Amazing Stories - "The Family Dog"

Original air date: 16th February 1987

Before I close the book on Family Dog, I'd like to take a look at the original Amazing Stories episode which kicked off the character's underwhelming career (albeit not with any astoundingly potent dynamic - it took several years for the spin-off series to come to fruition, after all).

Amazing Stories was an anthology series that was created by the 1980s' favourite hotshot director, Steven Spielberg, and ran on NBC for two seasons between 1985 and 1987.  The title of the series was lifted from that of a long-running science fiction magazine - although, as Family Dog's inclusion might indicate, the emphasis wasn't merely on science fiction stories but also on the wacky, unsettling and at times just plain odd.  NBC had enough confidence in the clout of the Spielberg brand name to commit to two years' worth of episodes from the go, only for the series to be completely trounced in the ratings war by CBS's Murder, She Wrote.  These days, Amazing Stories isn't terribly well-remembered - heck, the CBS Twilight Zone revival from around the same time (itself bolstered into being by the public's immense appetite for Spielbergian fantasies, at least on the big screen) left more of an imprint on popular culture (people still seem pretty traumatised by that "A Little Peace and Quiet" episode).  One of the more curious entries in the series' largely unnoticed run was a foray into a fully animated story, then a rarity on prime time television, which arrived a month and a half ahead of the Simpson family's debut as a supporting skit on The Tracey Ullman Show and also dealt with life in a dysfunctional suburban household.  The episode featured the up-and-coming talents of Brad Bird (who wrote and directed) and Tim Burton (who contributed character designs) and was apparently well-received enough that CBS later decided to use it as the basis for its own spin-off series, albeit a few years down the line, once The Simpsons had proven that there was a viable market for such things.  I suspect that, back in February 1987, getting something like this from a series aimed at adult audiences would have seemed extremely fresh, offbeat and daring, and in some respects "The Family Dog" may have even whetted the public's appetite for the prime time animated adventures of The Simpsons, although it has to be said that the Amazing Stories episode does look decidedly thin and shop-worn when compared to Groening's creations.  Bird had no involvement with the CBS spin-off, reportedly believing that "The Family Dog" had already reached the peak of its potential as a one-off installment, and it's not hard to see where he was coming from, even without taking the outcome into consideration.  "The Family Dog" may be superior in just about every regard to anything its ill-fated spin-off had to offer, but it's still a rather uneven piece of television that doesn't stack up against the best of Bird's work.

Unlike the spin-off series, which followed a one story per episode format and was consequently encumbered with having to pad out ten incredibly thin premises to a full twenty-one minutes each, "The Family Dog" adopts a multi-narrative approach, in being broken up into three self-contained stories told in succession.  Truthfully, this doesn't work out massively better than the spin-off's approach, the problem being that only the third story manages to be especially fun or compelling.  The first story, which is essentially designed to introduce each member of the Binford family and their unique hand in making life troublesome for the dog, is a slog to sit through, and feels more like a prolonged introduction to the third story than anything else, with the second "story" (if you can call it that) acting as a kind of intermission between the two.  Upon reaching the third story, which centres around the dog's efforts to protect the house from a pair of serial burglars, the episode finally kicks into gear and becomes extremely enjoyable.  You get the impression that this was the story that Bird was really interested in telling all along, but he couldn't figure out how to extend it to the necessary running time.  Thanks to the strength of the animation, which is head and shoulders above that of the spin-off series, the story has a solid visual wit and a likeable, Chuck Jones-esque expressiveness and energy throughout.  It's in this third story that the episode also goes absolutely nuts, straying from the realism of the earlier segments and simply trying to milk as much madcap lunacy as possible from the increasingly unlikely scenario.  As I say, it makes the entire affair seem incredibly uneven, though it does ensure something of interest in the latter stages.

Despite its altogether tediousness, the opening segment did, apparently, play as a standalone short attached to the US theatrical release of the Spielberg-produced animated film The Land Before Time (1988), which had undergone some serious editing and was in danger of running a little too short at 69 minutes.  Given that Bird had no intention of using the characters again beyond this one-off installment, it's surprising that he considered it necessary to give each of the Binfords such a drawn-out introduction (particularly as all of them are fashioned upon easily-recognisable archetypes), but I guess that he wanted to include a glimpse into the dog's everyday life by having him interact with the family in a more down-to-earth context before progressing toward the cartoonier hi-jinks.  We start out by watching Billy, who's bitter that Bev has roped him into vacuuming the house on a Saturday, harass the unfortunate dog by chasing him with the hoover.  The dog's no idiot, however, and knows that he'll be safe from Billy's hyperactive malice if he takes refuge next to Skip, who's watching a sports game with a neighbour, and who he knows Billy would never dare to antagonise.  What the dog doesn't count on is being beaten to a pulp with a rolled-up newspaper because Skip needs to cover for his own methane emissions.  He retreats to the kitchen and tries to scrounge a meal from Bev, but has to work to get her attention and when he finally does she rewards him with an angry outburst about her own unfulfilled dreams.  Noteworthy is that while Bev was voiced by Molly Cheek in the spin-off series, here she's voiced by Annie Potts (Bo Peep from the Toy Story films) and comes across as a spunkier though altogether more outwardly bitter character, in contrast to the perpetual weariness of Cheek's Bev.  The undeniable vigor of Potts' performance aside, there is something a tad unsettling about seeing the dog on the receiving end of such a melodramatic outburst.  Whereas Bev, in the spin-off series, was probably the least awful of the four Binfords toward the dog (she was only really actively callous toward him on one occasion, in "Enemy Dog"), here she uses the dog primarily as a punching bag for venting her frustrations with her stupid and shiftless family, and the results aren't very enjoyable.

Grudgingly, Bev opens up a can of dog food and proceeds its contents into his bowl, leading into a nifty visual gag in which we see the joy in the dog's expression slowly evaporating when he realises that he's in for a pretty uninspiring dinner from an inferior brand.  Suddenly, the dog loses his appetite and attempts to slink away, but Bev, who isn't prepared to let him off the hook after the trouble he just put her through, drags him back by the collar and forces him to eat.  Given the sheer tyranny exhibited by Bev toward the dog, I find I have limited sympathy for her when the dog subsequently staggers away and vomits up the gruesome offerings into her slipper.  The dog then runs into Buffy, the toddler of the household, who's intent on treating him like a doll and dressing him up in baby clothing.  As much as I loathe Buffy with a fiery hot vengeance in the spin-off series, here I actually find her to be a notch more tolerable, chiefly because her animation is so much more fluid and expressive, adding a vaguely demented vibe to her character that makes her central shtick seem a little less flat.  The dog eventually gets fed up and growls at Buffy, causing her to go running off in a screaming tantrum, just as Bev puts her feet into her slippers and discovers the dog's little present from earlier.  Realising that all hell is about to break loose, the dog attempts to escape out the front door, but finds himself ignored as the four Binfords bicker among themselves as to who is to blame for their pet's behaviour.  Eventually, the dog's panic gives way to boredom, and he marches over coolly, cocks his leg and passes water all over the living room rug, prompting Skip to toss him out of the house.  The segment fades out with the dog sitting in the front yard with a self-satisfied smile, relieved to have escaped the nightmares within (and to have relieved himself as a bonus).

The second segment takes the form of a super-8 movie of the family's last Xmas, which the Binfords are currently watching and providing a running commentary on.  Perhaps if you have kids of your own you'll find it all hilariously authentic, as Buffy repeatedly points out herself in the movie and then annoys her parents with repeated requests for a soda, but other than offering up a neat visual change of pace I personally find this segment to be entirely pointless.  There are some mildly amusing running gags involving Skip struggling to feign enthusiasm over being gifted with endless neck-ties and Billy terrorising the dog with increasingly nasty-looking playthings, and then at the end the dog exacts a vengeance (of sorts) by devouring the family's Xmas ham, but otherwise precious little happens.  Fortunately, this segment is also the shortest of the three, so we're able to move on fairly swiftly to the "guard dog" portion of the episode, which is where the fun really begins.

This segment opens with a somewhat weird moment where Buffy is describing a scene from a movie she saw in which a wolf devours a rabbit - unlike a lot of Buffy's dialogue, which come across as strained attempts to emulate the kind of things a toddler might say, this bit has a spontaneity that genuinely does feel like it might have been improvised.  It's then revealed that Skip, Billy and Buffy are seated at the dinner table and, just as Billy starts hurling childish insults at Buffy for spilling milk all over his lap, Bev walks in with a dodgy-looking pile of orange mush.  In the spin-off series, there was a rather tiresome running gag involving Bev's efforts to serve up wholesome, healthy meals, to the chagrin of her takeout-loving family.  Here, we see the origins of that gag, only the nature of the joke is somewhat different - in the Amazing Stories episode, it isn't health food that Bev grosses out her family with so much as weird and experimental recipes from housekeeping magazines, in this case tater puffs combined with cheese whip, which feels a little less cliche.  The way it plays out here is a heck of a lot funnier too.  Skip, Billy and Buffy manage to sneakily clear their plates by passing the contents down to the dog, who readily devours the lot, while Bev samples the recipe in the kitchen and decides that, actually, she'd sooner tip the whole revolting mess down the sink.  Skip suggests that the family go out for dessert and a movie, leaving the bloated dog alone to watch the house.  Unfortunately, on this particular night two burglars happen to waltz in and make off with the family's coach and coffee maker, while the dog is too overstuffed with Bev's potato-cheese whip concoction to even lift himself off the ground.

Naturally, when the family returns, Skip's none too happy that the dog has failed at his single duty and warns him that it had better not happen again.  Nine days later, when the family goes out for another evening at the movies, the dog is once again left alone and with a renewed determination to keep the house safe.  In an absolutely brilliant sequence which piles on the menace perfectly, we see the camera rotate continuously around the darkened household, the clock ticking away ominously, as the dog's vigilance slowly gives way to weariness.  At the rattling of the door handle, he suddenly springs back to life and lunges at the opening door in a raging burst of fury - nevertheless, we suspect that things won't work out too well for the dog and, sure enough, the intruders promptly sidestep him and proceed to lock him out of the house.  Once again, the Binfords come home to find their home stripped of its possessions and, once again, Skip isn't very happy with the dog.

It's at this point that the story crosses over into decidedly more warped territory, as Skip escorts the dog to Gerta Lestrange's Attack Dog School for assistance in becoming a savage, burglar-eating monster.  It's also here that Burton's hand in the design process becomes particularly evident, with the school in question looking like something straight out of Beetlejuice.  Skip appears to have second thoughts about the wisdom of hanging out in such a place, but Gerta promises that she can turn any dog into a "quivering, snarling, white hot ball of canine terror" and gives him a demonstration by having Angel, a neurotic-looking toy poodle, tear a huge chunk from her unfortunate assistant.  The dog is left in the care of Gerta and, two weeks later, Skip returns to find him in a state of energetic delirium which instantly switches over into all-out savagery at the click of a finger.  The entire Gerta sequence is far stranger, darker and more inventive than the spin-off series ever dared to get, and all the better for it.

That night, the family goes out and yet again the burglars, who by now have blatantly singled out the Binfords as easy targets, return for another merry evening of looting.  As soon as they pry open the door, however, they're greeted by the savage, raging monster on the other side and beat a speedy retreat.  Only once they've reached the apparent safety of their own house does the shorter of the two burglars become aware that the dog has accompanied them by latching onto his arm and is now refusing to let go.

Oh yes, and sharp-eyed viewers may have noticed that the license plate on the burglars' vehicle reads A113.  If you're an animation enthusiast, then odds are that you're already familiar with this particular in-joke, of which Bird has long been a key proponent.  But did you know that this is where the in-joke in question all began?  That's right, every time you see the gag featured in a Pixar film or an episode of The Simpsons, know that Family Dog has the unique distinction of being the very first animated project to utilise it.  Not bad for a property of otherwise very little consequence.

(If you're not familiar with the gag and are still scratching your head as to what A113 even signifies, it refers to a classroom at the California Institute of the Arts, where many prominent figures in the modern animation industry trained as students.  Bird likes to include it as an Easter egg in all of his films, and many other alumni have followed suit.)

As the Binfords fret about their missing dog, we see the burglar comically try to go about his life as normal, despite the handicap of having an angry and persistent terrier lodged into his arm.  Things take an unexpected turn when a police officer shows up at the door, having tracked the burglars down, and the dog, apparently conditioned to treat any shadowy figure lurking outside whatever property he's currently in as an intruder to be vanquished, abruptly switches his allegiances and savages the cop.  The burglars subdue the chewed-up police officer and, grateful to the dog for his assistance, decide to take him in and deploy his fearsome savagery in conducting further crime sprees.  It's here that the episode slips over from being slightly freaky into balls to the wall insanity, via a montage in which the dog is seen doing everything from holding up banks to depriving a petrified old lady in an alley way of her purse.  It's all extremely bonkers, but there's something distinctly disarming about it too.

As the criminal trio gains notoriety and is dubbed by the local press as the "Dog Gang", the burglars grow frustrated with their canine cohort hogging all the limelight, to the extent that one of them is emboldened enough to start antagonising the dog by threatening to replace him with a cat.  It's an incredibly dumb move, coming from someone who should be all-too familiar by now with what a vicious, nasty temper the little snapper has, and all the more idiotic for being carried out while the gang are cruising the streets in their getaway vehicle.  Predictably, the dog decides that he's not so keen on these two after all and launches into attack mode, causing them to crash into a police car and be promptly arrested.  The dog is then hailed as a hero for helping to bring the two criminals to justice and is returned to the Binfords.  It all wraps up just a little too glibly and abruptly, although in a manner that seems entirely befitting to the increasing lunacy of this narrative thread.  And as little as I cared for Bev's behaviour toward the dog in the opening segment, there is actually a bit of pay-off here, as suddenly she's all over the dog and feeding him a lavish steak dinner (this is the only sense in which the individual stories make any kind of direct nod to one another).  The episode concludes with Skip getting accidentally locked outside of the house while the rest of the Binford clan retires upstairs to bed and trying to sneak in through the back door, only for the dog's anti-intruder training to kick in yet again and...yeah, I'm sure you can write this one yourself.

Although "The Family Dog" does pick up considerably in its third act, its appeal is fairly limited and efforts to rework the scenario into a Simpsons-style sitcom were definitely misguided.  The script doesn't have the heart, sharpness or observational wit of The Simpsons and where it does excel, with madcap cartoon antics in the tradition of Chuck Jones, it feels like it would be better-suited to a six-minute short than to a full-length TV episode.  Not to mention that the Binfords are an inherently unpleasant bunch and there are only so many times that you can really tolerate seeing them bicker among themselves and treat their pet like refuse.  May that tombstone in the Springfield Pet Cemetery forever stand as a testament to the fact that some things aren't meant to be.

With that, I'm done with Family Dog for the foreseeable future.  Perhaps I'll find a reason to bring it up again at some point or another (should anything ever come to light about those three "lost" episodes, for instance), but after eight months of carefully studying the series and of trawling through the Binfords' antics, I definitely feel as if I've earned a nice long break from it for now.  This does prompt the question as to what obscure or long-forgotten cartoon series I'll be covering next - Fish Police is a definite possibility (made all the more attractive for the fact that it's a considerably shorter series than Family Dog), although rest assured that I'd have to be very, very bored to even consider giving Capitol Critters another run.  It's not quite as obscure or long-forgotten, but I did indicate back in November that I was planning an in-depth look at Al Jean and Mike Reiss's The Critic at some point in 2017.  Coming up next, however, will be coverage of a long-standing animated curiosity of mine, one with even weaker fortunes than Family Dog (ie: it never made it past the pilot stage), and which I'd previously hinted I would happily review should I ever come across it.  Check back to see what February has to offer.

Confessions of a Family Dog Viewer: "Family Dog Gets Good and Sick"

Original air date: 28th July 1993

Baby, we made it.  We've reached the tenth and final episode of Family Dog - once this particular instalment had aired, the character's career was at a total dead-end and the series was immediately consigned to the scrapheap of ill-fated and ill-advised ventures into television animation, where it had Fish Police, Capitol Critters and the Hollywood Dog pilot for company.  The really pressing question, of course, is does it at least enable the series to go out on a high note?  Yeah, I'd say so, in that "Family Dog Gets Good and Sick" is easily the outright weirdest episode in all the series, and that's not such a bad way of wrapping things up.  Not to mention that it actually works pretty effectively as a finale.  If you read the introductory post I wrote on the series back in June, you might recall me mentioning that there were originally intended to be thirteen episodes of Family Dog, although production difficulties meant that three of those episodes never saw the light of the day.  As essentially nothing is known about the three discarded episodes, I cannot say definitively if "Family Dog Gets Good and Sick" was actually intended to be the series finale, but if you'd presented it to me as such then I could certainly buy it.  The closing images have a surprisingly poignant sense of finality to them - in fact, for each and every flaw I've picked at over the course of this retrospective I do have to give the series props for rounding things off as sweetly as it does.  If there's a totally, 100% sincere complement I can pay Family Dog, it's that the specific scene it bows out upon actually ranks as one of my all-time favourite series closers.  There's a lovely, delicate sense of subtly and sensitivity in the final moments that was totally absent from just about everywhere else in the series.  It's so beautiful and yet it also frustrates the hell out of me, because it hints at what Family Dog might have been with just a dose more heart and sharper scripting.

The biggest weakness of "Family Dog Gets Good and Sick" is, as has so often been the case with this series, story structure.  This episode feels, more than any other before it, like two back-to-back shorts which happen to be linked upon a common theme; namely, the dog feeling out of sorts for various reasons.  In the first half, the dog has his first encounter with canine mortality when he comes face-to-face with the corpse of a neighbourhood dog who was struck down by a car, and descends into a state of feverish paranoia upon realising that he could be next.  In the second, the dog gets bitten by a radioactive mosquito (no kidding) and becomes a feverish, now perpetually-vomiting wreck (no doggy vomit appears onscreen, but he gets up to some first-rate gagging).  In both cases, a certain female chihuahua from Family Dog's past plays a vital role in leading him down the road to recovery.  "Family Dog Gets Good and Sick" sees the return of Al and Katie from "Doggone Girl Is Mine", which also adds to the sense of finality - Al's long list of misfortunes have been intermittently alluded to over the course of series, so there is a sense here of an underlying subplot coming full circle.

As I say, "Family Dog Gets Good and Sick" is a weird little episode, which is largely due to the state of stomach-churning delirium in which the dog spends most of its running time (be warned that this may be a bit much to handle if you happen to have a particularly sensitive stomach yourself).  The whole radioactive mosquito thing is pretty far-out, although it's honestly nice to see the show wandering into somewhat freakier territory - a dash more of this kind of warped insanity might have enabled it to overcome some of tedium which weighed down a number of episodes.

The episode opens with the dog crying out mournfully as a plane passes overhead and Skip observing that he does that every time he notices a plane in the sky.  This behaviour mystifies the Binfords, who are happy to write it off as another symptom of their pet's perceived stupidity, although the episode is at pains to remind the viewer that it's because the dog is thinking about his loved and lost, Katie, from whom he was cruelly separated at the end of "Doggone Girl Is Mine".  We get a lengthy flashback to that episode, which lasts for over a minute and is another example of this series either being really desperate to fill out the time or simply not recognising when a sequence is dragging on too long (did we really need reminding that the dogs "made fireworks" in that episode, for instance?).  Obviously, the idea is to ensure that viewers will remember who Katie is, but they could have pulled it off a lot more concisely.  Included at the end of the flashback is a moment between our dog and Katie which wasn't actually part of the original episode, in which our dog shoots a really cheesy, distinctly anthropomorphic grin at Katie shortly before being tossed off the plane by the airline stewardess - turns out that the dog is actually dreaming this portion of the flashback, so I guess that some artistic license can be taken.

The dog awakes with a start to the sounds of an extremely nasty-sounding thud, coupled with an ominous whine coming from the real world, and slowly rises to his feet as a neighbourhood woman can be overheard arguing with a priest about why he failed to stop in time.  The dog casually strolls over to the garden fence and, through a tiny crack observes a few more of the neighbours rushing over to the scene in question - among them the Mahoneys, making their last ever appearance.  The dog gets excited, thinking that a really fun adventure is happening further up the street and that he needs to be a part of it too, so he goes inside the house to grab his leash and gesture that he wants to be taken for a walk.  Inside the house, Bev can be heard ordering Billy to stay put while she goes out to investigate with Skip, but Billy happily disregards that when he sees the dog with the leash in his mouth - "I'll take you", he tells the dog, a little too gleefully, "but I don't think you're gonna like it."

Billy and the dog head over to the gathering crowd, some of whom are wailing out in horror, but most of whom are complaining angrily about the lack of a stop sign on the street and how an accident like this had been inevitable for months.  It takes a while for the dog to get past them, but the instant he gets a gander of what they're all gathered around - the crumpled body of Noodles, the beloved dog of another local family - as Billy predicted, the wag goes right out of his tail.  There's a particularly morbid bit where our dog walks right up to Noodles' corpse and, not quite understanding the situation, attempts to nudge him back to life, but gets nowhere and resorts to barking in desperation.

At this point, Skip and Bev get wise to the fact that Billy has snuck out to the accident scene against their wishes, and it suddenly occurs me that Buffy must be all alone inside the house without any form of supervision.  Surely Skip and Bev weren't stupid enough to suppose that Billy would make a responsible babysitter?  Oh well, one more negligence point for them, I suppose.  Billy attempts to drag the dog back home but has difficulty keeping him under control - suddenly, the dog has become a jittery bag who jumps at the sight of everything on wheels (this leads to a rather nice sight gag in which a car whizzes by bearing the license plate DOGETR).  Billy of course isn't terribly sympathetic, but there is a fleeting moment in which he does seem genuinely concerned for the dog.

Back at the house, the dog's nerves still refuse to settle, as he discovers that his fear of being struck down by anything on wheels has generalised into a fear of just about everything around him that can be construed as vaguely threatening.  The sight of Bev chopping up a watermelon for dinner becomes the stuff of nightmares, as does Skip munching on a cooked chicken, and Billy digging ravenously into a box of - what else? - noodles.  Be warned that this particular sequence isn't for the faint of heart - not because it's scary in any way, shape or form (although does succeed in being sufficiently uncomfortable) but because the sight of Billy scarfing down those noodles is rendered in stomach-churning detail (this is coming from somebody who has a thing about seeing other people eat, but nevertheless, I defy you not to start grappling with your own gag reflexes while watching this scene).  Billy notices that the dog is staring uneasily at him and tauntingly asks if he would like some noodles (Billy is a terrible person, but then I'm sure that you get that point by now).  Bev orders Billy to leave the dog alone but then goes ahead and pours a whole tub of noodles into his bowl, which the dog, unsurprisingly, has no appetite for.  Buffy is overheard chanting, "Kill the eggroll!" over and over - this is the only Buffy moment in the entire series that I'd say comes halfway-close to working, in that it does set you somewhat on edge.  The dog finally decides that his had enough of the Binfords' culinary horrors and retreats outside to the yard, but even there finds no peace of mind, thanks to a couple of neighbourhood kids on the other side of the fence who are playing catch and dissecting the Noodles occurence with morbid fascination.  The dog has a disturbing vision in which Skip and Billy invite him to play catch with them, but are actually conspiring to kill him by throwing the ball out into the street and having him chase out after it into the path of a speeding car.  Actually, given Tim Burton's involvement in the series, I suspect that this may even be a reference to the original Frankenweenie - at any rate, this grisly method of doggy execution seems to be a recurring motif in his projects.

The dog may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean that the Binfords aren't actually a bunch of callous creeps out to get him.  The absolute low point of "Family Dog Gets Good and Sick" is a scene in which Billy and Buffy are tormenting dog by hurling lumps of play clay at him inside his kennel, and Skip, instead of chastising the little demons he sired, encourages them to switch to tormenting the dog by pelting him with kibble, on the grounds that "at least he can eat it".  At this late in the game I shouldn't really be shocked by the Binfords' casual cruelty, but I've always seriously disliked how this series tries to have it both ways with regards to the family's treatment of their dog.  We're supposed to believe that the Binfords really care about their pet and that, if he were to disappear from home (as we saw in the previous episode) or become deeply, horrendously ill (as we'll see later on in this episode) they'd be devastated, but the notion that that somehow nullifies unpleasant and utterly pointless acts of abuse such as this really doesn't wash.

Bev, thankfully, has the decency to stand up for the dog, commenting that he appears to be unwell, as dog gazes down upon the pieces of kibble Skip just threw at him and, in his paranoid frenzy, sees them morph into an array of bugs and earthworms which start crawling around at his feet. Skip and Bev continue to argue over the dog's health as the family retires to the house for the evening - Skip asserts that the dog is simply having an odd mood, but this is really just an excuse to start mooing at Bev and give us our final reference to the couple's barnyard-themed sex life.  They leave the dog in the midst of yet another nightmare, this time involving his kennel being destroyed by a car and him being knocked into a bizarre fantasy land populated by hordes of rolling care tyres.  It's a pretty tame sequence for the most part, the most eye-poppingly surreal element being that we to see the dog in unusually anthropomorphic poses that at times seem almost Wile E. Coyote-esque.

Things take an unexpected turn when the dog feels a friendly tongue licking his face and looks up to see Katie standing above him.  Suddenly, all his fears and anxieties fade away and it transforms into a very pleasant dream sequence indeed, the dog getting to romp around with Katie through a picturesque green park.

The dog wakes up in considerably better spirits and, seeing a butterfly, leaps up to chase it playfully around the yard.  The Binfords observe their reinvigorated pet from their bedroom windows and remark that he appears to be over his period of sickness/low mood.  Thus ends the first half of the episode, and the incident with Noodles ceases to be an issue from this point onward.  As I say, this episode feels even bittier and more disjointed than usual, the second half relating to the first in only a thematic sense - in retrospect, the entire Noodles scenario seems like little more than a drawn-out means of establishing the magical healing influence of Katie, since it's the only really direct continuation that we have between the two halves.  One can't help but wonder if it started life as a separate episode altogether but got merged into another because the writers couldn't figure out how to make it stand up on its own.

The second half has distinctly odd beginnings, as we fade in to find ourselves in the entirely alien environs of a heavily polluted river languishing within the outskirts of a nuclear power plant.  A water rat is seen swimming around in the toxic waste-filled depths and emerges to reveal that it's actually a hideous rodent-fish mutation, while a sickly-looking frog perches upon a nuclear waste drum and belches out incessantly.  None of these sight gags are as endearingly warped as Blinky, the three-eyed fish who inhabits the river beyond the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in The Simpsons, but there is nevertheless something vaguely disconcerting about this entire sequence, underscored by the jarring absence of any background music.  A mosquito hovers above the polluted waters and drinks its fill before flying off, all poised to inflict a bellyful of toxins into the bloodstream of an unsuspecting suburbanite.

The mosquito has its own leitmotif, this really twangy, incessant little tune that's not exactly threatening, but does add neatly to the overall sense of confusion and delirium that runs throughout the episode.  We see the world from the mosquito's perspective as it hovers around the Binfords' back yard, approaching each member of the human family for a sneaky nibble but repeatedly being repelled before it can get quite close enough, until finally it finds an easy target in the sleeping dog.  The dog cries out in pain as the mosquito chomps down upon his muzzle, but the instant he tries to leap to his feet he finds his senses dissolving in a dizzying whirl.  As he staggers feebly across the yard, we hear more of that eerie, twangy guitar music, only this time drawn-out and with a heavily disorientating vibe.  One thing that this episode pulls off very effectively is in giving us a convincing sense of the dog's sickness, perhaps a little too much for comfort - indeed, by the time the dog reaches to the grass clippings bag and proceeds to unload the contents of his digestive system therein, I suspect that you'll already be halfway reaching for a barf bag yourself.

The Binfords can't deny that there's something seriously, life-threateningly wrong with their dog on this occasion, so in the very next scene they're all gathered in the living room, Bev clutching the woozy dog upon her lap while Skip leafs through the phone book in search of a cheap vet who's open Sundays (leave it to the Binfords not to spring for any particularly expensive veterinary care for their pet, even in the event of an emergency).  Just as Skip stumbles upon a promising ad, the dog's gag reflexes start going berserk and the family quickly twig that he's going to barf yet again.  This leads to a wonderful moment in which Bev drops the retching dog on Buffy's lap and, as Buffy erupts in a horrified scream, I kept thinking about how glorious it would be to end the series with the dog vomiting all over this ghastly little hellspawn.  Alas, no such scene occurs; Bev grabs a hold of the dog yet again and manages to get him successfully upstairs and above the toilet bowl before he unloads.  Again, no canine vomit appears onscreen, but it you're the easily grossed-out sort then odds are that you won't appreciate just how nauseatingly graphic some of the sound effects are.

The following morning, Skip takes the dog to the vet and it's worth noting that, from this point onward, he's the only human Binford to appear onscreen for the remainder of the episode.  We do hear Billy and Buffy's voices at the very end of the episode, but their ugly mugs are now out of the picture forever, and it gives me immense gratification to be able to type that.  The dog has a tough time of it on the way to the vet's, owing to the number of potholes in the road and his still very-fragile stomach.  He's also none-too-happy when Skip pulls up outside the building and he recognises the veterinary building which, being a fairly typical dog, he associates with being poked and prodded in uncomfortable places.  Once Skip's actually dragged the dog inside the building however, we see a dramatic transformation in his demeanor, his sickness and anxieties ceasing to be the instant he gets wind of a delightfully familiar scent lingering around the waiting room.  Yep, Katie was here, and the dog just missed seeing her before she was taken away into a veterinary room for a check-up.  Skip is rather put out that the dog appears to have made a miraculous recovery just as he's managed to get him to the vet's, and insists that he's going to get a shot regardless.

As the dog is taken away by the vet and subjected to a highly unpleasant-looking anal probing, Skip runs into Al, who explains that he's now a qualified pilot and able to fly back and forth between South Dakota and his former stomping ground on weekends, so he's brought Katie back for her annual check-up (apparently having failed to register her with a local vet in South Dakota).  Al claims that his donut shop has been a success and that his break-up with Vina was the best thing that ever happened to him, but lets it slip that he's still very much fixated on her.  Meanwhile Skip, who's no better-disposed toward Al than he was in "Doggone Girl Is Mine", struggles to feign any degree of interest or sympathy.  The dog receives a shot, which the vet informs Skip will leave him unconscious for the rest of the day, but before it can fully take effect the dog makes one last desperate effort to be reunited with Katie, managing to make it as far as her carrier before completely keeling over.

Outside in the veterinary parking lot, Skip shakes hands with Al, wishing him a safe flight back home, but can be heard muttering "Buddy Holly, Patsy Kline and Al..." as he turns to walk away (yeah, Skip's a jerk, what else is new?).  Back at the house, Skip carries the unconscious dog out to his kennel and leaves him sleeping peacefully on his side (he strokes the dog fondly before finally leaving him, which is a pretty sweet touch).  The dog is so heavily sedated that not even in the sounds of a plane crashing down upon the Binfords' roof mere moments later are enough to rouse him.  As the Binfords all cry out in confusion, we hear Al nervously explaining that he forgot to put fuel in his tank and might need to stay with them for the weekend.  Meanwhile, a blackened Katie lands beside the kennel and, escaping her disintegrating carrier, is thrilled to pieces to find herself unexpectedly reunited with the love of her life.  She attempts to wake our dog but is unable to do so; alas, the effects of the drugs are simply too strong.  This saddens Katie, but she resigns herself to settling down and sleeping alongside him.  As the two animals lie huddled together, we see a thought bubble revealing what the dog is dreaming, and with it, our final image of the series - poignantly, his dream involves himself sleeping peacefully inside his kennel with Katie right there at his side.  He sleeps on, unaware that his dream has become reality.

Call me sentimental, but I actually do get a slight tear in my eye during this scene.  Family Dog did succeed in bringing out my inner sop, even if was literally at the very last second.

Anyway, this being the end of our Family Dog saga, I thought I'd round off with a general overview of the series and how I rank each episode individually.  Here are my collective impressions:

Best of a Runty Litter: Doggone Girl Is Mine, Eye on The Sparrow, Party Animal, Family Dog Gets Good and Sick

Decent Enough: Dog Days of Summer

Somewhat Tedious: Call of The Mild

Pretty Fricking Tedious: Show Dog, Hot Dog at the Zoo

Broken: Family Dog Goes Homeless

So Fucked It's Art: Enemy Dog

Oh, and hang tight because there is still an epilogue (or should that be prologue?) to come for this retrospective.  I couldn't possibly bid farewell to the character without also taking a look at the original Amazing Stories episode, now could I?

Confessions of a Family Dog Viewer: "Family Dog Goes Homeless"

Original air date: 28th July 1993

My first question, on reading the title of this episode, isn't didn't Family Dog "go homeless" once before?  In many respects this episode, the series' penultimate, is a direct retread of "Call of the Mild", in that the dog gives up his pathetic yet materially comfortable home life in exchange for a life out on the streets, only discover that he's forever doomed to be a house dog.  In fact, this is technically the third episode in which the dog's loyalties to the Binfords are tested by the allure of an external influence, given that he was prepared to give up everything and board a plane to South Dakota just to be with Katie in "Doggone Girl Is Mine".  In this particular instance, the dog befriends a bag lady who moves into his doghouse and takes to stealing groceries from the Binfords in order to sustain her, before finally opting to accompany her as she returns to the city streets in search of an erstwhile lover.  Much like "Call of The Mild" before it, it's a generally very "meh" episode that struggles to stretch the scenario out to the full twenty-two minutes, which does undermine what I said in my coverage of "Party Animal" about the series possibly starting to get its act together as it neared its demise.

"Family Dog Goes Homeless" is also the closest that this series ever comes to tackling to an "issue" episode, in that it touches upon a serious social problem, albeit not with any especially amazing depth or insight.  Clearly, this rubbed some viewers the wrong way - roasting the series in the Chicago Tribune on June 23rd 1993, Rick Kogan singled out this episode on the charge that it "comes close to making fun of homelessness." (Reviews of this series were not kind.  I suspect that I've written just about the kindest Family Dog reviews that you're ever likely to find on the web.  My favourite review was written by Scott Blakely on the VHS release of "Enemy Dog", purely because it includes this line: "Supper turns out to be a disaster, and the Family Dog, locked in the laundry room with K-10, is nearly eaten alive. His eyes look like this: OO.")  Kogan's specific complaint strikes me as being a bit off the mark; the problem isn't so much that the episode "makes fun" of homelessness (although it does mine at least a couple of visual gags from the implication that Lulu doesn't smell too fresh) as that it raises the issue and then ultimately proves quite toothless on the matter.  The closest thing that this episode has to any especially scathing social commentary comes during a dinner table scene where Bev delivers a condescending speech about homelessness and how everyone's eyes are closed to the issue that barely disguises her contempt for the affected.  Bev, one suspects, is more upset by the fact that she's being made to witness homelessness first-hand than she is that the problem exists and, disappointingly, the conclusion the episode comes to doesn't seem terribly more progressive than that.  Homelessness, ultimately, is treated as an issue that middle class suburbanites shouldn't be expected to get their hands dirty over.

Part of the problem is that Lulu the bag lady, though clearly intended to be a sympathetic character, ultimately isn't, owing to the visibly exploitative nature of her relationship with the dog.  She's nice to the dog while he's bringing her food but immediately abandons him when her boyfriend doesn't take to him, leading to a surprisingly frosty conclusion, perhaps the most unpleasant and unsettling we've had since "Enemy Dog".  More problematic still is the deliberate contrast between the Binfords' life of plenty and Lulu's harsher life of scavenging which, while it does show up the Binfords as shallow and unappreciative of what they have, ultimately favours them as offering the proper companionship for our four-legged protagonist.  Lulu is very blatantly an intruder in this pristine suburban world, and the balance of the Family Dog universe is restored when she retreats back to the alleyways of the grungy city where she belongs and the dog realises that his true place is among a middle class family who yell at him, abuse him and call him a "stupid dog".  I can't help but really despise the ending to this episode, more so than "Enemy Dog", which did at least end on a momentary high for the dog.  But hey, I'm getting ahead of things here - let's go back and take a look at how the episode gets to this most dispiriting of points.

The episode opens with the dog feeling a bit starved for attention but, as per usual, getting none of it from the Binfords.  Bev is getting into a heated debate with a telemarketer, Skip is doing a cock-up job on repairing the car, and Billy and Buffy are being Billy and Buffy, and thus not worthy company.  Actually, the moment with Biffy does start out fairly promisingly, with him doing some kind of old-school mad scientist parody, but turns sour the instant he threatens to electrocute the dog.  The dog retreats outside, where he discovers an old discarded ham hock in the trash and heads off into the backyard to devour it. ,He's interrupted, however, by a strange voice from up above and an odor that has him wrinkling his nose, and looks up to see a ragged bag lady peering over the fence and eying up his hock of ham.  This makes the dog intensely uncomfortable, to the extent that he surrenders the hock and, through a crack in the fence, watches with nervous fascination as as she scarfs the whole thing down.  Billy shows up a lobs a couple of balls at the dog's head and, in a moment that's totally out of character but awesome nonetheless, the dog turns and takes a wet bite out of Billy.  I will give this episode credit for being one of the very few where Billy has to face any kind of direct consequences for his casual cruelty to the dog.  I wish there were a lot more moments like this throughout the series.

That night, the mysterious woman sneaks into the backyard and attempts to snuggle up beside the sleeping dog, whereupon his nose starts wrinkling yet again and he bolts into the house in fear.  The bag lady calls to him from outside the house, imploring him to not be afraid and calling him her "knight in furry armor."  Cautiously, the dog tiptoes back outside and the bag lady thanks him for his kindness and rewards him with a thorough petting.  Not used to being on the receiving end of such lavish affection, the dog immediately warms up to the stranger and allows her to stay with him inside his doghouse.

Lulu: "Poor old poochie got fleas.  Yeah, me too honey.  Ain't they a bitch?"

They used the word "bitch" in an animated series.  Edgy stuff, no?

You'll notice that there is this vaguely animalistic quality to Lulu the bag lady, also manifested in the rather wolfish manner in which she downs the ham hock from earlier and her willingness to spend the night inside a dog kennel, which might be what Kogan was getting at when he accused the episode of mocking the homeless.  I suspect that the intention was mainly just to set Lulu up as being a kind of kindred spirit to the dog (ostensibly anyway), so as to have her bond with him seem all the more meaningful; a case of Lulu respecting the dog enough that she's not too proud to meet him at his level.  It's not too hard to see the affinity here - both of them are downtrodden souls who are well used to being ignored, despised and mistreated, and who have learned to survive right at the bottom of their respective hierarchies.  I'd say that the potential was definitely there for something quite sweet.

The dog wakes up to find himself alone in the kennel and is sad because he thinks that Lulu has left him.  In actuality, she's just nipped out to the dumpsters behind the local convenience store in order to raid up a gourmet breakfast for them both; this consists of a half-eaten apple, a banana skin and a few mangled old french fries.  The dog isn't even prepared to humour Lulu into thinking that he'll accept her offering; certainly not when there are fresher pickings to be scavenged from the Binfords' breakfast table.  He heads inside the house and finds the Binfords being typically unappreciative of Bev's cooking (this is also where we overhear Bev's condescending speech about the homeless) and is able to pick up a couple of breakfast items to take back to Lulu.  Lulu is so grateful that she happily shares it with the dog.

That evening, the dog once again scavenges scraps from the Binfords table and becomes uncharacteristically aggressive with Bev when he suspects that she might take the food off him - his allegiances have switched to a brand new master it seems.  While Bev ponders what's prompting so much aggression from the dog (Skip suggests that he's been negatively influenced by an episode of Hard Copy about pets that kill their owners), the dog heads back outside with his bounty and shares an evening meal with Lulu, who opens up a bit about her past.  Apparently, she was a performer in the 1960s who had a plate-spinning act with her partner Saul.  The highlight of their career was an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show ("You know, The Beatles, Topo Gigio - uh-uh, c'mon, you were a kid, you don't remember"), but by the 1980s they had fallen on hard times.

The days slip by, and as the dog's bond with Lulu grows ever deeper he takes to pilfering supplies directly from the Binfords' larder, while the stupid family never realise that there's a bag lady living in their backyard (although Bev does cotton on to all the food going missing, but jumps to the conclusion that Billy has parasites of his own).

Eventually, the dog turns to stealing more than table scraps and honours his new human friend with a gift lifted straight from Bev's jewelry box - a tacky-ass cat broach which he carries outside and presents to her.  Her response:

"Well, merci Mr. Trump, I won't tell Marla."

Fuuuuu.  Let's move right along.

Lulu attaches the broach close to her heart and then revels in how much more sophisticated she looks.

"Oh, look at me honey, I'm as pretty as a princess.  And I mean Fergie before the divorce."

Ow.

Lulu announces that she now feels confident to return to the city in the hope of finding and reconciling with her erstwhile partner Saul, and asks the dog if he's willing to accompany her.  The dog leaps devotedly into her outstretched arms and away they go, leaving Bev to freak out when she realises what kind of mischief has been practiced upon her jewelry box.

As they enter the city, Lulu explains to the dog that she's been on her own ever since she and Saul had an argument and she awoke the following day to find that he had left her.  The city is portrayed as a screwy place full of uptights, eccentrics and oddballs, although the majority of gags (which include a nerdy-looking vegetarian screaming at a butcher, and some overly enthusiastic rush hour businessmen) are kind of lame.  Meanwhile, the dog sees an advertising billboard featuring a cheery, clean-cut family and has his first pangs of unease about abandoning his own grotesque clan.  Eventually, Lulu reaches her old alleyway and finds Saul already waiting for her.  They shout one another's names back and forth for a bit before running toward one another in cliched slow-motion - it's a moment which goes on for tortuously long, but I guess they still had a lot of time to fill out.

Lulu and Saul are happy to see one another again, although Saul becomes a lot less jubilant when he spies what's been tagging along at his sweetheart's ankles.  Turns out, he doesn't much care for dogs (although he's not convinced that the specimen in question actually is a dog, as opposed to a rat in a collar) because he's allergic to them, so he's not prepared to welcome Lulu's new friend into the equation, threatening to up and leave again if Lulu doesn't comply.  Lulu feels she has no choice but to give up the dog, and while she's very tender and affectionate in her goodbyes, even returning the cat broach to the dog as a token of their relationship, it bugs the snot out of me that she basically just turns him away into the streets of the city, not even bothering to take him back home after dragging him out there in the first place. And bloody hell, does the dog look as if he's just had a dagger driven right through his heart.  It's not a pleasant scene by any stretch.

Left to wander the streets with only the cat broach for company, the dog gets caught in a heavy downpour and is forced to take shelter under a dumpster.  He's wet, cold, miserable and clearly deeply repentant about walking out on his family.  After the rain ceases, the dog continues his directionless wandering and passes a wall which, unbeknownst to him, is plastered with "Lost Dog" fliers bearing his likeness.  Could it really be?

That's right, it appears that the Binfords have come through on this one and are actually very serious about being reunited with their dog.  As the dog turns a corner, he sees Skip up ahead, fixing yet another flier to a wall and looking pretty darned downhearted about things too.  So Skip really does care for the dog, who'd have thought?  Not far behind him are the rest of the Binfords, with Bev trying to explain to Billy and Buffy that the dog just went away on vacation.  It's a scene which comes very close to working only to then insist upon shooting itself in the foot - Skip's quiet display of emotion, which includes tenderly stroking the flier, is genuinely affecting, but swiftly undermined by the sounds of Billy positively reveling in the thought that the dog may already have been crushed beneath someone's tyre.  If not for the events of "Eye on the Sparrow" and the fact that Buffy can frankly be even more annoying at times, I'd be all poised to write Billy off as the worst character ever by now.

Naturally, the dog goes racing toward his jilted masters and a happy reunion is had - that is, until Bev notices that the dog has her cat broach in his mouth and realises that he was the one who raided her jewelry box earlier.  Suddenly she's not so happy, and it isn't long before the entire family has lapsed right back into their old habits of hurling angry abuse at the dog, while the dog just sits there and merrily laps it up, as if he's had the epiphany that this is his rightful lot in life and boy, is he ever glad to be back where he belongs.  Did I mention that I really despise the ending to this episode?

Part of the problem with these "dog runs away from home to answer an alternative calling" episodes that the series keeps on insisting on doing is that, inevitably, we have to deal with the question as to whether we actually want to see the dog reunited with the Binfords in the end.  Let's face it, he's a cute, smart and friendly dog and he could certainly do a lot better than a clan as mean, negligent and witless as the Binfords.  Naturally, the status quo must be respected (we do still have one more episode to go, after all) so there was never any reason to believe that he wouldn't end up right back where he started upon reaching the twenty-two minute mark, but there's something downright disquieting about how he seems to willingly embrace the Binfords' scorn as being nothing more than the natural order of things at the end.  It's a shame, because "Family Dog Goes Homeless" does have a few genuinely nice ideas and moments (for one, it is nice to have some solid evidence that the family cares about the dog, even it immediately unravels), and the dog's relationship with Lulu could have been a real heart-string tugger had it been handled with a bit more sensitivity (particularly in its conclusion, which as it stands feels bitter and abrupt as hell).  All in all, the episode comes off as tonally misjudged (more so than usual), and as one of the most searingly cynical in all the series, although not in the weirdly, gut-wrenchingly fascinating way that "Enemy Dog" was.  Frankly, it just leaves you feeling a bit wet, cold and miserable, much like the dog as he crawled under that dumpster earlier.

Still, for all my grousing, I do only have one more episode of Family Dog left to review, which means that very soon this retrospective will be done and dusted, and I find myself feeling strangely sentimental about that fact.  I'm really going to miss picking through this series - how genuinely mad it's made me at me at times and yet how weirdly affectionate I always wind up feeling toward it.  It's a screwy relationship we have alright.

Confessions of a Family Dog Viewer: "Party Animal"

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.

Confessions of a Family Dog Viewer: "Dog Days of Summer"

Original air date: 21st July 1993

It would no doubt be extremely generous of me to describe "Dog Days of Summer" as "Enemy Dog done right" (even in its finest moments, Family Dog could never quite get high up enough to grasp perfection) but, nevertheless, this is easily the more likeable and sweet-tempered of the show's twosome of episodes structured around what is essentially a very similar theme: namely, the Binfords butting heads with unwanted company whose enmity is epitmised in the brutish manner in which their dog terrorises the living snot out of our dog.  Unlike in "Enemy Dog", the Binfords aren't here totally indifferent or insensitive to the suffering of their dog (a scene in which he's nearly drowned notwithstanding); in fact, Skip and Bev are probably the most tolerable that they've ever been at this point in the series, and Buffy thankfully isn't given a whole lot to do, leaving Billy as the sole Binford who poses any kind of a problem.  In terms of the family's behaviour, "Dog Days of Summer" is certainly a whole lot easier to swallow.

The one area where "Dog Days of Summer" falls short compared to "Enemy Dog" is the central conflict, which feels a heck of a lot hokier than the Binfords' rivalry with the Mahoneys.  Shallow as it was, the antagonism between the two neighbouring clans was at least believable and clearly motivated, with the Mahoneys always feeling the need to rub their superiority in the Binfords' faces and the Binfords naturally resenting them for it.  The two families were essentially stuck with one another, so it followed that familiarity would have bred contempt on both sides of the street.  Here, the Binfords go to the beach and come to blows with a trio of pimply teenagers who are harassing Billy for no particular reason, other than, grrr, those dang Generation-Xers running wild, I guess?  There's never any explanation for why this bunch of total strangers should go so out of their way to upset the Binfords, beyond the episode assuming that unsupervised teenagers have nothing better to do with their time than to spoil the fun of suburban families who've come to enjoy a traditional day out at the beach.

One thing which I do really like about this episode are the dogs' dream sequences, which rank as some of the weirdest and intermittently most unsettling in the series' run.  The episode opens with one such sequence, in which the dog gathers bones from the night sky and assembles two canine skeletons upon the ground; in doing so, he's able to summon the ghosts of his departed parents (it seems safe to assume that those dead dogs are his parents, at any rate) in a manner which carries an almost vaguely Tim Burton vibe (think of the scene in which Scraps is resurrected in Corpse Bride).  The dog then proceeds to lead the ghosts around the house and garden, showing them each of the sleeping Binfords individually, and taking great pride in showing off his personal territory and how well he has done for himself.  This is swiftly shattered when K-10, making his first appearance since "Enemy Dog", suddenly looms over the fence and barks at our dog, sending him scurrying off to his kennel in terror.  As he sits there trembling, he becomes visibly ashamed at having shown his parents just how low down in the local pecking order he really is.

I'd say that this sequence is well-done, and a testament to just how weird, charming and inventive this series could be in its better moments with its non-dialogue narration.  It's oddly hilarious seeing the ghost dogs gazing at their son's food bowl in total awe, as if having one ranks among the greatest accomplishments a dog can boast, and the sequence as a whole is an effective way of communicating the dog's fears and anxieties and establishing a clear insecurity for him to overcome throughout the course of the episode.  He's puny and easily intimidated by other dogs, but he yearns to be able to stand up for himself, in spite of his stature.

The transition from this sequence into the main story is also fairly neat, with the glow from the two ghost dogs transforming into the glare of the morning sun.  We've joined the Binfords on Fathers' Day morning, and it happens to be a particularly scorching one, so Skip is intent upon lazing around and doing nothing; that is, until a busted air conditioner throws a wrench into his plans.  Much to his chagrin, Skip winds up conceding to take the family to the beach instead, which delights the children but not Bev, who's feeling insecure at the prospect of appearing in public in a bathing suit.  At first, the family are quite set upon leaving the dog behind (particularly Billy, who complains that he always gets stuck with him), but Bev changes her mind when she sees just how much he's also feeling the heat and convinces Skip to bring him along.  Of course, once at the beach the Binfords quickly tire of the dog's antics and, much as he predicted, Billy finds the dog hoisted off onto him to keep occupied.

Somewhat predictably, Billy doesn't take his pet-sitting responsibilities terribly seriously (although he's happy to grumble about them), and while he's off teasing a crab with a stick the dog is left to lollop around the sands completely unsupervised.  It's at this point that the dog encounters his nemesis-of-the-day, a snarling bulldog named Scud who's at the beach with his three spotty teenage cohorts.  As Scud lunges at him, our dog finds himself so terrified that he panics and bolts directly into the waves for safety, where he quickly finds himself overwhelmed by the tide and sinks beneath the surface of the water (all this happens without Billy noticing, it seems).  It's here that we get our second dream sequence, as the dog's lights slowly go out and his life starts to flash before his eyes.  A life of pitiful misery it is too - as the runt of the litter, our dog was constantly struggling just to reach one of his mother's teats, and when the puppies are offered up for sale in a pet shop, our dog quickly finds himself stagnating in solitude upon the shelf.  There's a particularly depressing moment during the pet shop sequence in which the dog, completely alone, sees a passing woman stop and apparently take an interest in him, but in a tragic twist it's revealed that she's only checking out her own reflection in the window and as such never even noticed the dog.

Confused, disappointed and above all, unwanted, our dog's next stop is the local animal shelter, where he seems doomed to rot away his days - that is, until fate plays a sinister trick on him, and the Binfords (sans Buffy, who presumably wasn't born at this point) show up in search of a mutt for their ankle-biting son.  A visibly younger Skip and Bev invite an audibly more pip-squeaked Billy to pick out any dog that he wants, and he quickly settles upon our dog.  At first, our dog seems delighted, until Billy moves closer and it becomes plain what a grotesque little monster he's about to be saddled with.  The dog's final hopes of a happy existence are smothered horrifically in Billy's malevolent laugh, which makes it all too plain that he went for the puniest-looking dog he could find so that he would have no problems in bullying it.  The joy in our dog's expression evaporates into total dread, and the sequence ends there, rounding off with a re-appearance from the two ghost dogs from earlier, who gaze forlornly at their drowning son from inside a couple of rising bubbles.

There are number of legitimate criticisms one could make of this sequence, namely that it goes on for much too long, that it's complete and utter padding that adds nothing to the overall story (other than emphasising that our dog's been an underdog all his life, which anyone who'd seen at least one episode of the show would certainly have picked up on by now), and that it focuses extensively upon the misery and suffering of the dog in a manner that's not exactly funny or endearing.  All very valid, but I find that I can't be too hard upon it.  It's far from pleasant viewing but it's got that genuinely unsettling, nightmarish quality that I find strangely entrancing, and above all it's nice to have some kind of backstory explaining how our dog came to be stuck the Binfords, and one that feels appropriately unsentimental at that.

Having sunk all the way down to the ocean floor, our dog suddenly regains consciousness and summons the will to claw his way back up to the surface.  With renewed determination, he attempts to fight his way back to the shore, but gets engulfed by another wave along the way, leaving him washed up on the sand in a crumpled, gasping heap.  Billy finds the dog and, apparently failing to notice that he's any worse for wear, begins reprimanding him for lazing around.  Just then the three teenagers reappear with their ferocious bulldog, whose huge, slavering jaws are enough to send even Billy's confidence racing for the hills.  The teenagers tauntingly suggest that he come and play with their dog, but Billy wisely declines and runs squealing back to the rest of the family, unaware that the teenagers are set upon following him.  Before the Binfords know what's hit them, these snotty-nosed punks have set up base right beside them, and are blasting their boombox at full volume down their ear-holes.  As a parody of the kind of ear-splitting garbage the Family Dog writers assume that kids of the early-mid 90s were into, the lyrics of the song are fairly witless, essentially just "This song is loud, it's really, really loud, it's not kind of loud, it's mega, mega loud..." over and over.  Bev and Skip become painfully aware that everyone else on the beach is starting at them, although Billy is impressed by their flagrantly offensive brand of noise pollution and starts dancing with the teenagers.  I'm not fond of how Billy behaves in this scene - no real surprise there, of course, but it bothers me how readily he goes from being visibly terrified of these jerks to voluntarily leaping up and shaking his tush with them.  Actually, I can't help but contemplate just how much better fleshed-out this scenario might have been if, instead of straight-up harassing the Binfords for no apparent reason, the teenagers had taken Billy under their wing and had him behave in ways that the rest of the Binford clan didn't approve of.  I wouldn't have expected anything particularly ground-breaking to come of it, but the conflict here is just so meagre.

Skip decides to intervene and marches up to two of the teens to demand that they take their boombox and move further down the beach, unaware that the third teen is preparing to sic Scud on him from behind (side-note - Skip says "crap" in this scene, which might be Family Dog's only instance so far of using mildly "edgy" language).  Bev attempts to warn him, but Skip is too caught up in his lecture to hear.  Our dog is also surveying the scene in horror, but suddenly has a flash of inspiration, and just as Scud is all poised to chow upon Skip's bare leg, all attentions turn to the sound of the boombox malfunctioning, as our dog pushes it down the shore and into the waves.  As the offending item is consumed by the seawaters, the crowd on the beach erupts with cheers and even the Binfords are showering their dog with praise for a change.  Naturally, though, the teenagers aren't quite so appreciative - the girl teen (who addresses her two male companions as Shaggy and Quasi, but herself goes unnamed for the entirety of the episode) sees red and finally unleashes Scud.  Our dog may have had the audacity to do away with the teenagers' stereo, but he recognises that he's no match for Scud in direct combat and beats a hasty retreat across the beach, although Scud gets him in a pincer movement and very soon has the hapless mutt wedged nose-first between his jaws.

A key factor enabling "Dog Days of Summer" to avoid the pitfalls that made "Enemy Dog" such an unpleasant episode to watch is that the Binfords do here seem genuinely distressed at the thought of their dog being messily devoured by a bigger dog, and actually make the effort to help him this time around.  Skip seizes the beach umbrella and attempts to beat the bulldog into submission, but Scud doesn't so much as bat an eyelid.  Meanwhile, Bev has the good sense to race off to alert the authorities (taking Buffy with her, so I don't have cause to accuse her of shoddy parenting), with the result that a medic shows up on the scene and, reassuring Skip that the most their dog will suffer from the ordeal is a little brain damage, shoots Scud with a tranquilizer dart and knocks him unconscious.  Skip pries his chewed-up dog from the bulldog's jaws, before the sleeping Scud is banished from the beach along with his teenage masters (who vow to stick to the water slides on future outings).

For our final scene, we see Billy tormenting Buffy by demolishing her sandcastle, as the sun sets over the beach and Bev asks Skip (who's too far gone to answer) if he enjoyed his Father's Day.  The dog (now bearing bandages around his snout), looks up at the evening sky and sees the clouds momentarily morphing into the shapes of his own departed parents, who smile down upon him warmly before disappearing again.  Satisfied that he's proved his protective mettle and done his parents proud, the dog too smiles and rests his head down contentedly upon the beach towel.  It's one of show's most genuinely touching final images, closing off what is, on the whole, a pretty solid instalment of Family Dog.  Torturous near-death experience notwithstanding, it feels warmer in tone than the majority of its predecessors, and certainly that's half the battle.

The obvious weakness of "Dog Days of Summer" lies in just how altogether skinny it is.  There's not a lot going on story-wise, and the episode struggles to stretch itself out for a full twenty minutes (hence the drawn-out, incidental dream sequence we get midway through), while the antagonists are entirely one-dimensional and, one suspects, reflect some rather nasty prejudices on the part of the writers.  Really, for this episode's assumptions that unsupervised teens represent the natural enemy of everything good, pure and decent about the suburban nuclear family, Billy still comes across as being a thousand times more repugnant than any of those pimply punks (the episode ends with him kicking sand in his sister's eyes, for Pete's sake).  Still, I enjoy the fact that our dog manages to get the better of them in a more resourceful manner than simply (and implausibly) summoning the strength to confront Scud head-on (much like how he ultimately one-upped K-10 in "Enemy Dog") and it's refreshing to see the family go out of their way to help their much-neglected pet for a change.  Sure, there are numerous problems in here if you're intent on finding them, but I'm not left with such an uneasy aftertaste this time around, and for that reason I'm inclined to show this one a little clemency.