The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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The Shaggy Dog
Comedy · Family · Fantasy · 1959
Through an ancient spell, a boy changes into a sheepdog and back again. It seems to happen at inopportune times and the spell can only be broken by an act of bravery....
Movie details
The Shaggy Dog
“"I was a Teen-age boy!"”
1959 Comedy · Family · Fantasy 1h 44m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.4 / 10
5.9K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
68 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
45 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.3 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Through an ancient spell, a boy changes into a sheepdog and back again. It seems to happen at inopportune times and the spell can only be broken by an act of bravery....
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Shaggy Dog?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure
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The Twits
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Four Kids and It
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A group of kids on holiday in Cornwall meet a magical creature on the beach with the power to grant wishes.
Candy Cane Lane
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A man, determined to win the neighborhood's annual Christmas decorating contest, makes a pact with an elf to help him win. However, the elf casts a spell bringing the twelve days of Christmas to life, bringing chaos to the small, unsuspecting town.
Godmothered
Family · 2020
A young and unskilled fairy godmother that ventures out on her own to prove her worth by tracking down a young girl whose request for help was ignored. What she discovers is that the girl has now become a grown woman in need of something very different than a "prince charming."
Bogus
Fantasy · 1996
Recently orphaned, a young boy is taken in by his godmother who is shocked to realize that she can see the boy's imaginary friend: a flamboyant, French magician named Bogus.
The Care Bears Movie
Adventure · 1985
The Care Bears team up with a troubled brother and sister who just moved to a new town to help a neglected young magician's apprentice whose evil spell book causes sinister things to happen.
Animal Crackers
Comedy · 2018
A family must use a magical box of Animal Crackers to save a rundown circus from being taken over by their evil uncle Horatio P. Huntington.
Where it lives
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Charles Barton
Written by
Bill Walsh · Lillie Hayward
Fred MacMurray
Wilson Daniels
Jean Hagen
Freeda Daniels
Tommy Kirk
Wilby Daniels
Annette Funicello
Allison D'Allessio
Tim Considine
Buzz Miller
Kevin Corcoran
Moochie Daniels
Cecil Kellaway
Professor Plumcutt
Court is in session
Put The Shaggy Dog on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.