Where can you go after The Shaggy Dog? Well, you become a canine district attorney, I guess. And after eighteen other films for Disney, this would be the last film of director Robert Stevenson. Those movies made him the most commercially successful director in the history of film (at least in 1977).

Made in 1959, The Shaggy Dog had been at that point the most profitable film produced by Disney and created the template for their live-action films: place something supernatural inside modern life and then let hijinks ensue. These were inexpensive movies made with TV actors on summer break from their series shot on the Disney backlot that had little to no risk. They could play matinees and then would eventually show up on The Wonderful World of Disney*. Made for around a million, The Shaggy Dog made $9 million on its first release and even more when it came out of the fabled Disney vault for another release in 1967.

Another thing that obsesses me about these Disney movies is that they are set in a cinematic universe before that even became a fact of moviemaking. Yes, so many of them are set in Medfield, a town that is also the setting for The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber and the Dexter Riley trilogy that contains The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Now You See Him Now You Don’t and The Strongest Man in the World.

In the seventeen years between movies**, Wilby Daniels (Dean Jones) became a successful attorney and married Betty (Suzanne Pleshette). When they return from a vacation, they discover that they’ve been robbed and Wilby blames district attorney John Slade (Keenan Wynn — wait what!?!) who is connected to mob boss Edward “Fast Eddie” Roshak (Vic Tayback — again, this movie has the casting of my dreams). After he’s burglarized again — two times in a day — Wilby decides he’s going to run for district attorney.

Seriously, it’s like they asked me to pick people and roles for them in this movie. I would answer, “Please put Jo Anne Worley in this as a roller derby star” and poof! My dream comes true! “How about Richard O’Brien as a desk sergeant?” Disney may say, “You mean Riff Raff? You want him to randomly show up?” And it happens! “Can Jo Anne Worley date Tim Conway?” You know it!

Look, this movie is absolutely ridiculous but it’s made for kids and as a child, if someone turned into a dog when they were trying to do grown-up things I’d literally piss my pants. That’s how I reviewed movies back then.

*And now we watch them on Disney Plus.

**Someone at Disney is as big a continuity maniac as the old DC Universe used to be, because they made The Return of the Shaggy Dog, an attempt at showing what happened in the period between these movies. Gary Kroeger played Wilby Daniels. That said, let me get a little deep here, but the transformation ruleset changes in each film. In the first one, Wilby read the inscription on the ring once and then would randomly become a dog until he did something heroic. In the sequel, he becomes a dog any time someone reads the words and it only lasts for a few minutes. And then in the TV movie, Wilby’s transformation is triggered any time the inscription “In canis corpore transmuto” is read. Man, that’s like Dial H for Hero trying to figure out how to work in a smartphone world.

Look, the title of this movie is incredible. It has no Raiders of the Lost Ark moments in it to pay off the name, but that’s totally a Jerry Gross-level title there.

This one’s a Brett Kelly movie and he’s the guy who made Ouija Shark and Jurassic Shark, so when it comes to shark movies with great titles that never really pay off, Brett is kind of your man. Here, he’s made the story of a prehistoric shark that gets into the waters of a small lake. It’s all fracking’s fault and the local swimmers must pay the price.

This may be the first Canada-set shark movie I’ve seen, so there’s that. I mean, it’s a shark that can fly and barks. If that sounds like something that you want for your own shark week, then by all means…

You can watch this on Tubi. Here’s to Wild Eye for continuing to come up with great posters and better titles for these movies.

Bruce Bilson also directed the Disney movie The North Avenue Irregulars, which I certainly saw at some point at the drive-in, possibly with The Love Bug or The Apple Dumpling Gang.

When the century old Buxley Military Academy falls on hard times, it has to merge with a school for girls, which angers the ghosts who haunte the academy, General Eulace C. Buxley (Dick O’Neill), Bettina Buxley (Louise Latham) and Sergeant Major Chester B. Sweet (Victor French). As the boys learn to live with the girls, the ghosts declare war on everyone — but in a totally fun and non-frightening way.

I kind of love Posie, who shows up in female empowerment t-shirts and tells the adults how dumb they are for most of the movie. The ghosts come around — even if seeing a black cadet blows their minds — and all ends well. It’s a non-threatening, not all that interesting Disney for kids ghost movie, but if thats your thing, well — here it is.

Editor’s note: We originally covered this film on March 27, 2019, but want to bring it back to our readers’ attention, particularly as Arrow Video has released an amazing new UHD version of the film.

The second in Dario Argento’s “Animal Trilogy” with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, this film isn’t one of the director’s favorites and it failed to follow up on the success of the first film in the United States, although it was very popular in Italy. It’s filled with a lot more humor — it still has plenty of shocking moments — and kind of meanders around. But there’s still so much to enjoy.

Franco “Cookie” Arno (Karl Malden) is a blind man who is obsessed with solving puzzles. One comes to him in real life as he walks at night with his niece Lori. They overhear a man plan to blackmail someone, then that man breaks into the Terzi Institute. We meet our second hero, the reporter Carlo (James Franciscus) when he investigates the affair.

The head of the institute, Dr. Calabresi, looks at his files in his office and phones someone who agrees to meet with him. He tells his fiancee Bianca (Rada Rassimov, the sister of Ivan, which you can tell by her eyes) that whatever was taken could be a big step forward. As the doctor waits on a train platform, he’s pushed off a train platform. This brings the two heroes together and starts a string of murders, as anyone connected to the mystery is quickly killed.

It turns out that the Terzi Institute is able to isolate the chromosomes that point to evil tendencies within people and they have a miracle drug that can change that. Carlo also becomes involved with  Professor Terzi’s daughter Anna and they’re followed by both the police and the killer.

From milk being poisoned to dead bodies being searched in the middle of the night inside a crypt, the noose tightens around our heroes’ necks, with even Cookie’s niece being kidnapped and in danger. And oh yeah — his girlfriend and her adoptive father have had an incestuous relationship for years.

There’s a rooftop battle that may or may not take out one of the protagonists — the movie doesn’t even tell us — and finally the killer is knocked down an elevator shaft, his hands bleeding as he tries to grab the cable to stop him. It’s one of the few moments of sheer awesome in this film, but hints that greatness is in the future of Argento’s films.

Arrow Video’s new release of The Cat o’Nine Tails hasa 4K restoration from the original negative by Arrow Films that has been released as a 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision. The film has audio commentary by critics Alan Jones and Kim Newman, plus there are new interviews with Argento, co-writer Dardano Sacchetti, actress Cinzia De Carolis and production manager Angelo Iacono. The package also has script pages for the lost original ending, translated into English for the first time; the original Italian, international and US theatrical trailers; an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring an original essay on the film by Dario Argento and writing by Barry Forshaw, Troy Howarth and Howard Hughes; a fold-out double-sided poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Obviously Creative; six double-sided, postcard-sized lobby card reproduction artcards and limited edition reversible packaging. You can get it from MVD.

Based on the 1972 novel by Mary Rodgers — who also wrote the screenplay — the magic that switches the mother and daughter in this movie is quite simple. In Friday the 13th, all you have to do is say, “I wish I could switch places with her for just one day” and it happens.

Actually, this whole thing reminds me of Goofy Minds the House, a 1977 Disney Wonderful World of Reading storybook that features the character Goofy and his wife switching jobs for one day and learning that they both have rough lives. That story was based on a Norwegian folktale and taught me that women were much stronger than men. Also — Goofy once had a wife named Mrs. Geef and Mrs. Goof, but now he’s thought to be dating Clarabelle the Cow, so something happened at some point. Perhaps even odder, Goofy was once called Dippy Dawg.

But I digress.

Just as much as that story is part of my childhood, so is Freaky Friday, a movie that I know for a fact that I saw at the Spotlite 88 Drive-In in Beaver Falls, PA.

Ellen Andrews (Barbara Harris) and her daughter Annabel (Jodie Foster) are constantly battling with one another until they switch places, which enables each of them to see life from the other side, connect better with other people and, of course, water ski.

The cast of this movie is made up of people that a five year old me would see as big stars, like John Astin, Dick Can Patten, Charlene Tilton, Marc McClure and, of course, Boss Hogg. Strangely enough, George Lucas wanted Foster for the role of Princess Leia, but her mother wanted her to complete her contract to Disney.

Disney can’t seem to stop remaking this movie. And really, no one else can either, because it’s the mother of body switch comedies, including 18 Again!, All of Me, Dream a Little Dream, Vice Versa and Freaky, a film which combines the Friday the 13th of this story with the slasher side of the holiday

Taking inspiration from Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, this one’s all about a gigantic megaplex that has to deal with mysterious happenings on the night of the premiere of the film Midnight Mayhem.

That’s because when the original theater was demolished to build this 26-screen theater, the phantom stayed behind, now haunting this entire film. Perhaps the best part of this is Mickey Rooney as the Movie Mason, an elderly moviegoer whose family opened the original theater. He’s so old that he comes to the theater every day thinking that he works there.

After a career of directing Power Rangers and teen movies like Wish Upon a Star, in which Katherine Heigl and Danielle Harris switch bodies, he pretty much only makes Mormon-themed movies like Meet the Mormons and a TV series based on the Book of Mormon.

For fans of this site, the highlight of this movie is when you can see one of the megaplex screens showing a horror movie called Glimpses of Genevieve which is, of course, Alice, Sweet Alice. I love that one of the most nihilistic movies ever about growing up is in a innocuous Disney film about teens. Stranger still, that film’s director Alfred Sole was the production designer for the Disney films Halloweentown and Halloweentown High.

I never went to a real college per se — I went to art school and then got my degree as quickly as I could from a university in the city, so I have no idea what it’s like to have a campus quad or fellow students into the same things that I’m into. I just live through the movie students of Medfield College, as seen in everything from The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber to this movie and its sequels Now You See Him, Now You Don’t and The Strongest Man in the World. The Shaggy D.A. also takes place in the same town.

Medfield College is named after the town of Medfield, Massachusetts, a place that Walt Disney would visit from time to time, landing his place on a private airstrip. Their middle school has a quote from Disney written in its cornerstone: “Our greatest natural resource is in the minds of our children.”

I always wondered why people disagreed so much with John Carpenter about casting Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken. I always say that your cultural experience is based off when you first experience it and didn’t realize that in myself. If I’d only known Russell from these Disney movies, I’d never see him as grizzled.

Dexter Reilly (Russell) attends the aforementioned Medfield College, a college with such a limited endowment that they can’t even afford a computer. To be fair, an HP 3000 sold for $95,000 in 1972, which is about $567,000 in today’s money.

The students get a wealthy businessman — criminal — named A.J. Arno (Cesar Romero) to donate an old computer to the college. What they get is one of his old gambling computers, which leads to all manner of problems when it quickly breaks down.

As Dexter goes to get a new part during a thunderstorm, a shock transforms him into a human computer that can do math better than anyone else, read and remember any book and speak any language within seconds. This takes Dexter from kindly friend to all to a robot, but the school is happy because they’re finally making money.

Reilly goes on a roll, leads Medfield’s team in victories against other schools on a TV quiz show. However, the word applejack unlocks all of Arno’s gambling info, so the criminal and his gang — featuring Kurt’s real-life father Bing — kidnap him. As his friends rescue him, a blow to the head turns off his computer brain, but the other team members rally to win $100,000 for the school.

Director Robert Butler may have worked in TV — and Disney films — throughout his career, but he also directed Turbulence, Up the Creek and Night of the Juggler. Writer Joseph L. McEveety also scripted The Barefoot Executive, Superdad, the two Dexter sequels, Hot Lead and Cold Feet and No Deposit, No Return.