Original air date: 16th February 1987
Before I close the book on Family Dog, I'd like to take a look at the original Amazing Stories episode which kicked off the character's underwhelming career (albeit not with any astoundingly potent dynamic - it took several years for the spin-off series to come to fruition, after all).
Amazing Stories was an anthology series that was created by the 1980s' favourite hotshot director, Steven Spielberg, and ran on NBC for two seasons between 1985 and 1987. The title of the series was lifted from that of a long-running science fiction magazine - although, as Family Dog's inclusion might indicate, the emphasis wasn't merely on science fiction stories but also on the wacky, unsettling and at times just plain odd. NBC had enough confidence in the clout of the Spielberg brand name to commit to two years' worth of episodes from the go, only for the series to be completely trounced in the ratings war by CBS's Murder, She Wrote. These days, Amazing Stories isn't terribly well-remembered - heck, the CBS Twilight Zone revival from around the same time (itself bolstered into being by the public's immense appetite for Spielbergian fantasies, at least on the big screen) left more of an imprint on popular culture (people still seem pretty traumatised by that "A Little Peace and Quiet" episode). One of the more curious entries in the series' largely unnoticed run was a foray into a fully animated story, then a rarity on prime time television, which arrived a month and a half ahead of the Simpson family's debut as a supporting skit on The Tracey Ullman Show and also dealt with life in a dysfunctional suburban household. The episode featured the up-and-coming talents of Brad Bird (who wrote and directed) and Tim Burton (who contributed character designs) and was apparently well-received enough that CBS later decided to use it as the basis for its own spin-off series, albeit a few years down the line, once The Simpsons had proven that there was a viable market for such things. I suspect that, back in February 1987, getting something like this from a series aimed at adult audiences would have seemed extremely fresh, offbeat and daring, and in some respects "The Family Dog" may have even whetted the public's appetite for the prime time animated adventures of The Simpsons, although it has to be said that the Amazing Stories episode does look decidedly thin and shop-worn when compared to Groening's creations. Bird had no involvement with the CBS spin-off, reportedly believing that "The Family Dog" had already reached the peak of its potential as a one-off installment, and it's not hard to see where he was coming from, even without taking the outcome into consideration. "The Family Dog" may be superior in just about every regard to anything its ill-fated spin-off had to offer, but it's still a rather uneven piece of television that doesn't stack up against the best of Bird's work.
Unlike the spin-off series, which followed a one story per episode format and was consequently encumbered with having to pad out ten incredibly thin premises to a full twenty-one minutes each, "The Family Dog" adopts a multi-narrative approach, in being broken up into three self-contained stories told in succession. Truthfully, this doesn't work out massively better than the spin-off's approach, the problem being that only the third story manages to be especially fun or compelling. The first story, which is essentially designed to introduce each member of the Binford family and their unique hand in making life troublesome for the dog, is a slog to sit through, and feels more like a prolonged introduction to the third story than anything else, with the second "story" (if you can call it that) acting as a kind of intermission between the two. Upon reaching the third story, which centres around the dog's efforts to protect the house from a pair of serial burglars, the episode finally kicks into gear and becomes extremely enjoyable. You get the impression that this was the story that Bird was really interested in telling all along, but he couldn't figure out how to extend it to the necessary running time. Thanks to the strength of the animation, which is head and shoulders above that of the spin-off series, the story has a solid visual wit and a likeable, Chuck Jones-esque expressiveness and energy throughout. It's in this third story that the episode also goes absolutely nuts, straying from the realism of the earlier segments and simply trying to milk as much madcap lunacy as possible from the increasingly unlikely scenario. As I say, it makes the entire affair seem incredibly uneven, though it does ensure something of interest in the latter stages.
Despite its altogether tediousness, the opening segment did, apparently, play as a standalone short attached to the US theatrical release of the Spielberg-produced animated film The Land Before Time (1988), which had undergone some serious editing and was in danger of running a little too short at 69 minutes. Given that Bird had no intention of using the characters again beyond this one-off installment, it's surprising that he considered it necessary to give each of the Binfords such a drawn-out introduction (particularly as all of them are fashioned upon easily-recognisable archetypes), but I guess that he wanted to include a glimpse into the dog's everyday life by having him interact with the family in a more down-to-earth context before progressing toward the cartoonier hi-jinks. We start out by watching Billy, who's bitter that Bev has roped him into vacuuming the house on a Saturday, harass the unfortunate dog by chasing him with the hoover. The dog's no idiot, however, and knows that he'll be safe from Billy's hyperactive malice if he takes refuge next to Skip, who's watching a sports game with a neighbour, and who he knows Billy would never dare to antagonise. What the dog doesn't count on is being beaten to a pulp with a rolled-up newspaper because Skip needs to cover for his own methane emissions. He retreats to the kitchen and tries to scrounge a meal from Bev, but has to work to get her attention and when he finally does she rewards him with an angry outburst about her own unfulfilled dreams. Noteworthy is that while Bev was voiced by Molly Cheek in the spin-off series, here she's voiced by Annie Potts (Bo Peep from the Toy Story films) and comes across as a spunkier though altogether more outwardly bitter character, in contrast to the perpetual weariness of Cheek's Bev. The undeniable vigor of Potts' performance aside, there is something a tad unsettling about seeing the dog on the receiving end of such a melodramatic outburst. Whereas Bev, in the spin-off series, was probably the least awful of the four Binfords toward the dog (she was only really actively callous toward him on one occasion, in "Enemy Dog"), here she uses the dog primarily as a punching bag for venting her frustrations with her stupid and shiftless family, and the results aren't very enjoyable.
Grudgingly, Bev opens up a can of dog food and proceeds its contents into his bowl, leading into a nifty visual gag in which we see the joy in the dog's expression slowly evaporating when he realises that he's in for a pretty uninspiring dinner from an inferior brand. Suddenly, the dog loses his appetite and attempts to slink away, but Bev, who isn't prepared to let him off the hook after the trouble he just put her through, drags him back by the collar and forces him to eat. Given the sheer tyranny exhibited by Bev toward the dog, I find I have limited sympathy for her when the dog subsequently staggers away and vomits up the gruesome offerings into her slipper. The dog then runs into Buffy, the toddler of the household, who's intent on treating him like a doll and dressing him up in baby clothing. As much as I loathe Buffy with a fiery hot vengeance in the spin-off series, here I actually find her to be a notch more tolerable, chiefly because her animation is so much more fluid and expressive, adding a vaguely demented vibe to her character that makes her central shtick seem a little less flat. The dog eventually gets fed up and growls at Buffy, causing her to go running off in a screaming tantrum, just as Bev puts her feet into her slippers and discovers the dog's little present from earlier. Realising that all hell is about to break loose, the dog attempts to escape out the front door, but finds himself ignored as the four Binfords bicker among themselves as to who is to blame for their pet's behaviour. Eventually, the dog's panic gives way to boredom, and he marches over coolly, cocks his leg and passes water all over the living room rug, prompting Skip to toss him out of the house. The segment fades out with the dog sitting in the front yard with a self-satisfied smile, relieved to have escaped the nightmares within (and to have relieved himself as a bonus).
The second segment takes the form of a super-8 movie of the family's last Xmas, which the Binfords are currently watching and providing a running commentary on. Perhaps if you have kids of your own you'll find it all hilariously authentic, as Buffy repeatedly points out herself in the movie and then annoys her parents with repeated requests for a soda, but other than offering up a neat visual change of pace I personally find this segment to be entirely pointless. There are some mildly amusing running gags involving Skip struggling to feign enthusiasm over being gifted with endless neck-ties and Billy terrorising the dog with increasingly nasty-looking playthings, and then at the end the dog exacts a vengeance (of sorts) by devouring the family's Xmas ham, but otherwise precious little happens. Fortunately, this segment is also the shortest of the three, so we're able to move on fairly swiftly to the "guard dog" portion of the episode, which is where the fun really begins.
This segment opens with a somewhat weird moment where Buffy is describing a scene from a movie she saw in which a wolf devours a rabbit - unlike a lot of Buffy's dialogue, which come across as strained attempts to emulate the kind of things a toddler might say, this bit has a spontaneity that genuinely does feel like it might have been improvised. It's then revealed that Skip, Billy and Buffy are seated at the dinner table and, just as Billy starts hurling childish insults at Buffy for spilling milk all over his lap, Bev walks in with a dodgy-looking pile of orange mush. In the spin-off series, there was a rather tiresome running gag involving Bev's efforts to serve up wholesome, healthy meals, to the chagrin of her takeout-loving family. Here, we see the origins of that gag, only the nature of the joke is somewhat different - in the Amazing Stories episode, it isn't health food that Bev grosses out her family with so much as weird and experimental recipes from housekeeping magazines, in this case tater puffs combined with cheese whip, which feels a little less cliche. The way it plays out here is a heck of a lot funnier too. Skip, Billy and Buffy manage to sneakily clear their plates by passing the contents down to the dog, who readily devours the lot, while Bev samples the recipe in the kitchen and decides that, actually, she'd sooner tip the whole revolting mess down the sink. Skip suggests that the family go out for dessert and a movie, leaving the bloated dog alone to watch the house. Unfortunately, on this particular night two burglars happen to waltz in and make off with the family's coach and coffee maker, while the dog is too overstuffed with Bev's potato-cheese whip concoction to even lift himself off the ground.
Naturally, when the family returns, Skip's none too happy that the dog has failed at his single duty and warns him that it had better not happen again. Nine days later, when the family goes out for another evening at the movies, the dog is once again left alone and with a renewed determination to keep the house safe. In an absolutely brilliant sequence which piles on the menace perfectly, we see the camera rotate continuously around the darkened household, the clock ticking away ominously, as the dog's vigilance slowly gives way to weariness. At the rattling of the door handle, he suddenly springs back to life and lunges at the opening door in a raging burst of fury - nevertheless, we suspect that things won't work out too well for the dog and, sure enough, the intruders promptly sidestep him and proceed to lock him out of the house. Once again, the Binfords come home to find their home stripped of its possessions and, once again, Skip isn't very happy with the dog.
It's at this point that the story crosses over into decidedly more warped territory, as Skip escorts the dog to Gerta Lestrange's Attack Dog School for assistance in becoming a savage, burglar-eating monster. It's also here that Burton's hand in the design process becomes particularly evident, with the school in question looking like something straight out of Beetlejuice. Skip appears to have second thoughts about the wisdom of hanging out in such a place, but Gerta promises that she can turn any dog into a "quivering, snarling, white hot ball of canine terror" and gives him a demonstration by having Angel, a neurotic-looking toy poodle, tear a huge chunk from her unfortunate assistant. The dog is left in the care of Gerta and, two weeks later, Skip returns to find him in a state of energetic delirium which instantly switches over into all-out savagery at the click of a finger. The entire Gerta sequence is far stranger, darker and more inventive than the spin-off series ever dared to get, and all the better for it.
That night, the family goes out and yet again the burglars, who by now have blatantly singled out the Binfords as easy targets, return for another merry evening of looting. As soon as they pry open the door, however, they're greeted by the savage, raging monster on the other side and beat a speedy retreat. Only once they've reached the apparent safety of their own house does the shorter of the two burglars become aware that the dog has accompanied them by latching onto his arm and is now refusing to let go.
Oh yes, and sharp-eyed viewers may have noticed that the license plate on the burglars' vehicle reads A113. If you're an animation enthusiast, then odds are that you're already familiar with this particular in-joke, of which Bird has long been a key proponent. But did you know that this is where the in-joke in question all began? That's right, every time you see the gag featured in a Pixar film or an episode of The Simpsons, know that Family Dog has the unique distinction of being the very first animated project to utilise it. Not bad for a property of otherwise very little consequence.
(If you're not familiar with the gag and are still scratching your head as to what A113 even signifies, it refers to a classroom at the California Institute of the Arts, where many prominent figures in the modern animation industry trained as students. Bird likes to include it as an Easter egg in all of his films, and many other alumni have followed suit.)
As the Binfords fret about their missing dog, we see the burglar comically try to go about his life as normal, despite the handicap of having an angry and persistent terrier lodged into his arm. Things take an unexpected turn when a police officer shows up at the door, having tracked the burglars down, and the dog, apparently conditioned to treat any shadowy figure lurking outside whatever property he's currently in as an intruder to be vanquished, abruptly switches his allegiances and savages the cop. The burglars subdue the chewed-up police officer and, grateful to the dog for his assistance, decide to take him in and deploy his fearsome savagery in conducting further crime sprees. It's here that the episode slips over from being slightly freaky into balls to the wall insanity, via a montage in which the dog is seen doing everything from holding up banks to depriving a petrified old lady in an alley way of her purse. It's all extremely bonkers, but there's something distinctly disarming about it too.
Although "The Family Dog" does pick up considerably in its third act, its appeal is fairly limited and efforts to rework the scenario into a Simpsons-style sitcom were definitely misguided. The script doesn't have the heart, sharpness or observational wit of The Simpsons and where it does excel, with madcap cartoon antics in the tradition of Chuck Jones, it feels like it would be better-suited to a six-minute short than to a full-length TV episode. Not to mention that the Binfords are an inherently unpleasant bunch and there are only so many times that you can really tolerate seeing them bicker among themselves and treat their pet like refuse. May that tombstone in the Springfield Pet Cemetery forever stand as a testament to the fact that some things aren't meant to be.
With that, I'm done with Family Dog for the foreseeable future. Perhaps I'll find a reason to bring it up again at some point or another (should anything ever come to light about those three "lost" episodes, for instance), but after eight months of carefully studying the series and of trawling through the Binfords' antics, I definitely feel as if I've earned a nice long break from it for now. This does prompt the question as to what obscure or long-forgotten cartoon series I'll be covering next - Fish Police is a definite possibility (made all the more attractive for the fact that it's a considerably shorter series than Family Dog), although rest assured that I'd have to be very, very bored to even consider giving Capitol Critters another run. It's not quite as obscure or long-forgotten, but I did indicate back in November that I was planning an in-depth look at Al Jean and Mike Reiss's The Critic at some point in 2017. Coming up next, however, will be coverage of a long-standing animated curiosity of mine, one with even weaker fortunes than Family Dog (ie: it never made it past the pilot stage), and which I'd previously hinted I would happily review should I ever come across it. Check back to see what February has to offer.
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