Family Dog Information

Family Dog is an American animated television series that aired in the summer of 1993 on CBS. Created by Brad Bird, the series was about an average suburban family, the Binsfords, 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, which aired in the show's second season in 1987, a dog (a Bull Terrier simply called "the dog") is the main character, portrayed in three stories: The first story involves general misadventures in the house, with him being both ignored and somewhat mistreated by his owners, originally named the Binfords. The second part is a "home movie" showing their Christmas (in which the family narrates), that culminates with the dog eating the ham. In the third, final and elongated segment of the episode, a couple of robbers break into the family's house twice (the first time was when the Binfords had to go out to see a movie at a movie theater, and the dog was given one more chance before the second time), so the father sends the dog to Gerta LaStrange's Dog Obedience School, so he can learn how to become a "quivering, snarling, white-hot ball of canine terror" in order to fend off the robbers. However, when they return to try to rob the house the third time, they run away from it to try avoid and escape from the dog, but when they return to their hideout, which is full of their stolen stuff (they came back with nothing from their third robbery), the second, shorter-bodied robber discovers the dog attached to his arm, with his teeth. Time passes, and the dog is still stuck to his arm. A policeman investigating the robberies approaches the door, burst in and the dog attacks him. The villains praise the dog, and decide to use him as a weapon in a crime spree (featuring the dog and his attacks and robberies). Later the robbers threaten to get a cat when the newspaper refers to them as "The Dog Gang". Already angered by this annoying humiliation, the dog becomes too much for the robbers to take, as he turns on them, causing an auto accident in which the robbers hit a cop car and are busted. The dog is returned to the Binford family, who consider him their hero. The story ends with a catch-up gag, with the father stuck outside the house, as he tries to whisper to his wife to let him in. He then sneaks behind the house into the backyard, only to be attacked, beaten and wounded by the still-quivering, snarling, white-hot ball of canine terror.

Written and directed by Brad Bird, with music by Danny Elfman and Steve Bartek, it was one of the most popular episodes of the Amblin/Universal Television weekly anthology television series, Amazing Stories. The story was animated by Dan Jeup, Ralph Eggleston, Chris Buck, Sue Kroyer, Gregg Vanzo, David Cutler, Rob Minkoff, Alan Smart and Darrell Rooney from an animation production design by Tim Burton. The animation production was outsourced to Hyperion Pictures (then under The Kushner-Locke Company), and was shot in Sydney, Australia by Cinemagic Animated Films, with Kim Humphries as camera operator.

• 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.
• Buffy Binford (the daughter) was voiced by Brooke Ashley.
• The Family Dog (the main character) was voiced by Brad Bird.
• Gerte LeStrange (the dog trainer) was voiced by Mercedes McCambridge.
• The two robbers were voiced by Marshall Efron and Stanley Ralph Ross.
• Plus, an additional voice was given to Jack Angel for the security guard of the dog school.

The first half of the special was attached to another Spielberg-produced project, The Land Before Time, because of the film's short length of over-an-hour.

Historical note

Spielberg's choice to make the episode using animation – especially combining the expense of high-quality animation with well-known voice actors – was considered risky and bold at the time. By the mid-1980s, animation was generally relegated to "cartoons for kids", with most animation (and virtually all animation for television) done as cheaply as possible, with low quality production and no-name actors. In retrospect, Family Dog is often considered to be a landmark production that, combined with films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Oliver & Company (1988) and The Little Mermaid (1989), led to the Disney Renaissance, which had films such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.

CBS series

Seven years after the success of the original Amazing Stories episode, a CBS series based on the episode was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton (who was involved in the original episodes contributing the story's production and character designs). It was written by Dennis Klein, Sherri Stoner and Paul Dini and animated by Nelvana, but notably lacking the involvement of the original writer and director, Brad Bird. Largely hyped due to the involvement of Spielberg, the series suffered various noted production delays that plagued the show. It did not get past its original network order of 13 episodes. Only 10 episodes were finished and sent back from the Wang Film Productions animation house in Taiwan but the producers were dissatisfied with the results, so they halted production on the final three episodes and outsourced the ten episodes to Nelvana for "fixes and completions". The series was scheduled to debut on March 20, 1991 (and it was heavily promoted during the February 1991 broadcast of the Grammy Awards), but the animation production wasn't completed in time for this premiere, so the series was ultimately pushed back until 1993. Frederick Coffin was originally cast as the voice of Skip Binsford, but Spielberg decided to replace him with Martin Mull, after animation was completed on the first three episodes.

The series was part of a spate of attempts by major networks to develop prime time animated shows to compete with the surprise success of Fox's The Simpsons, alongside ABC's Capitol Critters and CBS's own Fish Police. All three shows were canceled in their first season.

Episode list

Nº	Title	Air date

Reception

When the show had finally debuted, it was roundly panned for its crude scripts and cheap production values, both of drastically lesser quality than the episode which had spawned the series. Brad Bird didn't participate in making the show because he did not believe the show's premise would work as a television show. The entire series was later released as a Laserdisc box-set, and various episodes of the show were released on VHS around the same time. Universal, as of January 16, 2011, has yet to announce any plans for a DVD release.

Video game

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