Family Dog review

I was going to make a review on a Fox show from the mid-2000s that shared the same name as a fighting game but had a radically different presentation, but as I got into writing that I realized that it would be close to filler at best, and that the show wasn't notable enough to fall under my radar. What took its place? Let's just say that this particular show, regardless of how you view it, is proof that even the best writers and directors aren't pure, it may have very well killed CBS' desire to air any more animated shows, and frankly, I'm surprised that nobody in this generation of reviewers had covered this yet.

History

To put this into perspective, we need the obligatory history lesson. The year is 1993, The Simpsons has just begun to gain traction and put their network on the same tier as the big three. Naturally, wanting to keep up their viewership, two networks reared their head into the ring, and given that none of the networks air animated shows anymore, it was a bust. ABC and CBS were the two, NBC opted out and in hindsight, they didn't miss much. ABC made their attempt through Capitol Critters, bankrolled through Hanna Barbera and Steven Bochco of NYPD Blue fame. CBS ironically went to Hanna Barbara as well with their effort, Fish Police.

Compared to the two, Capitol Critters, while not lasting a full season, had more episodes aired in its original run than Fish Police's completed episodes. To put this into perspective, Capitol Critters had a full season and seven out of thirteen episodes aired on its original broadcast. Fish Police had six episodes produced, and only half of them wound up airing in the US. Okay, technically Fish Police came first, but around the same year Capitol Critters came, CBS wanted to try again, and hey, with this attempt they aired the whole first season, all ten episodes..., and in return left a black mark on many respected writers involved, including Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg, and I'm not kidding on the latter. At the very least his production company was involved in Pinky, Elmyra and The Brain, and he reads the Washington Post.

Family Dog began as a segment on Amazing Stories, an anthology series Spielberg produced for NBC. Essentially a three-part episode, as well as one of the only segments on the show to be animated. This was apparently considered groundbreaking for the time, so much so that not even Wikipedia lists a reference making this point. It did turn up before the theatrical release of The Land Before Time, which brings that film down to almost the same level as its first sequel, (okay that's a stretch.) The original short was written and directed by Brad Bird, well before he made The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, with the animation and design being directed by a team led through Tim Burton. Overall production was done through Hyperion Pictures, who you may know as the producers of The Brave Little Toaster, and through their Jambalaya Studio label, they produced The Proud Family (which is in danger of becoming dated) and Da Boom Crew which was never in date.

And apparently, this short was so good, or perhaps it was because of Spielberg's involvement that CBS felt this was code for success. Funnily enough, NBC never bothered with this even though the short aired on a show they aired, but it's almost as if they knew a disaster was eminent, a cult disaster. Spielberg and Burton produced the episodes, with Animaniacs alumni Sharon Stoner and Paul Dini (though the latter is tied to far more notable stuff), and Nelvana was hired to produce the animation (interesting fact, Clive A. Smith, one of the three founders of Nelvana directed eight out of the ten episodes, with five being co-directed by Chris Buck, who would go on to direct Tarzan, Surf's Up (if you can remember that movie) and Frozen. This seems like it's the set up for the best TV show ever, and one that'd plant CBS as a strong figure in the animated sitcom genre, and I've gotta stop with the setups.

To put it all into perspective, this was the last time CBS tried to do an animated sitcom, point blank. ABC would try again a year after with The Critic, which would ironically go to Fox, and for the last time with Clerks: The Animated Series, but their treatment of it suggested they wanted to stick with the sitcom bug full time. While NBC never got on the bandwagon at the time, they did strike during the late-90s, starting with Stressed Eric (which varies in quality depending on your standards of animation), and continuing with God, The Devil and Bob (an underrated series), Sammy (which is basically gone forever), and ending with Father of the Pride, which is apparently one of the worst shows ever, but I'll get to that show another time. CBS hasn't had anything close to a cartoon since the early-90s, almost as if Family Dog tainted the prospect. It's essentially the Duke Nukem Forever of cartoons, hyped through name recognition, delayed and leaving behind a rotten final product. It was going to come out in 1991, even getting promoted during the Grammys, but got held back due to factors such as the outsourcing unit wanting to rework what they came up with. Technically, by name alone the original Amazing Stories segment predated The Simpsons, but as they show gained more traction, no other show could compete, and I'm being more harsh to this because, frankly, this sucks.

Aside from releases on Laserdisc and VHS, this has yet to receive a DVD release, and it's likely because two major companies, Universal and Warner Bros. worked on it while having it aired on a network owned by another major company, but since the former two came out by some means, I doubt copyright is a major factor here, I think they just want to bury this. They do have one edge over Capitol Critters, both were going to get SNES games, Capitol Critters didn't, but Family Dog did, for better or worse.

The Sting

At its core, it's a generic family sitcom, but through the perspective of a dog they may or may not love. That's it. Wacky dog shenanigans and some mean-spiritedness round out half an hour, and if you want some more perspective, the first episode had the dog suffering from thirst, with the family not even acknowledging it, even through to the end. The plot summaries of each episode are so vague, but the show is so barren that I imagine that the episodes themselves aren't that interesting.

I saw the first episode a while back, and I made it through a minute or so of the third episode before calling it quits, and all I got out of it was a cheap talk show parody and the dog getting allured by a female dog's sentient fart.

On the animation, from a certain perspective the looks like Ren and Stimpy tier artwork, without the wackiness (but maybe it's because I consider the average Spumco cartoon to be ugly as sin.) Does this entice you to check out the show? If you didn't have a full commercial to give you the summary, just this print ad, would you tune in?

As for the actual animation, it's not much better. In fact, compared to other animated projects Spielberg was tied to, *cough* *hack* *wheeze* Animaniacs *cough* *sputter* *death*, I can't even call it a letdown, one of the most prolific directors, relegated to putting his name on something that wouldn't even fly on a kids network. Say what you will about Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon, that actually had good animation, with a bad art direction, but the fact that it can outshine this regardless of quality really says a lot.

It tries to be wacky and uber-cartoony, but due to its budget it doesn't quite hit the mark. It kinda reminds me of the Beetlejuice cartoon. Now while it shares similar quirks, Beetlejuice was a much better cartoon overall. It took its limited animation resources and made it work, and hell, the writing was much better too. For a grander kick in the nuts, while this came out in 1993, the Beetlejuice cartoon came out in 1989. A cartoon produced by Nelvana in the late-80s looks better than a cartoon produced by Nelvana in 1993, with supervision by Steven Spielberg. How about another one? This looks worse than the shows it competed with at the time, Capitol Critters and Fish Police look better and were produced by a company that was infamous for gearing out shovelware incarnate shows.

On the surface, it seems like a forgettable show with a generic shell, but what really brings it down is the fact that major names were attached to this, there should've been no excuse for why this turned out so bad. The fact that this was the last animated CBS show to air in prime time speaks numbers on the impact it left.

All I could say about this show and big names in the animation industry in general is... everybody poops.

See an episode here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfuJWs…