With the Disney Company releasing their new Disney+ streaming service, DHI will be covering a feature film each month. With Disney+ starting out with so many productions from their vault, we have decided to start with the wonderful classic, “The Shaggy Dog”. Each month we will covering different aspects of the movie here on our website, our Facebook page, Twitter, and the DHI podcast.
On the website we will cover the Campaign Manual with its many different articles, advertisements, pre-written reviews, and recommendations to the theaters to help drive traffic. To get a better understanding of the Campaign Manuals, please look at our previous article of what they are.
For this article, we are just going to look at the movies synopsis that is provided on page 23 of the Campaign Manual (CM). We leave the grammar and spelling the same as what was the CM, and we are providing you with the text of the article, followed by its scan. We look forward to sharing the amazing stories, trivia, and facts about these amazing movies.
So, let’s get started with Walt Disney’s, “The Shaggy Dog”, staring Fred MacMurray, Jean Hagen, Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, Tim Considine, and Kevin “Moochie” Corcoran!
SYNOPSIS- Page 23 of The Shaggy Dog Campaign Manual
“You’ve read of people being turned into foxes, cats, and other creatures, haven’t you? Superstition, if you like. But there are lonely nights when something inside us begins to stir, a reawakening of ancient fears. Could it be some instinctive belief that these things are true?
This suggestion is offered teen-age Wilby Daniels (Tommy Kirk) one morning by whimsical Professor Plumcutt (Cecil Kellaway), in the town museum . . .
Tommy lives on Maple Street with his father (Fred Mac-Murray), his mother (Jean Hagen), and his younger brother Moochie (Kevin Corcoran). Next door lives Allison D’AIlessio (Annette Funicello), who might be his girl if it weren’t for Buzz Miller (Tim Considine), his rival. And new tenants from Europe have moved into the old mansion across the street: Dr. Mikhail Andrassy (Alexander Scourby), just appointed curator of the museum, and his teen-age daughter Franceska (Roberta Shore). They have a butler, Stefano (Jacques Aubuchon) and a dog named Chiffon (Shaggy).
Leaving the museum, Wilby upsets a tray of antique rings and helps Plumcutt pick them up. That night he finds a ring in a cuff of his trousers. Curiously he repeats the Latin inscription to himself—and is gradually changed into the shaggy dog. Panic-stricken, he streaks for the museum on all fours and asks Plumcutt what he should do. But the best the professor can offer is that sometimes magic spells come and go like headaches and this one may just wear itself out.
Wilby goes home and to bed, and in the morning, still a dog, reveals his plight to his brother, who is delighted to have a dog in the family.
Foraging for food, he is discovered by his father, a mailman who hates dogs, has to flee for his life, and takes refuge with Franceska, who of course mistakes him for Chiffon. Going shopping, she leaves him with Andrassy, who has a visitor named Thurm (Strother Martin). The two men examine a set of plans and speak of a mysterious “Section 32” which is all they need to complete their project. The shaggy dog tries to get a look at the plans and makes such a pest of himself that Stefano locks him in a closet. There, he turns back into Wilby and escapes.
That night, he and Buzz go to the country club dance with Allison and Franceska. He is blissfully dancing with Franceska when he begins changing back into her dog. He leaves her before she notices in the dim light, but when he tries to sneak out of the building, the change is complete, she sees him, and the other boys pursue him at her request. He escapes and again takes refuge at Franceska’s house—as Chiffon.
That night Andrassy has another visit from Thurm, and Wilby the dog, overhearing them, realizes they are spies plotting to steal something from the missile plant. It is late next day before he can escape. He takes his brother into his confidence and the two try to reveal the plot to their father, but Mr. Daniels, hearing Wilby’s voice coming from a dog, faints. They try to tell Police Officers Hanson and Kelly (James Westerfield and Forest Lewis), but the officers think it all a prank. And just then Stefano, the butler, collars “Chiffon” and hauls him back.
Moochie convinces Daniels that Wilby has turned into a dog and that the spy story is true. Daniels takes him to the missile plant and repeats the story to security officers, but they think him psychopathic when he mentions that his other son is a dog.
It is evening, Thurm, having succeeded in stealing “Section 32,” takes it to Andrassy, and the two plot to get it out of the country at once. Listening in plain sight, Ihe shaggy Wilby learns that Franceska knows nothing ahout their villainy and is not even Andrassy’s true daughter. But he changes buck to himself as he sits there and is trussed up by Stefano and left locked in a dressing room when the three men take Franceska and speed for the waterfront in a foreign car.
In the dressing room, Wilby changes back to the dog and frees himself as Moochie arrives. Buzz has just pulled up to the curb in his jalopy to take Franceska on a date. The shaggy boy commandeers the car and speeds after the spies. Moochie and Buzz meet Officers Hanson and Kelly and take off with them in a prowl car. The prowl car catches the jalopy, but the “dog” driver switches to the prowl car and is off again. Mr. Daniels appears and joins the chase.
At the waterfront Wilby-Chiffon is just in time to make a pier-head leap and attack the spies as they prepare to escape in a speedboat. The police, Mr. Daniels, Moochie, and Buzz arrive. In the melee of capture, Wilby resumes his normal appearance and Chiffon appears as himself. Franceska thinks her dog a hero. So does the whole world when the story hits the papers. And Wilby dares not open his mouth.
Who, after all, would believe him?
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