Original air date: 21st July 1993
We're nearing the end of this Family Dog retrospective and I'm left wondering, if "Party Animal" is any indication, if the series was finally starting to find its feet as it entered its twilight. Certainly, "Party Animal" is one of the stronger instalments in Family Dog's run. Pacing-wise, it's a huge improvement over both "Call of The Mild" and "Dog Days of Summer" - the story consists of two distinctive halves which are paired up rather arbitrarily (the Binfords host a party and later on the house catches fire for reasons that are barely related), but it comes together convincingly enough as a cohesive whole, with very little filler that doesn't directly compliment either side of the narrative thread. The tone also feels considerably less mean-spirited than earlier Family Dog episodes - oh sure, the dog still has a pretty shitty time of things and Skip and Bev exhibit some downright shameful behaviour during the climactic crisis, but there's a refreshing lack of intentional malice or outright scorn heaped upon our four-legged protagonist this go-around. The episode's only really major flaw is in the climax, which despite offering up a much more dramatic third act than the majority of Family Dog instalments, is hampered by muddled and chaotic execution that quickly has the entire affair descending into confusion.
As for the house fire...well, take a wild guess at which family member is responsible for starting it. Billy's brand of sociopathy treads ever deeper as the series continues, and we can now add arson to his ever-growing list of crimes against nature, humanity and society, along with tormenting his dog and sister and maiming local wildlife. To be totally fair, Billy doesn't cause the family's house to burn down on purpose, but it is his newfound obsession with playing with matches and burning things inside his wastepaper bin that causes things to get out of hand. Annoyingly, Billy also gets off scot-free for what must surely be his most horrendously destructive act in all the series (keeping in mind that he did no lasting damage to the bird in "Eye on The Sparrow"). Despite serving as a catalyst for the big dramatic climax, Billy is actually pretty sidelined for much of this instalment - he and Buffy get minimal screen time, which is a blessing because, as per usual, their material only serves to drag the episode down (in addition to setting the house alight, Billy gets a tiresome outburst about Matlock, while Buffy's biggest contribution involves running rampant and flashing her underpants at the party guests).
The episode opens with Skip feeling tetchy because it's the Binfords' turn to host the local block party and he isn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of having so many neighbours whom he secretly despises convening on his property. The opening sequence is a pretty good one, with Skip declaring the home to be "private sanctum of familial purity", and the camera panning around to show various scenes of repugnance through different windows of the household, including Billy running raucous in his bedroom and Buffy watching some brain cell-killing children's show. Finally, we pan out to the backyard, where our dog is honing his mauling skills upon a squeaky rubber hedgehog. Looking up, he notices an ominous stream of black smoke pouring out from Billy's window and backs off into his kennel in horror but, on hearing the sounds of Skip and Billy wailing out in alarm, summons the will to go racing inside the house and ensure that his family is safe. As it turns out, there isn't much (as of now) in the way of danger. Billy had been playing with matches and, as Skip is at pains to point out, could easily have burned the place down, but it seems that this particular instance was just a false alarm. The dog heads back downstairs as Skip lectures Billy on the virtues of common sense, prompting Billy to have that irritating outburst in which he claims to have been framed and tells his dad to alert Matlock.
Downstairs, the dog is delighted to find the coffee table adorned with snacks in preparation for the party and can't resist digging his nose into the chips and bean dip. Bev has asked Skip to watch the dog, but he's now preoccupied with lighting up the barbecue in order to grill up the cholesterol-free soy-turkey and tahini burgers Bev has selected to serve the guests. Initially, this looks like little more than an excuse to get in another grousing from Skip about his wife's food preferences, but the barbecue actually proves crucial later on, in providing the link between the party and the house fire.
The dog, meanwhile, gets carried away in his snack food-pilfering and ends up knocking a bunch of dishes to the floor, prompting Bev to scold Skip for not keeping an eye on him. Skip is about to banish the dog to the backyard and secure the pet door when he gets diverted by the unwelcome sounds of hour-early guests upon his doorstep. This throws Bev into disarray as she hasn't changed into her formal wear, so she and Skip bolt upstairs and leave the convening guests to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, the dog wanders back into the living room and finds himself the centre of adoring attention for a change, as the guests are quite happy to feed him chips and dip for their own amusement.
There are quite a few things going on at the Bindfords' party, so I'm going to break it down into a list of handy bullet points:
- We're introduced to a few more of the unfortunate neighbours who have to share their local territory with the Binfords and whose lawns Skip apparently encourages his dog to shit on - there's a baby-talking obese couple whose names are never revealed and Bill and Leesha, the first African American characters to appear on the show. Perhaps we'd have gotten to know these characters a bit better if the series had had more than just two additional episodes to go.
- The Mahoneys are seen again for the first time since "Enemy Dog". K-10 also has a small cameo at the start of the episode.
- Vina, Al's ex, is at the block party, although only her feet are visible. She gives a shout-out to Al and "his ugly dog Katie."
- The guests at the party are having some tedious discussion about restaurant cuisine, while the dog scampers around scavenging dropped finger food from the floor.
- During the conversation, some guy with a voice not unlike Homer Simpson's can be heard saying "Frog in the blender!" without context.
- At Billy's suggestion, Buffy starts wandering around the party and flashing her underpants at the guests, shouting, "Free show! Free show!" It's every bit as inane as it sounds.
- Meanwhile, Billy is outside beside the barbecue, picking out hot coals with the tongs and cackling menacingly and, uh-oh, that can't be good. Thankfully, Bev finally gets downstairs at this point and catches him the act. She also boots Buffy from the party and throws the dog outside, taking care to ensure that the pet door is locked this time.
The dog, however, has been thoroughly enjoying all the free food he's been getting from the guests and isn't so keen on giving up a good thing. Happily, he's a resourceful little mutt and knows of another way to get back inside the house; namely, by slipping through the fence to the front of the house and using the family's car and basket ball hoop to hoist himself up onto the roof. He then scrambles his way down through the chimney, although naturally Skip and Bev aren't too amused by the spectacle of a smut-covered dog landing in a crumpled heap upon their fireplace and blowing soot all over their party. So out the persistent mutt goes yet again. This particular scene looks suspiciously like your typical Family Dog filler, but establishing that the dog knows his way around the roof actually comes in handy later on.
Fade out, and when we rejoin the Binfords, in the early hours of the morning, we find the party long over, the living room deserted and the family in their respective bedrooms. We overhear Bev asking Skip if he put out the barbecue and Skip responding that he entrusted that particular job to Billy. Oh Jesus. Remember how Billy seemed really, ominously keen on getting that burning coal earlier? This particular sequence consists of a number of still, lingering shots around the darkened household, including close-ups of the unwashed party dishes, as we move on closer to Billy's bedroom and discover, to absolutely no one's surprise, that the little sociopath has concealed one of those burning coals inside his wastepaper bin. Despite being in awe at Skip's dumbness, I have to give props to the effectively understated manner in which menace is built-up and sustained throughout this short sequence.
Unsurprisingly, the dog is the first one to detect the burning coming from inside the house and realise that something is terribly wrong. The smoke alarm goes off, but Skip and Bev mistake it for the alarm clock and just try to sleep through it. The dog attempts to run into the house and alert the dumb humans, but is thwarted by the lock on the pet door - meaning that, once again he must resort to his nifty little chimney trick. Meanwhile, Skip finally decides to get up, figuring that it must be morning, but continues to drift in and out of consciousness, all while remaining painfully oblivious to the ominous cloud of thick black smoke floating right above him. Finally, just as the dog lands on the fireplace with a noisy thud, so too does the penny inside Skip's brain, and by the time the dog makes it to Billy's flame-grilled bedroom, a panic-striken Skip is already attempting to nullify the problem with a defunct extinguisher. Needless to say, it doesn't go in his favour.
Skip and Bev order the children to get outside immediately, as they attempt, in vain, to get the fire under control. The dog's first instinct is to go with them, but he finds himself unable to abandon Skip and Bev, who, having failed to extinguish the fire, have turned their attentions instead to gathering up as many material items as they can carry in their hands. All the poor dog can do in the meantime is stand anxiously by the door, wondering when common sense is going to take hold. Finally, they look to be prepared to leave when Bev suddenly stops in her tracks and, in what may be her lowest moment in the entire series, refuses to go because she can't bring herself to abandon her carpet.
Her fucking carpet.
As Bev begins clawing at the carpet in desperation, Skip tries to pull her away and talk some sense into her. "Don't you think I feel the same way about my lazy boy?" he asks, at which point he gets a flash of inspiration and decides to abandon his wife in order to ensure that his beloved chair his saved. Yeah, I'm well aware that this scene is supposed to be humorous, but dang, these humans really aren't that nice, to their dog OR one another. That's something I can't repeat often enough.
At this point the firefighters show up and it's here that the sequence unfortunately begins to unravel. The drama and suspense goes out, and in their place we get a bunch of confusing and chaotic sight gags - notably, a firefighter holding up a sausage on a pair of prongs and looking totally lost in thought while two other firefighters just stand and gawk at him. Whatever's supposed to be happening there, it's not conveyed very well. I suppose that the point of all this simply is to show that the firefighters are every bit as incompetent as the Binfords - there's another firefighter who just walks around in random directions, pointing and crying, "Onward!", and alright, he is kind of amusing. Caught between two highly incompetent groups of humans who are blatantly not going to resolve this predicament any time soon, the dog does everything within his power - namely, he heads back into the house and barks frantically at Skip and Bev in the hope that they'll give up on their material junk and just get out. Bev seems entirely impervious to such efforts, however, for she insists upon pulling up a strip of the carpet and dragging it along with her. Skip, who has finally managed to haul his lazy boy outside, hears the dog barking and attempts to go back for him, but is pulled away by one of the firefighters. Bev makes it outside with the scrap of her precious carpet, but the dog, who has remained in the house far too long just to help these ridiculous humans, now finds himself unable to escape.
The Binfords are huddled together mournfully on their front lawn, watching the firefighters hose down their burning house, when it suddenly appears to dawn on them that they're one family member short - Skip says, "The dog...", as if he's only just given consideration to the poor creature's existence. This is played up as a sort of awakening moment, with the family suddenly seeing through their foolish materialism and remembering what's really important, but really, it makes no sense because Skip did indeed refer to the dog and attempt to go back for him only a moment ago. Why is he acting as if it's only just occurred to him now? This sequence was not terribly well-edited, I think.
Skip attempts (for the second time) to go back inside the house in order to retrieve the trapped dog, but has his path blocked by the chief firefighter, who tells him that it's too dangerous. The fact that Skip is prepared to put his life on the line for the dog is, in itself, a huge step up from previous episodes where no one seemed to give a toss about the furry little bugger in the slightest, but still, maybe if the adults had been a bit more attentive and hadn't been fussing about their goddamned carpets and lazy boys, they could have ensured that everyone, dog included, was safely out of the house by now. Bev asks the firefighter if he can send one of his men in for the dog but is refused - the firefighters are prepared to go into burning buildings to rescue children (maybe) but not pets. If our dog's going to get out of this jam alive, it'll very much come down to his own wits and nothing else. No change there then.
Fortunately, our dog is an ever-resourceful one. After an attempt to scramble back up the chimney fails, he makes a desperate bolt toward the stairs and manages to avoid the flames by running up the banister. As the house begins to crumble to pieces, the dog is able to get up through an opening in the roof and, for the third time this episode, gets out of an undesirable situation by navigating his way across the tiles. He then leaps off into the bushes and flees, just as the entire house collapses on itself in a giant flaming heap.
The fire finally subsides and, amid the smoking rubble that was formally the Binfords' house, we see the smoke alarm hanging by its wires, making a last dying bleep as its battery life expires, which is a neat touch. The chief firefighter then lights up a cigarette (erm, irony?) and declares that they were able to keep the fire from spreading. Skip asks him what might have caused the fire, and is informed that they may never know, much to Billy's relief. The evil little fucker is going to get off scot-free for destroying his family's house and nearly killing everyone in the process, in other words. Oh joy.
The dog makes his way across the yard and finds his doghouse still standing and completely unscathed. A stray flame is blown across and lands right beside it, but he extinguishes it quite casually by digging up a little dirt upon it. I won't deny it - I absolutely love that particular detail. It seems only too fitting that the dog should prove not only more competent than the humans in handling fires but that, after all the shit he went through just to protect a family who care more about carpets and lazy boys than they do himself, his house gets to survive the disaster intact.
At this point the firefighters all leave and Billy, for some reason, tries to go with them (for their axe, I suppose). The family then notice the dog standing in the yard and Skip declares that he must have been out there the entire time. Wow, I guess that no one really was paying attention earlier. The only one who's not relieved is Bev, who's too upset about the house to be capable of feeling any positive emotion. It's a pretty downbeat ending to the scene, with the Binfords huddling together outside what's left of their home, although mainly it just reinforces your dislike of Billy for what he's done to his family.
Fortunately, the Binfords' are able to rebuild their lives to the extent that everything has been completely reset by the end of the episode. They get an insurance settlement that covers everything, including a new lazy boy (although I thought that Skip rescued his) and a new carpet. At the end of the episode, the Binfords are holding another party in their newly-rebuilt house - a housewarming this time - and Billy is outside in the yard trying to light the barbecue again. Fortunately, Bev catches him in the act this time and proceeds to ground him, while the dog sneaks off with his matches and has fun dumping soil upon them. So yeah, Billy does get a comeuppance of sorts in the end, although it seems ridiculously mild in light of what he actually did. I know that Billy's supposed to be, what, seven or eight years old, but he's old enough to learn a thing or two about taking responsibility for his actions - in fact, didn't he already take that very lesson in the sparrow episode?
Despite those closing reservations, "Party Animal" is an infinitely better-constructed episode of Family Dog than we're used to, one which adheres far more closely to the principles of Chekhov's gun. There's very little detail which seems thrown in purely to kill off excess time, and some of the foreshadowing is pretty well done. The Binfords are as stupid and unpleasant a bunch as ever, of course, but at least one doesn't get the impression from this episode that they actively hate and resent their dog, even if their negligence and shallow materialism leads to him being trapped inside a burning building at one point. If ever there was an episode to demonstrate definitively that the dog is a superior lifeform in every regard to the humans around him, it's "Party Animal". Given that, one suspects, this was always intended to be the central underlying "gag" of Family Dog, I have no qualms in declaring "Party Animal", which comes the closest to getting the tone of that gag about right, to be the most successful episode of the series.
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