finds the Latin inscription on it and recites it out loud. Elwood disappears and Wilby begins turning into a shaggy dog once more. The news interview is cut short when Betty realizes that Wilby was telling the truth, and works with Brian to cover up Wilby’s transformation. Tim locates “Elwood” and takes him back to his truck. Dog-Wilby surprises Tim by talking, and Tim eagerly proposes using “Elwood” to get into show business. Dog-Wilby runs away, turns back into a human, and is chased back home by another dog. Though disheveled and out of breath, Wilby completes the interview and publicly calls out Slade for his corruption. Roshak demands Slade stop Wilby, and Slade orders his right hand man, Raymond, to find some dirt on the aspiring D.A.
Tim takes Elwood to a local pub to show him off, not realizing Elwood can no longer talk. He leaves the pub annoyed and embarrassed when Elwood fails to do anything. Wilby is determined to find the ring so it doesn’t spoil his chances of becoming D.A. On his way out the door, he and his family are stopped by their neighbor, Admiral Brenner. Brenner reminds Wilby that he is supposed to be speaking at the Daisies, a local ladies garden club. He and Betty reluctantly attend the club, and Raymond slips into the room to spy on Wilby. At the bakery, Tim attempts to woo Katrinka by giving her the ring. She reads the incantation aloud. Wilby immediately begins transforming while giving his speech, but Betty stops him before any of the Daisies notice. Dog-Wilby accidentally causes commotion while trying to leave. Tim catches up with “Elwood” again and makes a deal with the dog. They arrive back at the pub, where Tim goes to set up a meeting while “Elwood” waits in the truck, but Wilby turns human again leaving the real Elwood in the truck. Tim is thrown out of the pub when Elwood is unable to perform. Wilby and Betty go to a pawn shop to ask about the ring, while Brian talks to Tim. Tim reveals he gave the ring to Katrinka. The family goes to the bakery and Wilby offers a large sum of money for the ring. Katrinka realizes that the ring must have fallen into one of the cherry pies the bakery sent to Slade’s fundraising event. Katrinka and her colleagues rush to the event where a massive pie-fight ensues in a desperate search for the ring. Dip and Freddie are just outside, and Freddie finds the ring after being hit with a pie. He attempts to pawn the ring again, but this time accidentally to an undercover cop. The ring is recovered by the police and Wilby rushes to the station to ask about it. Professor Whatley recites the incantation to an officer, causing Wilby to transform. Raymond arrives and hears Whatley telling the legend of the ring, and starts putting two and two together. He gets his hands on the ring and reports back to Slade. Though skeptical, Slade invites Wilby to his office and demands he withdraw from the race. Wilby refuses, saying when he is elected he will prosecute Slade. Slade reveals that he has the ring and reads the inscription several times. He gleefully watches Wilby transform into the shaggy dog and makes a call to the pound. Once more, Wilby escapes, but not before realizing that he will be stuck as a dog for some time because of the multiple recitations.
Dog-Wilby leads the pound, the police, and Slade on a wild chase around town, through the roller derby rink where Katrinka is competing, and finally in a car chase with Dog-Wilby driving the ice cream truck. Slade and his men finally corner Dog-Wilby in the branches of a tree. Slade demands once more that Wilby back down from the race, but Wilby adamantly refuses. Animal control accidentally tranquilizes Slade instead of Wilby, while Wilby is taken to the pound. After recovering, Slade orders that the shaggy dog be euthanized. The animal control officer reluctantly agrees, but is spooked when Wilby speaks. Wilby and the other dogs in the pound escape through a tunnel one of the dogs dug, and Wilby drives the animal control vehicle with the other dogs to safety. Wilby returns home briefly, but then leaves with Tim to conduct a plan to take down Slade. Tim goes to Slade’s house and pretends to be one of Roshak’s men. He tells Slade that Roshak is cutting him out of their deal. Later, the two go to Roshak’s warehouse, where Brian joins up with them, much to Wilby’s displeasure. Together, the three discover evidence of Roshak’s criminal activities, but not Slade’s connection. Wilby finds a recorder, planning to use it on Slade. Slade continues reciting the incantation, although Raymond warns him that reciting it over and over might cause Slade himself to turn into a dog. Slade dismisses this as rubbish. He arrives at Roshak’s warehouse and demands to know why he’s being cut out. Roshak has no idea what Slade is talking about and tells him business is as usual. Little do they know that Wilby recorded the entire conversation. Unfortunately, Wilby is discovered, and Roshak and Slade attempt to kill him. Tim and Brian make off with the recorder. Just as Roshak is about to kill Wilby, the dogs from the pound arrive and tackle the two crooks, knocking the ring out of Slade’s hand. Wilby transforms back into a human once again and escapes with Tim and Brian. Slade and Raymond give chase, but are flagged down by the police. Slade attempts to use his position to get out of this, but when the police walk up to the car, Slade has been transformed into a bulldog! The curse has been passed to him. Wilby is elected D.A. while Tim and Katrinka get engaged. Together, the couple adopt all the dogs from the pound.
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: Well, I wasn’t all that impressed with The Shaggy Dog, so I can’t imagine this sequel is going to be much better, but we’ll wait and see.
Kevin: I was not all that favorable to The Shaggy Dog, either. It was clunky in many areas and the characters weren’t likeable, so I’m a bit apprehensive about this one. The first thing I noticed was what the Disney Plus preview screen had to say. From the description, it sounds like Wilby gave up his youthful scientific endeavors and became a lawyer (nothing against lawyers here, but I’m curious why he lost interest in his interesting experiments). Anyway, I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that this is more entertaining than the first movie.
Thoughts After Watching
Better than its predecessor, but just barely
Kevin: We were beginning to get tired of Dean Jones after so many back-to-back films with him in it. Since then we’ve had a nice break, enough to where I personally didn’t mind seeing him again in this film, even though he’s just repeating the same thing he’s done before. Where The Shaggy Dog had elements of mystery and more subdued humor, The Shaggy D.A. takes full advantage of having Jones as the leading man by diving completely into slapstick. I had a bit more fun watching Jones take on the mantle of Wilby Daniels and bring some of his more “straight man” feel to the character. For one thing, I think Jones is a great choice for taking over from Tommy Kirk. Kirk had youthful looks and exuberance that shined through in many of the characters he portrayed. He was a versatile young actor who looked just as comfortable in serious films—such as Old Yeller—as he was in comedies. He portrayed Wilby as a bit of an everyman; I thought his fascination with scientific experiments was more to do with curiosity as he was growing up. So when he becomes cursed by the ring and begins turning into a dog, Wilby is seen as a regular guy thrown into a ridiculous situation. This is exactly what gets carried over into the sequel. Dean Jones’s previous roles were all basically a “normal” man in abnormal circumstances. By continuing this in the sequel, it’s easy to see Jones as the same character Kirk once played, albeit much older. Also, I think it helps that Dean shares some physical similarities with Fred MacMurray, who played Wilby’s father, Wilson, in the first movie. MacMurray was the first person to ever be named a Disney Legend. Although many others would be inducted into this hall of fame before Jones was, from what I could research, Jones often seems to be compared to MacMurray. Part of this is due to their numerous lead roles in Disney’s comedic movies. This connection between Jones and MacMurray is another reason why Jones was the right person to play Wilby Daniels as a grown man.
Familiar faces and voices add to the fun
Megan: In addition to the return of Dean Jones, we saw quite a number of familiar faces in this film. Keenan Wynn played the villains Alonzo Hawk in Herbie Rides Again and Martin Ridgeway in Snowball Express, and he returns for yet another Disney villain role as John Slade in The Shaggy D.A. If you thought the relationship between Betty and Wilby Daniels looked familiar, it’s probably because we’ve seen this exact couple before—Suzanne Pleshette played the role of Jo Anne Baker opposite Dean Jones’s character Steve Walker in Blackbeard’s Ghost. Richard Bakalyan, who plays Freddie, previously appeared in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and The Strongest Man in the World—also as a henchman. And Raymond played by Dick Van Patten? We’ve seen him before in Snowball Express, The Strongest Man in the World, Gus, and Treasure of Matecumbe. While it’s fun to point out familiar faces when they appear, it also shows how often Disney was recycling the same handful of actors and basically type-casting them. Keenan Wynn is always the same archetypal villain. Richard Bakalyan is always a henchman. Dean Jones is always the somewhat comedic male lead, while Suzanne Pleshette is always the leading lady. I get the sense that none of these actors have really been challenged in these roles. It seems very much like they are playing themselves. That’s totally fine for a few one-off films, but when we see so many of these movies back-to-back it becomes painfully obvious how unoriginal these characters are. Is that the fault of the writers? The casting director? The actors? It’s hard to tease all those elements apart to really pinpoint what the issue is, but the result is a movie that’s okay, but definitely not taking home any awards.
The one exception to all of these repeats was John Fiedler who plays the animal control officer Howie Clemmings. I could not stop laughing once I heard him speak—because he’s the voice of Piglet! Watching this older man as an inept dog catcher was hilarious because all I could think of was Piglet running around trying to catch a big shaggy dog!
Gimmicky humor makes it better
Kevin: As I mentioned, this movie is far more gimmicky than the first, which strangely makes it just slightly better. I appreciate that it went full blown, if only because it added a stronger sense of fun that I felt was missing from the original film. I had a hard time buying the comedy behind films like Million Dollar Duck and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes if only because my suspension of disbelief was pushed too far. Taking something as grounded in reality as science and mixing in supernatural elements is tricky. If it’s not done right it just comes off awkward. In this film, the wacky scenarios all make sense. A cursed ring transforming a man into a dog, however far-fetched, just works because humans have been telling supernatural stories like this for thousands of years. While I don’t personally believe in anything supernatural, I can let myself believe it exists within the confines of a movie like The Shaggy D.A. because it’s a common storyline. I like that this movie embraced the ridiculousness of both its own plot and the plot from the first movie and had Wilby get into even more hijinks. The first movie had a scene with dog-Wilby driving a car, so I loved that the sequel repeated that. It went even further by having dog-Wilby don a roller-skater’s uniform and join in on the fun at the rink. Let me tell you, the image of what is obviously a man in a dog suit standing up in roller-skates is so over the top silly and tremendously fun! It may be that Dean Jones just has stronger comedic acting chops over Tommy Kirk, but it’s just those little funny moments that made me enjoy this film a slight touch more than the original. However, like many of Jones’s other films, it’s not something I’ll probably find myself watching often.
Special effects get more sophisticated
Megan: I think part of what made it easier to suspend our disbelief while watching this film was that the special effects got an upgrade. In The Shaggy Dog, a lot of Wilby’s transformation is done piecemeal because that was the best that costuming, editing, and post-production special effects could do at the time. It’s also very drawn out, I think possibly because audiences at that time weren’t used to seeing such transformations in film before, so they needed to see the step-by-step process to believe it. With The Shaggy D.A., the special effects use the same groundwork of costuming, editing, etc., but they level it up a notch. The audience by now has seen more films and thus become more sophisticated, so the transformations happen a lot faster. We don’t dwell on the in-between stage of part human, part dog. We see it a few times, but most of the time we go straight from human to dog with only the real dog fading away to cue us into what’s happening. (It probably also helps that this sequel is in full color while we watched The Shaggy Dog in black-and-white.) It makes the story move along much faster, allowing us to enjoy the antics of the man-turned-dog rather than dwelling on the mechanics of how the man became the dog. (Although there are still some questions about that, which Kevin gets into later in this post.)
Some growth, yet little progress
Megan: While I appreciated the callbacks to the first film, I was actually glad that Wilby did not end up marrying either of the girls he’d dated in the first film. As we discussed in our review of The Shaggy Dog, the relationships with those girls weren’t exactly healthy relationships for anyone involved. Betty thankfully is a headstrong character who appears to be an equal partner in her relationship with Wilby. However, it would appear the rest of the film’s universe doesn’t see Betty that way. The most painfully sexist part of the entire movie is when the TV crew comes to the Daniels’ home to film a piece on Wilby running for D.A. Through their body language, the TV crew makes several snide eye rolls and hand motions amongst themselves to disparage Betty’s role as Wilby’s campaign manager. There’s also this exchange before the interview even starts:
TV DIRECTOR: Oh, by the way, his wife is also his campaign manager, so try to keep the lid on her.
TV INTERVIEWER: Campaign manager? She acts more like Sarah Bernhardt starring in Housekeeping Can Be Fun.
What’s worse than this exchange of dialogue is that Betty’s son Brian overhears it and repeats it to his mother, not really knowing how he’s insulting her.
The film may not have any other scenes that are as blatantly sexist as that one, but it doesn’t exactly have any winning scenes, either. Though Betty is the one who suggests Wilby run for D.A., and proves to be a solid partner in protecting him during his transformations, and assisting him along the way, one solid female character cannot save a film when it comes to the Bechdel test. The only other named female character in the film is Katrinka. While Katrinka is a strong-willed woman in her own regard who knows how to go after what she wants (and she’s the star of the roller derby team which is pretty badass), she and Betty never directly speak to each other until the absolute last minute of the film:
KATRINKA: We’re shopping for our announcement party.
BETTY: Well, we’ll be there!
That’s it. And even then, the “we” in both their statements includes the men in their lives, so their conversation is still somewhat about the male characters. The only other female-to-female piece of dialogue I found in the entire film was this exchange between Katrinka and her unnamed boss, but because the boss isn’t named in the film, it doesn’t count as passing the Bechdel test:
MANAGERESS: What special order?
KATRINKA: The one for the hotel. It’s already gone out.
MANAGERESS: The hotel! Out!
While Betty and Katrinka are a step up from the female characters in the first Shaggy Dog movie, this film still fails the Bechdel test, which is a bit of a disappointment, but honestly not a surprise.
A few unanswered questions
Kevin: When we finished watching this, I at first thought it was a “true” sequel, in that it felt like the movie really carried over the plot and elements of the first movie and made the two seem connected. Well, while I think that’s a bit true, in hindsight I discovered that there are some things about this movie that don’t quite align with the first. For one, I remember that Wilby was able to break the curse in the first movie because he performed an act of selflessness (although whether said act was selfless is debatable). Since he broke the curse years earlier, why would he be transformed back into a dog now? Come to think of it, he was only affected by the curse because he recited the incantation in the first place. Why is it that all these years later someone else reciting the incantation causes Wilby to turn into a dog? Why does the curse get passed on to Slade only after repeating the incantation too often? Is taking down a corrupt D.A. like Slade the act of selflessness Wilby needs in this movie? Why is this called The Shaggy D.A. when Wilby isn’t even a D.A. yet? (Okay, that last question is more of a joke, although I’m still wondering… I guess The Shaggy Lawyer just doesn’t have as good of a ring to it.) After thinking about it, I think this issue with the curse is a plot hole. It obviously wasn’t noticeable enough for me to have cared while watching, but now I am a bit curious to go back to the first movie to see if I missed something. Well played, Disney—you may make me rewatch these two films again after all.