Or is it barking now? I'm not sure. This sequel to the 1959 Disney classic "The Shaggy D.A." has handed the role of Wilby Daniels over to Dean Jones. He's married now (to the glorious Suzanne Pleshette) and has a pranksterish young son (Shane Sinutko) who is exactly like the unmentioned brother from the first film. With his house robbed (twice!) in a short period, Jones decides to run for D.A. to counter the incompetence of shady current D.A. Keenan Wynn who is being paid off by mob leader Vic Tayback to look the other way.
The return of the ring that made him turn into a dog 17 years before does it again, and that puts a damper on his campaign. unfortunately, there is another old English sheepdog, owned by ice cream man Tim Conway, and Jones keeps switching places with him. Jones is now being sought after by two groups of bad men which also includes the house robber, Richard Balkayan (like when, a fixture as a Disney villain), and Jones joins forces in his dog guise to stop the bad guys.
This film is overloaded with familiar faces from 1970s culture, with Joanne Worley replacing Ruth buzzi or Kay Ballard (obviously busy on the "Freaky Friday" set) as Conway's girlfriend who works in the ice cream factory. A very funny scene has whirly and her staff invading a hotel to try to find the ring which they believe is in the middle of hundreds of strawberry ice cream cakes which leads to the obvious pie fight, and that is the highlight of the film humor wise.
There's also Dick Van Patten as Wynn's crooked assistant, veteran character actress Iris Adrian as Worley's boss and Pat McCormack as a bartender who keeps being distracted by Conway's insistence that his dog can sing and talk. only slightly better than the original, this suffers from a juvenile mentality which made it fine for teenagers like me when it first came out, but has sadly dated.
Pleshette is the saving grace, beautiful as well as feisty and loving, as commanding a presence as she was as Emily on "The Bob Newhart Show". Jones is also quite good, and Conway is doing his "Carol Burnett Show" schtick, but other actors seem to be overwhelmed with cliched one-dimensional characters that they could play in their sleep. While Wynn is playing a character by the name of John Slade, it's obvious that he's still doing Alonzo Hawke, the villain he played in several other Disney films.
The return of the ring that made him turn into a dog 17 years before does it again, and that puts a damper on his campaign. unfortunately, there is another old English sheepdog, owned by ice cream man Tim Conway, and Jones keeps switching places with him. Jones is now being sought after by two groups of bad men which also includes the house robber, Richard Balkayan (like when, a fixture as a Disney villain), and Jones joins forces in his dog guise to stop the bad guys.
This film is overloaded with familiar faces from 1970s culture, with Joanne Worley replacing Ruth buzzi or Kay Ballard (obviously busy on the "Freaky Friday" set) as Conway's girlfriend who works in the ice cream factory. A very funny scene has whirly and her staff invading a hotel to try to find the ring which they believe is in the middle of hundreds of strawberry ice cream cakes which leads to the obvious pie fight, and that is the highlight of the film humor wise.
There's also Dick Van Patten as Wynn's crooked assistant, veteran character actress Iris Adrian as Worley's boss and Pat McCormack as a bartender who keeps being distracted by Conway's insistence that his dog can sing and talk. only slightly better than the original, this suffers from a juvenile mentality which made it fine for teenagers like me when it first came out, but has sadly dated.
Pleshette is the saving grace, beautiful as well as feisty and loving, as commanding a presence as she was as Emily on "The Bob Newhart Show". Jones is also quite good, and Conway is doing his "Carol Burnett Show" schtick, but other actors seem to be overwhelmed with cliched one-dimensional characters that they could play in their sleep. While Wynn is playing a character by the name of John Slade, it's obvious that he's still doing Alonzo Hawke, the villain he played in several other Disney films.