Family Dog (TV series)

Infobox Television
show_name =Family Dog


caption =The Binfords and the dog.
genre =Animation
camera =
picture_format =
audio_format =
runtime =
creator =Brad Bird
developer =
producer =Chuck Richardson
executive_producer =Steven Spielberg Tim Burton Dennis Klein
presenter =
starring =
voices = Martin Mull - Skip Binford Molly Cheek - Beverly Binford Danny Mann - Family Dog Zak Huxtable Epstein - Billy Binford Cassie Cole - Buffy Binford
narrated =
theme_music_composer =Danny Elfman
opentheme =
endtheme =
country =
location =
language =
network =CBS
first_aired =June 23, 1993
last_aired =July 21, 1993
num_seasons =
num_episodes =10 (5 were aired)
list_episodes =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
related =
website =
imdb_id =0105996
tv_com_id =64

"Family Dog" is the story of an average suburban family, the Binfords, as told through the eyes of their dog. It first appeared as an episode of the TV show "Amazing Stories", then was expanded into a very short-lived series of its own.

Original episode

In the original "Amazing Stories" episode, a dog (simply called "the dog") is the main character, portrayed in three stories: The first involves general misadventures in the house, with him being both ignored and somewhat mistreated by his owners. The second is a "home movie" showing their Christmas (the family narrates), which culminates with the dog eating the turkey. In the third robbers break into the family's house twice, so the father sends the dog to attack dog school to learn how to become a "quivering, snarling, white-hot ball of canine terror" and fend off burglars.

Written and directed by Brad Bird (who also did the voice of the dog) with music by Danny Elfman, it was one of the most popular episodes of NBC's "Amazing Stories" weekly anthology series. Animators included Dan Jeup, Ralph Eggleston, Chris Buck, Sue Kroyer, Gregg Vanzo, David Cutler, Rob Minkoff, Alan Smart and Darrell Rooney.

*Skip Binford (the father) was voiced by Stan Freberg.
*Bev Binford (the mother) was voiced by Annie Potts
*Billy Binford (the son) was voiced by Scott Menville.
*Gerte Lestrange (the dog trainer) was voiced by Mercedes McCambridge.

CBS series

After the success of the "Amazing Stories" special, a CBS series was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton (who also contributed character designs), written by Dennis Klein, and distributed by Nelvana, but notably lacking the involvement of the original Writer/Director, Brad Bird. Largely hyped due to the involvement of Spielberg, the series suffered noted production delays. Upon debut the show was roundly panned for its crude scripts and cheap production values, both of drastically lesser quality than the episode which had spawned the series. After the first two episodes aired, it was pulled from the CBS schedule. Remaining episodes were sold to local markets as program filler. The entire series was later released as a Laserdisc box-set.

The video game

The show was later turned into a quirky Super Nintendo game about the life of an everyday family dog. The player has to go places such as beach and the dog pound and defeat stereotypical obstacles and enemies like dog catchers and cats.

External links

* [http://www.animationmeat.com/modelsheets/familydog/familydog.html Character models]
* [http://www.toontracker.com/familydog/familydog.htm From Toontracker.com]
*imdb title|id=0105996|title=Family Dog TV series
* [http://www.tv.com/family-dog/show/64/summary.html?q=Family%20Dog&tag=search_results;image;0 "Family Dog"] at TV.com
* [http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/data/588320.html "Family Dog Video Game"] at GameFAQs