Wilby Daniels is now a successful attorney who is married to Betty, and they have a son named Brian. Returning to the town of Medfield from a vacation, the family discovers that they have been robbed, and Wilby blames district attorney John Slade, who is reputed to have connections with organized crime, particularly with warehouse owner Edward "Fast Eddie" Roshak. After being robbed a second time later that night (along with their Navy admiral neighbor, Gordon C. Brenner), Wilby vows to run for district attorney to make his town safe again.
Meanwhile, the two thugs who robbed the Daniels', Freddie and Dip, observe the Borgia ring at a museum and assume it might fetch a large sum, so they steal it. The ugly ring can only be pawned off to ice cream salesman Tim, who owns an Old English Sheepdog named Elwood. Tim figures he will give the ring to his girlfriend Katrinka, a local roller derby star and pastry assistant.
Wilby hears a report of the ring being stolen. Terrified, he reveals his former shape-shifting secret to his wife, who does not believe him; he says that if the inscription on the ring ("In canis corpore transmuto")[a] is spoken aloud he will turn into a shaggy dog. Moments before Wilby's live television debut, Tim discovers the inscription on the ring and reads it aloud, causing Elwood to disappear – only to reappear as he takes over Wilby's body. Brian notices that shaggy hair is growing all over Wilby, who reacts in horror, as realizing he is turning into Elwood. He rushes from the house and cameras in his dog form and confounds Tim, who cannot understand why Elwood can speak. When the spell wears off, Wilby regains his human form and is determined to find the ring as he faces the prospect of being a candidate in the public eye, never knowing when he might turn into a dog.
His fears come true as Katrinka receives the ring and reads the inscription, just as Wilby is giving a public address at a ladies garden club. Realizing he is transforming again, Wilby creates a riot while trying to escape. Tim again finds him in Elwood's form and is convinced that his talking dog could make millions; when Tim wanders off momentarily, Wilby returns to his human form, leaving a silent Elwood to confound Tim further. Meanwhile, Raymond, an agent Slade, gets suspicious, wondering why Wilby keeps disappearing.
Desperate to find the ring, the hunt leads to Katrinka, who seems to have lost it in a vat of cherry pie filling intended for a Slade fundraiser. Offering a reward to whoever finds the ring, Katrinka and her colleagues look for it, eventually escalating into a pie fight. During it, the thugs recover the ring and attempt to pass it off to an undercover police detective. Once again in the hands of the museum, the inscription is read aloud as a point of reference; at the police station, Wilby (who arrived to confirm the ring had been recovered) finds himself turning into Elwood once again. This time, Raymond puts two and two together after overhearing the museum's curator explaining the curse and how his predecessor[b] told him a story of a young man who turned into a sheepdog years before.
Slade is informed of this, is dubious at first, and then invites Wilby to his office to test out the theory. He advises Wilby to withdraw his campaign. Wilby refuses and says that after being elected, he will have Slade investigated regarding his criminal connections. Slade then reads the inscription. Thrilled to see Wilby turn into the dog, Slade makes a call to the local pound. Wilby escapes hearing Slade repeatedly read the inscription, which guarantees that the spell will not wear off, and he will be trapped in a dog's form indefinitely. Slade keeps reciting the incantation over and over, ignoring warnings that doing that could cause the spell to transfer to him.
Wilby tries to elude Slade, who as district attorney has the entire police force and animal control at his disposal. Eventually, Wilby is caught and taken to the dog pound where he can understand the other dogs, who band together to help him escape.
Aided by Brian and Tim (who still thinks Elwood can speak until Wilby tells him the truth about what really happened), Wilby gets evidence that Slade is connected to organized crime. Wilby and Tim trick Slade into showing up at Roshak's warehouse, and Wilby uses a tape recorder to collect information that confirms Slade's wrongdoings. Aided by his dog friends from the pound, he also retrieves the ring from Slade, who has read the inscription aloud so many times that the curse has now passed onto him, causing him to transform into a bulldog. Wilby gets elected district attorney, Slade is jailed after being stopped by the police for speeding, and Tim gets engaged to Katrinka. Together, they adopt Wilby's dog friends from the pound.
The Shaggy D.A. is a sequel to The Shaggy Dog. The Shaggy Dog had been at that point the most profitable film produced by Walt Disney Productions and heavily influenced the studio's live-action film production for the next two decades. Using a formula of placing supernatural and/or fantastical forces within everyday mid-twentieth century American life, the studio was able to create a long series of "gimmick comedies" (a term coined by Disney historian and film critic Leonard Maltin) with enough action to keep children entertained and a touch of light satire to engage their adult chaperones. Using television actors on their summer hiatus— who were familiar to audiences but did not necessarily have enough clout to receive over-the-title billing (or a large fee) from another major studio— was one way these comedies were produced inexpensively; they also tended to use the same sets from the Disney backlot. This allowed Walt Disney Productions a low-risk scenario for production; any of these films could easily make back their investment just from moderate attendance, and they could also be packaged on the successful Disney anthology television series The Wonderful World of Disney (some of these films were expressly structured for this purpose).
Occasionally, one of these inexpensive comedies would become a runaway success and place at or near the top of the box office for their respective release year (e.g., The Absent-Minded Professor, The Love Bug). The initial release of The Shaggy Dog in 1959 grossed more than $9 million on a budget of less than $1 million, and also performed very strongly on a 1967 re-release.
This is the last of 19 films Robert Stevenson directed at Disney that spanned nearly 20 years. His first was Johnny Tremain in 1957. He also directed a number of episodes for the series Disneyland. This is also Stevenson's final film. The first film that he directed was Happy Ever After, a 1932 German musical.
Music
The film's theme song, "The Shaggy D.A.", was written by Shane Tatum and Richard McKinley. The song was sung by Dean Jones.
The mythology of the Borgia ring was changed from the first film, in which young Wilby read the inscription on the ring once and then was the victim of random transformations which could only be stopped if he performed a heroic deed. In this sequel, he simply turned into a dog whenever the ring's inscription was read aloud, and the spell would generally last from five to ten minutes.
In the television film The Return of the Shaggy Dog (1987), which takes place between the events of the original film and this sequel, the mythology changes once again: now, once the inscription is read, Wilby is trapped in dog form until it is read again.
The 2006 remake with Tim Allen eschewed the situation and characters of the three initial films (and also a 1994 television remake which returned the mythology of the original 1959 film) and opted instead for a science fiction device of a man being bitten by a viral dog that infected him with a serum that affected his DNA.
Reception
A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote: "Naturally, the story line is incredible and convoluted enough to give an uninhibited cast plenty of opportunities to clown for, unfortunately, a minimum of real laughs ... Despite all the athletic goings-on, The Shaggy D.A. does turn into a dog too often for comfort."[4]Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "one of Disney's better recent efforts".[5]Gene Siskel awarded three stars out of four and declared it "far better than most of the live-action comedies to come out of the studio in recent years. Don Tait actually has written a cute script that gives adults in the audience a few laughs while watching the inevitable and unending pratfalls designed for the kids."[6]Variety wrote that the film "looks like a comparable commercial winner. It has all the elements of smooth and sunny comedy that Disney does best, and it marks a return to top studio craftsmanship after a few uneven pix of late."[7]Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "The Shaggy D.A. is right off the assembly line, but it is still the most competent line of its kind."[8] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called the film "a surprisingly snappy and diverting Disney farce".[9] Jill Forbes of The Monthly Film Bulletin called it "dully scripted and poorly paced, and so frequently interrupted by set pieces (the pie fight and Tim's attempt to make his dog talk) that it never succeeds in exploiting a situation which is gratuitous when it is not gruesome."[10]
The film opened at Christmas in 1976 at the same time as the remake of King Kong which slowed its initial performance, but the film performed better after the Christmas holidays[11] and earned rentals of $10.5 million in the United States and Canada.[1]
Legacy
The film has been seen as a light satire of American politics in the post-Watergate era, with politicians being depicted as tied to crime, and not being what they appear to be.
A television film, The Return of the Shaggy Dog, followed in 1987, taking place between The Shaggy Dog and The Shaggy D.A..
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog referenced the film in the lyrics to one of his songs: "He gave head to the Shaggy D.A., and that's how we know that Benji's gay!"[12]
The 2019 film Mister America depicts The Shaggy D.A. as part of Gregg Turkington's fictional "Victorville Film Archives" project. Mister America also has several notable similarities to The Shaggy D.A., which are commented on by Turkington throughout the film.
Notes
^Translated as [I transmute into the body of a dog].
