The Shaggy Dog is a very loose remake of the 1959 film, The Shaggy Dog, in which a human unwillingly turns into a dog at random intervals. Apart from this basic concept, almost all elements of the original story have been changed.

Plot

Dave Douglas (Tim Allen) is a lawyer whose passionate practice of arguing in courts have alienated him from his wife and children. When looked to for help by the latter, he is quite useless.

Douglas is district attorney and prosecutes activists who have broken into the lab of the corporation Grant and Strickland, which they accuse of deliberately creating genetic freaks while searching for a "Fountain of Youth" that will make them immortal. This further distances Douglas from his activist daughter Carly (Zena Grey).

Behind the doors, within the laboratory, genetic mutation is forsooth at work. The power-hungry minions of Mister Strickland (the surviving but aged junior partner of the late Grant) have stolen from a Buddhist monastery the dog Ki-ai-Toh, (played by a bearded collie) whose DNA equips him with an extraordinary lifespan. Unusually for a dog, Ki-ai-Toh has outlived humans as well as practiced a technique of self-calming. Seeking to obtain his seeming immortality for themselves, the geneticists carry out several experiments, which fail comically; all the test subjects (a Bullfrog, Rats, a Chimpanzee, a Cobra, and a Capuchin Monkey), rather than become immortal, start behaving like dogs!

After some weeks of this, Ki-ai-Toh makes a run for it and escapes. He is captured by Carly Douglas and her friend Trey (Shawn Pyfrom) who bring him home. Unknowing his right name, they hastily dub him "Shaggy".

When Dave Douglas returns from his work, he objects to the presence of such a dog in his house. He orders "Shaggy" out, but in the process is bitten on the hand. Ki-ai-Toh's saliva enters Dave's veins, which infects him with a kind of virus, later to infiltrate Dave's brain.

The combination of this infection and (presumably) Dave's own long-buried instincts as a pack animal transform the lawyer. He begins, like the lab prisoners, to exhibit canine behaviours such as eating with only his mouth, being territorial in the presence of other dogs, and licking his wife rather than kiss her. When he becomes excited by stimuli associated with dogs, such as the command "Fetch!" or the presence of a Cat, he makes the shape-change dramatically and changes into a replica of Ki-ai-Toh!

He tries to communicate by arranging Scrabble letters into the sentence "I AM DAD"; first this is not noticed, later the children read it. Ironically, it is as a dog that Dave's behaviour and patterns of thought are most human; he objects to dog customs, listens intently to his family's unabridged talks, and thinks as a man would who cannot speak. Being that his family mistake him for Ki-ai-Toh, they speak freely in his presence, leading Dave to realize what a bad connection he has with his family. Desirous to please him, they have hereto kept quiet about their discontentment, but they have no inhibition to talking in the earshot of a sheepdog. Among other things, he finds out that his son Josh (Spencer Breslin) wants to sing in the musical Grease instead of playing football, but is too scared to tell his father that. Dave feels great sympathy, and decides to change his ways.

Dave's body changes to normal during nights, and sometimes during the day when he is calm. However, his dog-like behaviour gets him into trouble at his work. His change to a human shape allows him to escape when the minions of Strickland's second banana (and would-be successor) capture him to discover the truth about his newly acquired affinity with Ki-ai-Toh.

Whilst in the lab, the canine Dave observes the murder of Strickland. It seems that the second fiddle has been plotting a revolution. Copying Ki-ai-Toh, Dave bites the cheat. After the humans leave, Dave and all the others transformed by Ki-ai-Toh concoct a plan of escape. Dave calms himself, then in human form breaks down his cage and opens the others. They all pile into a car and drive to the courthouse, where Dave intends to expose the illegal workings of the geneticists whom he has ignorantly backed.

Outside the courthouse, he finds his wife and children. Revealing the truth of his change, he confesses his love for them dramatically--actually during his transformation from dog to man.

Inside, he attempts to show the assembly what is wrong, but only succeeds in doing so when he tricks the conspirator into growing a tail. Grant and Strickland (the company) is thrown into disgrace.

Dave, with his wife, children, and Ki-ai-Toh, take a vacation on the beach. In the ending-scene, Ki-ai-Toh again gives the lie to his age by becoming the first dog to ride a surfboard alone.

Cast

The remake stars

• Tim Allen
• Kristin Davis
• Danny Glover
• Craig Kilborn
• Robert Downey Jr.
• Zena Grey
• Spencer Breslin
• Jane Curtin

Box Office

• As of June, 2006, the film has grossed over 60 million dollars in the United States Box Office.
• In the Netherlands, the film debuted at #5 in the Boxoffice Top 10, grossing € 169.982 in that week. As of May 31, 2006, the film has grossed a total of € 187.659.Boxoffice NL

References and external links